Research Universities Are Praised for Returning Focus to Undergrad Ed: Evidence?

What would you accept as evidence in support of this claim?  I don’t see it where I’m at, but I’m willing to believe that my experience is biased and limited.  How could we test this claim?

The president of the Association of American Universities said on Monday that public research institutions were once again moving forward, thanks to a renewed focus on undergraduate education and a willingness to “be extremely aggressive” in taking advantage of new financing opportunities.

Hunter R. Rawlings III said that, for the first time in his career, senior faculty members were spending time and effort on teaching. “Our main job at universities is educating students,” he said during a panel discussion here at this week’s annual meeting of the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities. “We forgot about that for a while. But now it has hit us with full force because tuition increases have caused the public to be angry, or skeptical at least, about the quality and the value proposition that they’re getting.”

via Research Universities Are Praised for Returning Focus to Undergrad Education – Administration – The Chronicle of Higher Education.