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BY JOANNE WELSH

������ is on a quest, a mission-driven research quest. As University Provost Aaron Dominguez, Ph.D., describes it, “������ will focus on becoming who we are meant to be as a faithfully Catholic research institution.”

Dominguez, one of the University leaders who is helping drive and shape this initiative, is referring to the effort to grow and enhance the University’s research enterprise, which will be undertaken with a clear focus on enlivening our students’ education and putting our scholarship and research into service for the Church, the nation, and even the world.

Dominguez exudes confidence and enthusiasm as he talks about the project — about the unique role that ������ has in the American research ecosystem, the recent surge in the University’s research growth, and the plans underway to further develop and expand scholarship and research here.

The Mission

Modern research universities, like the colleges and universities that predate them, exist to preserve and pass on knowledge, but they also exist to advance knowledge through scholarship and research methods. Founded in 1887 as the nation’s first Catholic research university, ������ has intentionally pursued research and scholarship from a Catholic perspective since then.

Dominguez explains as a Catholic university, we understand reason in a larger and broader sense than most of academia does, and our inviolable respect for the God-given dignity of every human person undergirds everything we explore. As The ������ of America and the standard bearers for the Church’s higher education tradition, we conduct our scholarship and research from the heart of the Church. In short, we very deliberately connect reason and faith — and it bears fruit in a unique and beautiful way.

Discovery

Our scholars take delight in discovering the intelligibility, beauty, and harmony of reality. One reflection of that is our stellar physics programs and the partnership we have built with NASA that now includes more than $100 million in grant funding to support NASA research and discovery. Another reflection of it is the scholarship of Professor Kevin White of our philosophy department. White was selected as a member of the ongoing Leonine Commission, which works to produce the critical edition of the Opera Omnia of St. Thomas Aquinas. Or to name another, Professor Brandon Vaidyanathan recently received a Templeton grant to conduct the world’s first large-scale study of the role of beauty in science; he found that beauty matters immensely to scientists and shapes their work profoundly.

The list goes on, but the point is that we are conducting breakthrough scholarship and research — and now we are preparing the foundation for even more of this breakthrough work.

Tools for Navigation

Key to the preparation is H. Joseph Yost, Ph.D., who has been appointed as the University’s senior vice provost for research, a newly created position. Yost began his new appointment in August of this year, coming to ������ from the University of Utah School of Medicine, where he was the Stimson presidential endowed chair, vice chairman for basic science research in the department of pediatrics, and professor of neurobiology and anatomy. He previously was an associate professor of cell biology and neuroanatomy at the University of Minnesota.

Yost brings more than three decades of teaching and research experience to his new position, which he will use to help the University achieve recognition as a top-tier research university. Importantly, he also brings with him a broad understanding and definition of research in keeping with the University’s mandate.

Noting that all of us have a very natural God-given hunger for knowledge, he quotes from Saint John Paul II’s Ex Corde Ecclesiae — “a Catholic university is distinguished by its free search for the whole truth about nature, man, and God” — to explain what sets ������ apart from most other research universities.

“This is a critical time both for ������ and for universities across the country. Many universities have become a collection of silos of disciplines that don’t provide students a full perspective on the big questions in life,” Yost says. “We can best serve our students by exposing them to large disciplines, large questions in research in many areas.”

He argues that ������ seeks “not just silos of the truth that we see at many universities, but the whole truth,” encouraging students to ask questions such as “What does it mean to be a person, and what does it mean to exist in this created universe?” and accompanying them on the search. And he believes that having this broad approach to research strengthens the university’s educational mission and prepares students to continue asking and finding answers to these deep, important questions throughout their lives.

Motivated by a Catholic understanding of the purpose and beauty of research and scholarship, President Peter Kilpatrick, Dominguez, Yost, and Vice Provost for Research Ralph Albano are leading the effort to build the research infrastructure that will support faculty, staff, and students as they go out “into the deep” in search of answers.

Yost believes that ������’s people are a huge nascent strength on which to build the effort. One of the ways that he hopes to enhance the University’s research stature is by creating structures that can serve as bridges, bringing people together across different disciplines to create new research endeavors. He also plans to create or reorganize other administrative structures that will better support faculty and student research.

Referring to the reality of the “never-ending hunt” for new resources and new funding opportunities, Yost intends for his staff to help identify new research opportunities, assist faculty in applying for grants, and help manage and steward the funds once a faculty member is awarded a new grant. He is keenly aware of the declining trust that the public has in research and scholarship produced in our nation’s universities and wants to make sure people understand that the ethics we follow at ������ are “of the highest caliber and are in full accord with the Magisterium of the Church.”

“It’s important to make sure that our administrative structures promote our culture of  research ethics. Sadly, increasing numbers of people in our society have come to see researchers and scholars as just another interest group. We hope that research at ������ can serve as a beacon of trust.”

As Yost and his staff network to identify more research opportunities, they will look to increase collaborations on projects with faculty at other universities, both within and beyond the Washington, D.C., metropolitan area. He is also especially eager to build partnerships with alumni, both to solicit their expertise and to learn how the University can help them.

He recognizes ������ alumni as “a huge resource for expertise;” he says he is impressed with the number of alumni who have already contacted him; and he looks forward to talking to more alumni to get their insights on building the university’s research enterprise.

This is not a one-way relationship, however. Yost asks that alumni reach out to tell him “what we can do to serve your needs as you’re building what you’re building in your communities,” and he offers an email address to use: research@cua.edu.

Mile Markers

As the University research stature continues to grow, we will have plenty of indicators to help gauge our progress.

One of the biggest and most important of these is something called “R1 status.” In short, the Carnegie Foundation and the American Council on Education maintain a “Research Designation” by which they classify American colleges and universities, and R1 is the highest designation a university can receive. The designation is reviewed every three years, and while the 2025 designation has already been determined, ������ is on track to receive the R1 designation in 2028, after the next review occurs.

Attaining R1 status would bring greater national prominence and more resources to the University, help showcase our exciting, creative research, and help us recruit outstanding students and gifted faculty. So R1 status matters — but only so far.

“R1 status is not an end in itself,” cautions Yost. “We’re using it as a mile marker to measure how we’re doing in helping build a well-formed and vibrant university. It’s just one of the many measures that we’re going to use to find that we’re successfully building a top-tier research university.”

Leading with Light

With Yost now in place, ������ is ready to move. And so is Provost Dominguez. After detailing the University’s recent progress — such as doubling research expenditures in only four years — he is quick to say that we have great potential and can do more.

And then he returns to focus on the unique contribution that ������ can make to big research questions. Using the example of an international conference on ethics and AI that the University will co-host with the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in fall 2025, Dominguez argues that our Catholic understanding of human anthropology allows us to more deeply explore research questions, such as the intersection between the human person and AI, than others can.

“We can shine a light on this question in the way that big tech firms and others can’t, because they don’t even have the language to explore these questions. This will help plant a flag on the distinctiveness of ������,” he states.

And as our faculty and students probe further in search of a fuller understanding and appreciation of reality, Dominguez hopes that others involved in national conversations on these big questions, such as ethics and AI, will look to ������ for insights.

“When some new technology is on the horizon,” says Dominguez, “I want folks in Silicon Valley to ask, ‘I wonder what the folks at ������ think about this?’”

Our oars are in the water. We’re moving out into the deep.