It may seem odd to start a conversation about “research” by discussing our college’s educational mission, but I hope you will indulge me a moment. We frequently stress the diversity of career fields where our graduates land. To reduce our students’ future career options to traditional or legacy jobs in newsrooms, ad agencies, etc., fails to reflect the universal importance of communication. In fact, it’s hard to think of a single career field where communication isn’t essential.

Now then, back to research. The universal importance of communication is also evident when examining our faculty’s research activities.

Civil Engineering, Plant & Soil Science, Personal Financial Planning, Geosciences—it’s an odd list, but what ties them together is our college. College of Media & Communication faculty have partnered with collaborators from all these units on specific research projects or proposals for extramural funding over the past two years. That list keeps growing. At last count, our faculty could be tied to more than 30 different academic departments, centers or formal research clusters across campus.

You may have read about Texas Tech University’s recent recognition as one of the nation’s newest “Tier One” research universities. It is a prestigious distinction and another reason to be proud of your connection to Texas Tech. The tier-one designation is based on many factors, but one major criterion is how much of our research support comes from external sponsors. CoMC’s ties to other academic units across campus will continue to play a crucial role in helping successfully secure highly competitive research funding.

We measure our faculty’s research contributions in a lot of ways, such as scholarly journal publications, presentations at peer-reviewed conferences, and books. To be sure, we are enjoying unprecedented levels of success in all these areas. Those of you with close ties to our college have long known that we have the best faculty in the nation. The growth in research partnerships across campus is evidence that the word is spreading.