Neal Smatresk: Research universities bring the best of the world to the regions they serve and, in turn, they work in those regions to develop new information, which goes out to inform the world.

Martha Meana:  Research is an investment in the future, and I don't necessarily mean the distant future. But it's an investment in progress. It's the engine that keeps us moving forward, not sitting just on old facts that may no longer apply.

Linda Stetzenbach:  If we just continue to talk about things in the past we never move forward.  There are so many inventions that are coming on line now because of research 5-10 years ago.  Who knows what we can accomplish if we keep looking forward and looking for new products, new technologies, and new strategies.  

Ramona Brinson:  We think about the major entities that define a community, that define a state. We think about family life; we think about our health, our well being. We think about our education. We think about are legal system, recreation, you name it -- so many systems.  It's oftentimes research and the discoveries within those categories that really help to define our way of living.

Bo Bernhard: This idea of research over intuition - of systematic sort of scientific research over, "Well, I think this would work" - is something business leaders and government leaders really appreciate because they have the ability to ground their decisions in something solid.

Martha Meana:  So even if we are asking a question that seems local because it's about our community we share problems with a lot of other places in the country and in the world. And when we do research here and find an answer to that, that answer is going to interest people all over the country and all over the world.

Brian Hedlund: When we got to national and international meetings, scientists are listening to people from other universities, and we always will hone in on who's doing the best research to understand where  ideas are coming from.

Brendan O'Toole:  Research makes me a better teacher because I can bring my results from research into class as examples, and I have also created new classes that are related to the research I've done.  We have better laboratories, we have better equipment, we have better supplies, and we are able to recruit better students because we bring in research dollars.

Monica Lounsbery:  I think students have an enormous opportunity at UNLV to engage in research and learn from research, both at the under and graduate levels because of the quality of our faculty. 

Jonathan Foster:  Research benefits students in many ways.  I would say first and foremost that there's only so much you can learn from a classroom. There is only so much you can learn from a book.  Once you develop that foundation within the classroom, the ability to go out and do the research to look at the primary sources.  That is a huge gain, a huge plus to the educational process.

Karen Levy:  There a lot of resources available for undergraduate students, more so than at bigger colleges.  That's one of reasons I really love being here.

Clemens Heske:  A lot of the students at UNLV are students who come from high schools in Las Vegas, and doing research here and exposing them to the research opens up a totally new horizon that they have not been exposed to previously.

John Mercer:  Investing in research goes beyond just trying to answer a specific research question.  Investing in research means that we are trying to develop a body of scholars.

Neal Smatresk:  The presence of those high quality researchers is a powerful lure and draw to industries that want to relocate.  No high tech industries or knowledge based industries will move to a region that does not have a quality research institution.  

Ramona Brinson:  We all are invested in the community. We want to do better by way of education.  We want better health care systems. We want more responsive legal systems. And often times it's the research behind those programs and systems and organizations that really help us to improve quality life issues here in the valley.