Laura,
 At our institution (PUI almost 8000 students), the director of the grants office has submission authority and the grants accountant also has authority in her absence. While I do not sign contracts (Purchasing Director actually handles all contractual signatures) and my Provost must sign off before I submit, my office is the final step in the proposal process. This makes more sense to me than your other two options mainly because my office is much more involved in the proposal process than any other on campus. Hope this helps. Feel free to email me offlist.
Dianne Sheridan
Southern Utah University

>>> Laura Letbetter <xxxxxx@KENNESAW.EDU> 4/16/2008 2:18 PM >>>
Our university is currently undergoing an internal review of our
processes for handling proposals, grants, and contracts.  We are a
predominantly undergraduate university, with 20,000+ students, 600+
full-time faculty, $4 to $5M in grants and contracts, 100+ submissions
of varying size and complexity, and growing research programs.

One of the issues under discussion is signature authority. As of now,
there are only two AORs for all proposals, grants, and contracts: the VP
for Business and Finance and one person who reports directly to him. The
Office of Sponsored Programs (under Academic Affairs) prepares and
submits all proposals and budgets, negotiates contracts, and is
responsible for regulatory compliance, but does not have final signature
authority. The dean of Sponsored Programs can't sign, and neither can
the Provost.

One point of view is that all signature authority should remain with
Business and Finance.  Another point of view is that OSP should have the
authority to sign grants and contracts, as this is standard operating
procedure at our peer and aspirant institutions. A third point of view
is that OSP should at least have signature authority for proposals, but
that Business & Finance should retain signature authority for final
awards and contracts.

We are interested in learning how other institutions delegate signature
authority for proposals, grants, and contracts. We are also interested
in being referred to any publications or surveys you may know of about
this topic.

Reply on or off list; I will be compiling a list of responses and will
be glad to provide it to colleagues who are interested.

Many thanks,

Laura Letbetter
Director, Proposal Development and Programmatic Research
Office of Sponsored Programs
Kennesaw State University
1000 Chastain Road
Kennesaw, GA 30144

770-499-3365 phone
770-499-3620 fax

xxxxxx@kennesaw.edu

http://www.kennesaw.edu/osp

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