BYU, from my perspective, has had POOR faculty, and STRONG students. Especially historically.
As BYU expanded, they hired many marginally qualified faculty who had no interest or aptitude to do research. These folks were essentially instructors who taught classes and graded papers.
As these faculty members have retired, my sense is that BYU is trying to hire folks that are better quality, and have more potential to bring in research dollars. It's more of a focus now. But I don't sense that there is actually institutional fire-in-the-belly to improve research. They will take marginal gains as they come. They will "grow their own" and not put in the dollars to accelerate the process. They certainly will not invest the money to bring in stars, nor will they take on expensive endeavors like starting a medical school (despite the fact that right now there is an incredible up-surge in new medical schools and increased enrollment at existing medical schools--one could argue that now would be an ideal time to start a medical school if so inclined). A medical school is hugely expensive, and let's face it, if BYU started one, it would be a primary-care clinical-medicine-only no-research kind of medical school. In other words, a complete non-player. Not to mention that I don't think a medical school could actually exist in Provo-Orem. At least not one of any reasonable size. For the same reason that Texas A&M has had difficulty with its medical school. Bryan-COllege Station is not large enough to support a medical school, thus the students in their 3rd and 4th years move to Temple to rotate through a large tertiary medical center. Even Austin does not have a medical school, though it appears that one will soon start. A BYU medical school would have to be based in SLC.
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