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Historical Overview

Image of Chem StudentThe CR&I traces its roots to the Science Research Training Program (SRTP). Science Division faculty have been professionally involved in research, industrial relationships, and student mentoring since the 1950's. Dr. Elmer Nussbaum was a leading example. He held the position of Director of Research and engaged in the study of nuclear physics. Other early researchers included Stan Burden from Chemistry, Donald Porter from Math, and Vida Wood from Biology.

Faculty continued to engage in research on-and-off through the 70's and 80's depending upon availability of funds, resources, and time. The CSS Department extensively implemented applied student projects in cooperation with industry and business.

The SRTP was officially created in 1989 through the efforts of Dr. Stan Burden and Dr. Walter Randall. Dr. Stan Burden was Associate Dean of the Science Division and a professor in the Chemistry Department. He pioneered SRTP methodology by acquiring a $25,000 grant from the Lilly Endowment. The grant was matched by the University and the funds were distributed to various departments for faculty/student joint research during the summers of 1989 and 1990. The program was a success, with 23 students and 10 faculty participating over the first two years.

Dr. Walter Randall was a nationally regarded physiologist who felt the ideal undergraduate faculty member would embody a high degree of commitment to research and professional involvement while yet providing a close mentoring relationship to a small group of students. He sought to live out this model during the last years of his life as he and Dr. Tim Burkholder worked closely with biology students on a mammalian heart research grant from the National Institutes of Health. Before his death in 1993, Dr. Randall created an endowment fund that provides approximately $14,000 a year to the SRTP to continue the work initially supported by the Lilly Endowment grant.

Since 1994, Dr. Hank Voss has continued development of the SRTP as Director of Research. Through the SRTP, the Physics Department has successfully secured over $2,000,000 in research funding, primarily in space science through work for NASA. The CSS Department has continued project work with outside entities. The Environmental Science Department has received several large grants from the state and federal levels of government to assess ecological conditions.

The SRTP offered a firm foundation for research and innovation, but it was semi-official in nature, lacked funding, was not campus-wide, and did not included an entrepreneurship component. Dr. Voss and his assistant, Mr. Adam Bennett, increasingly felt that Christian universities needed to take a leadership role in inspiring innovation within academia. It was time for the SRTP methodology to rise to the next level. In 2002, they began to sketch out the concept that would become the CR&I.

Late in 2003, Taylor was awarded a Lilly Endowment Inc. grant as part of Lilly's Initiative to Promote Opportunity through Educational Collaboration. The $750,000 grant funded the Center for Research and Innovation, which was officially born January 1, 2004. By that summer, CR&I Director Don Takehara and IEP Director Mick Bates were hired to run the CR&I.

Citations


1 Ringenberg, William C. Taylor University: The First 150 Years. Eerdmans Publishing Company and Taylor University Press, 1996. p. 155-156

2 Ringenberg, p. 182