Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This May-June 1970 Classic pulls back the curtain on Baylor’s scientific research world and the people behind the work.
Researching the Researchers:
The scientific research facilities at Baylor are a remote and mysterious land to all except the native inhabitants- the researchers themselves. One goes there only if he has business there, and a casual visit cannot suffice to explain the complexities of the tasks being performed.
Even the skilled reporter finds scientific research difficult to report. Besides the problems of technical terms, inscrutable banks of equipment, and multi-syllabic project titles, he may also encounter the forbidding attitude of the occasional scientist who honestly feels that the nature of his work is unintelligible to the average liberal arts graduate. Most researchers, however, realize the difficulties, are interested in seeking a broader base of understanding and support, and will labor patiently to reduce the complexity of their work to terms meaningful to the non-scientist.
Some even express the fear that without such efforts at communication, the researcher and the average citizen may look at each other across ever-widening chasms of obscurity until ultimately no one is able to understand the importance of what the researcher is doing, save the researcher himself. For this reason, but also because we are convinced of the Baylor alumnus’s interest in the full scope of the university’s life, we have attempted this footbridge across the comprehension gap.
For those who still wrestle the oldest question, “What does research have to do with teaching in a university?,” the answer resounds from all quarters at Baylor that teaching is actually the prime motivation for the research program. Executive vice president Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds has said, “The science student learns by doing; he learns how to conduct research by becoming involved in research projects. We have research at Baylor because it relates to our instructional function.”
Research is also necessary for the maintenance of a strong science faculty. The scientist sees his Ph.D. degree not as terminal in the sense that it marks a time of arriving (as for the professional man) but as a point from which he can begin to do meaningful independent research. He has served his apprenticeship and is now ready to do what he has been trained for — research, in an effort to add to knowledge. Those who choose the university over industry usually do so for the greater intellectual freedom and for the availability of students. In a useful symbiotic relationship the researcher feeds on students and they on him. He needs them in his laboratory, and he needs the experience of having them learn from him. The result is a stimulating academic atmosphere.
The coordination of research activities at Baylor is directed by the newly-formed Baylor Research Center, which has already proved its usefulness in offering support and administrative assistance for established projects and in securing sponsors for proposed research. Headed by Dr. John Flynn, who is an associate professor of psychology, the center has also helped the financial image of research. Dr. Flynn recalls instances in the past when an estimated 6-10% cost-sharing by the university ended up costing the school 40-50% of the total bill for the project. “This doesn’t happen any more,” he said. “It seems a fearfully true irony that unless sound management prevails, a university can take money for sponsored programs and research until it goes bankrupt. On the other hand, we don’t undertake research to make a profit; Baylor always bears 6-7% of the research expense. This is expected.”
Perhaps the most lingering statement to come from the dozens of interviews with Baylor scientists was the reminder from chemistry chairman Dr. T. J. Bond that “Research is people.” It is good for the perspective to remember that it is the researchers themselves — the patient, persevering students, professors, and graduate assistants — who are the beating heart of research. Amid the thousands of dollars worth of technical equipment in the scientific laboratories, it is still the individual who defines the problem, conceives an approach to its solution, then gives months, even years, to the task of gathering and evaluating data and ultimately deciding the veracity of his undertaking. — S.B.C.
