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The Association of Research Professors (ARP) was founded by a small group of Washington State University faculty during the 1974-75 academic year because they perceived a need for an organization that could further the recognition of the importance of research and scholarship in the University. They also sought to encourage the University, the public, and state government to recognize the research accomplishments of WSU faculty. Finally, they sought to encourage the acquisition of funds and time to permit additional high-quality research at the University.

The ARP recruited WSU faculty and staff with sustained publications records as members, because the founders believed that together they could promote common beliefs about the need for superior research programs at the University. An additional requirement to maintain membership was continued research activities. Members were subjected to a review every five years, in which the ARP scrutinized their research and publications records. Those who performed at a level less than expected by the ARP were dropped from member rolls.

By the end of its first year, the ARP had a membership of 64 faculty and staff. It held regular dinner meetings throughout the academic year at downtown restaurants, after which attendees participated in informal discussions with guest speakers over timely matters of concern to the university research community.

ARP members also circulated several position papers on the roll of research at state universities. In addition, it held a competition for oustanding undergraduate research. Finally, the ARP because of its amicable relationship with the University's central administration, served in an advisory capacity during job searches for several key posts.

Some faculty criticized the ARP at its inception for conferring membership only on faculty and staff in the "hard" sciences, with the view that only members of these fields could pursue "real" research, often through extramural funding, and create substantial publication records. By its second year, the ARP accepted for membership a few faculty from the social sciences and the humanities. By the early 1980s, membership included well over 100 faculty and staff from throughout the University community. Nevertheless, the ARP lost the support of some members who perceived it to be drifting away from its original objective of promoting research at the University and instead retreating into a forum in which members conversed about other unrelated topics in a supper club/social club atmosphere.

The ARP's relationship with the Glenn Terrell presidential adminstration was very cordial, with the president often joining the organization at its dinner meetings. The ARP did not enjoy such a relationship with Terrell's successor. Increasingly, it was open to informal charges of meddling with University affairs. By the end of the 1985-86 academic year the ARP all but vanished. Several years later, a similiar organization was founded as the Faculty Association for Scholarship and Research (FASR, "faser"). Nevertheless, the new organization possesses neither the ARP's large membership of the late 1970s and early 1980s nor the strong voice that it once projected on behalf of researchers.