Tim, I think your VP's policy is ill-conceived, unless he really wants to discourage folks from pursuing grants.  Part of his proposal is illegal, of course: you can't use part of an award to pay, retroactively, for writing the proposal.

My institution has similar teaching loads, so we're in the same boat.  For the most part, writing grant proposals is a task folks take on above and beyond their other chores.  But the institution has been trying to encourage proposal-writing in recent years, so we've done a couple of things:

--Deans have sometimes given faculty one course release or some summer salary to work on a big proposal.  The money usually comes from the dean's portion of recovered indirect costs.

--For some years, our Faculty/Academic Staff Development Board (FASDB) has given Incentive Grants to faculty who want to write a proposal for a large (say >$150k) grant. They must have a pretty clear idea what they want to propose and the Office of Grants & Research (that's me) has to agree that they have a reasonable chance of winning a grant.  The deliverable at the end of the Incentive Grant is a completed grant proposal; applicants understand that if they do not deliver, the FASDB will be very unhappy.  (FASDB also administers our other faculty development funds, so that's a serious threat.)  The max we'll give is one course release or the equivalent in summer salary.  I believe we've given 8 of these over the years; 6 have resulted in grants, though a couple took 2 tries.

--The Grants Office (again, that's me) will do whatever must be done to get a proposal out the door.  So we frequently take on the chores a proposal-writer doesn't like doing, e.g. writing budget, copying/mailing, whatever.  And we frequently will work with a team of faculty to draft a proposal; they find that a much less onerous task than writing the whole thing solo.

It sounds to me as if your VP regards release time as a boondoggle which must be controlled.  And maybe it is, wherever you are.  But the result of this policy, I think, will be to discourage folks from writing proposals and give them yet another reason to complain about the administration.  Better, in my mind, to try to work with faculty who have a genuine interest in winning grants and have the potential to do well.  If your VP has control of indirects, using them to fund proposal-writing is an excellent investment, I think.

Regards, Bill

Bill Campbell
Director, Grants & Research
University of Wisconsin-River Falls
715/425-3195
xxxxxx@uwrf.edu

>>> xxxxxx@APSU.EDU 02/14/02 02:51PM >>>
Dear Listers:

I am seeking input, ideas, and/or advise on how to form a response to a
"Statement of Philosophy" concerning research and the funding of research at
our institution.  In this document, our VP states that "a faculty member can
apply for reassigned time to write a grant with the clear understanding that
the reassigned time is "seed" money that will be repaid either by money
provided for release time when the grant is funded or, should the grant not
be funded, by teaching more in a future semester to repay the reassigned
time."

Our VP has made it clear that this statement is only intended to open the
dialogue concerning this issue, and that alternative recommendations are
more than welcome.  Given the current state of resources, however, I am in
need of help in coming up with some "creative" alternatives.  The
University, state system, and indeed the entire state, is in grave financial
trouble and our faculty receive very little money for research, to begin
with.  In addition, faculty teach 4/4 and more often than not, research
"comes off of their skin."

If you have some detailed recommendations, or would like to share
experiences off-list, please feel free to respond to xxxxxx@apsu.edu
<mailto:xxxxxx@apsu.edu>  or by calling 931.221.7881.

Thanks in advance for any and all advise,
Tim

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