Michelle Carter, Interim Director of Research and Sponsored Programs (right), and David Haglin, Director of the Center for Excellence in Scholarship and Research, confer in their new office space in Wigley Administration Center 325, which is also home to the URC.
In January, 2007, the new Center for Excellence in Scholarship and Research (CESR) officially started, with me as the director, and with support from the College of Graduate Studies and Research. While we continue to explore options and fine–tune our mission, central to our effort is the support of scholarly work by our campus faculty and staff with the overarching goal of increasing both the quality and quantity of the scholarship at MSU.
We have two graduate students—one with an expertise in writing and editing and the other with an expertise in statistical analysis of data—to provide services we expect many of you will find helpful in turning your scholarly activities into publications. We have been delighted to receive requests from many of you for manuscript editing review and/or statistical data analysis help.
We understand that many of you have individual needs not met by statistical analysis nor met by manuscript editing. Perhaps you are wondering if anybody else at MSU is interested in your work. Perhaps you would like to find others at MSU with whom you could engage in scholarly conversation. Perhaps you have little experience with publishing and would like some guidance, perhaps even a mentor, to help establish your scholarly path. We are very interested in learning about your ideas on how we can help support your scholarship.
One idea that we are very interested in pursuing is the support of Research Interest Groups (RIGs) that can take different forms: (i) a group that has a theme that binds them academically (see article on page 12) and wishes to support each other in writing and publishing; (ii) a regular forum for interested scholars to engage in conversation about any topic, this may be off–campus and can involve community members as well as MSU scholars; and (iii) a "birds of a feather" meeting where scholars interested in similar topics may exchange ideas through short presentations in the hopes of clarifying early thoughts on a topic or spurring interdisciplinary collaboration. I expect that all three of these RIG formats will have their place at MSU.
In addition to all of these supporting activities, CESR would like to track (archive and disseminate) all of the scholarly successes across the campus. The Tomorow Magazine lists scholarly work after it has appeared in print or presented. In contrast, the Frontiers Newsletter (to be published three times per year) will include scholarly work that has been accepted for publication or has been planned for a creative presentation or exhibition.
Please send your thoughts, ideas, and comments to: cesr@mnsu.edu
