The one area where we've had some success in providing financial or other
compensatory incentives for faculty or staff to write a proposal is for
cross-departmental and/or "institutional" projects that don't have a
natural "home" in any existing organizational unit (e.g. Gear Up, FIPSE,
TRIO programs).  UVI's teaching faculty typically have FULL teaching loads,
often with overloads.  While they may squeeze their personal lives to
develop a proposal for an individual project or departmental initiative,
few will voluntarily give up sleeping and eating to draft proposals for
large, institutional projects that may have only tangential benefits for
the writer.  These types of proposals are generally the most burdensome to
develop, requiring a huge investment of time and energy just to gather
input and agreement from participating units and coordinate review and
revision of multiple drafts.

At UVI, such projects would typically fall under the Provost's office, but
she does not have an experienced grant-writer on her staff to take on these
special projects.  Instead, we have had some success recruiting a
capable/interested faculty or staff member and providing him/her with
release time or payment to take the lead role in developing the proposal.
Even if the proposal does not get funded the first time around, there is
generally a very serviceable template that can be further refined for
future submission.  Without this carrot, we would never even get to the
starting line on some grants.

The "Statement of Philosophy" described by Tim in the original message
seems more like a DISincentive program than a research philosophy. In
addition to violating federal grant guidelines, it fails to recognize the
fact that grant-writing is a chancy business, with success far from
guaranteed no matter how good the results.  Requiring faculty to "pay-back"
release time is a zero-sum gamble that in my experience few would be
willing to risk.

<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>~~~<>

Kevin J. Sottak
Director of Grants and Major Gifts
University of the Virgin Islands
2 John Brewers Bay
St. Thomas, VI 00802

340/693.1002
xxxxxx@uvi.edu

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