I am a grant writing facilitator in the State Regents' office. My main function is to provide assistance to the PUI's in Oklahoma to enhance their grantsmanship, and provide a lot of training in this capacity. We provide several opportunities on the individual campuses or at a statewide central location for multiple campus faculty all at once. The ones I am listing below are most successful of all the options we provide. They are also provided for PUI's for the most part, even though some faculty from the comprehensive research universities also attend. Success is measured by the responses of the faculty in terms of appreciation and in terms of actual submissions resulting from the training.
 
1. Summer Grant Writing Institute - We have conducted this for two summers and plan to continue the process. It is patterned after the one in Colorado offered each summer by CUR. Ours is 3.5 days in intense work, partnering faculty with successful grant writing faculty mentors at a ratio of about 4:1. The participant faculty select a grant proposal project and solicitation at least 2 months before the Institute. They communicate via email and phone (some face to face meetings) with their mentor before the session to get mentally prepared and do the homework for the supporting data and partnership development for the grant projects. At the Institute, we provide plenary sessions followed by blocks of time for writing and discussion of the topic of the session. At the end of the Institute all faculty produce a complete draft, and each group reviews members' drafts. The submission rate is high from this group. We host about 40-45 faculty and use about 15-17 mentors, who both mentor and present most of the plenary sessions. Very labor intensive for participants and presenters. I have last summer's plenary sessions on DVD and would be happy to send you one. This is funded jointly by our Oklahoma EPSCoR, the Regents, and a small registration ($200) fee paid by the faculty participants' institutions. Each participant must have a recommendation letter from their dean and president (to insure support for the project and process). The participants pay for nothing. They stay in a hotel close to the facility and food is catered in our facility to make work time more efficient.
 
2. Grant Writing Small Group - I have conducted this for 2 semesters and it seems to be very effective, so I plan to continue the process. The dean nominates new faculty for the group, and each faculty member comes in with a vague or specific idea of the grant and solicitation they wish to use. I keep the size limited to 4-6 persons. We meet 8 times for about 2 hours each time with a preset agenda, each faculty member writes a complete grant proposal and makes a professional career plan that includes their whole career plan of grant writing. We meet face to face the first time, and subsequent meetings may be conducted partly in person and partly via videoconference to save the driving: Oklahoma institutions could be as far as 4 hours from my location in the center of the state. I provide my time, the electronic communication system is in place all over the state, and the institutions pay for the transportation of the participants.
 
3. Small Group Awareness Training on Campus - I meet for 1.5-2.5 hours with a group on campus who have invited me (from my suggestion that they invite me!) That way, the attendees are there because they want to be. I usually make the meeting specific to a college to focus on specific subjects, specific funding agencies, and specific needs. In this meeting, I provide information about the state of funding in the nation, in the State, and their own administrators provide information about the state of external funding on their campus. I also lead them in some exploration of funding opportunities and search techniques. Most of the people who come to these workshops are new to the grant writing process or fairly inexperienced, so search and selection is a main skill that they need. Their library staff and grant administrative staff (if there is a grants office) are there to provide information about their campus services and processes. From this workshop, we then plan skill building training specific to the requests of these folks. This process is useful for new "wanna be" writers, and I will continue it. The skill building workshops are pretty standard; I provide some, and the campus administrators hire some from outside to come in. I provide my time and transportation, and the institutions provide space and refreshments.
 
4. Grant Writing Skill Training Workshop - This is about 6-8 hours in length. The most successful ones are divided up into 2 hour segments, although some are presented in one day-long session and other are presented in 2 half-day long sessions. The appreciation is high from these, even though the specific submissions are not as high as the other efforts. I provide my time and transportation, and the institutions provide materials and refreshments and facilities.
 
 
Linda Mason, Ed.D.
Coordinator for Grants and
External Funding Assistance
Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education
655 Research Parkway, Suite 200
Oklahoma City, OK 73104
405-225-9486
800-858-1840
405-225-9230 Fax
xxxxxx@osrhe.edu
web: www.okhighered.org/grant-opps/
IP: 164.58.250.178 (on 24hr/7days/wk)
 
 
 
Grant tip: Every program and research grant will be enhanced by the use of high quality technology for planning and information dissemination. Remember that OneNet's statewide linkage is unique in the nation.
 
 
 

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From: Research Administration List [ mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On Behalf Of McGinnis, David
Sent: Tuesday, January 23, 2007 4:13 PM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] Grants training resources

Greetings – we want to begin offering training sessions to our faculty and appropriate staff on how to develop better grant proposals.  Rather than reinvent the wheel, I am wondering if any of you have some training resources or strategies that work well that you might share?  What works well at your institution – short seminars?  Multi-hour training sessions?  Web-based materials? Etc.

 

I appreciate any thoughts you might be willing to share.

 

Cheers,

Dave

 

_________________________________________________

Dr. David L. McGinnis

Co-Director, Grants and Sponsored Programs

Montana State University

1500 University Avenue

Billings, MT 59101

phone: 406-657-2340

email: xxxxxx@msubillings.edu

_________________________________________________

 

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