I've found over the years that the smaller the school, the more signatures you have to get.  My personal best is a school with 12 signatures.  No kidding, 12.  Great big schools?  Maybe 3-- Chair, Dean and Designated Signatory.  All those extra signatures are silly in our opinion, but those who sign want desperately to be seen as part of the CONTROL function, even though when something goes wrong all that poop slides downhill onto the research administrators head.  "You should have known."  Right, that's why a secret is called a "secret."  Trying to reduce the institution's standing plan for signatures is just like poking a bunch of bears with a stick.  Everyone wants to appear to be involved, even when it is screamingly obvious their participation is just window dressing.  It just makes me nuts, but then this is also the nature of organizations that is replete with amateur administrators-- none were trained to manage anything and they meet the clueless standard far too often.

Not that I am particularly grouchy about this.

Really.

Spanky
-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org] On Behalf Of Gregory K. Schmidt
Sent: Thursday, March 08, 2012 8:39 PM
To: xxxxxx@lists.healthresearch.org
Subject: Re: [RESADM-L] Grant Approvals

In my humble opinion, there are several on your list I'd drop.

1.  President
2.  VP of IA
3.  VP Student affairs
4.  VP Enrollment
5.  VP Admin

I would add
1. School dean/Dept chair

That's 3 approvals, maybe 4.  Why so few?  Do you really think the President reads all grant apps?  Why would Student affairs need to approve  a grant about Wombats?

Give those I took off the list a monthly report (PI, Title, Sponsor, $, etc.).

The more signers on a document, the less reviewn there actually is.  If the Pres signs off, who will say no?  I'm an overworked VP of Student Affairs.  I don't have time for this!  Surely the VP Admin will catch anything wrong.  I'll sign and pass it on.

Don't think it happens?  Every single org I've either worked for, or consulted has had these issues.  Every one of them with errors.

"xxxxxx@mcdaniel.edu" <xxxxxx@MCDANIEL.EDU> wrote:

>Quite a while ago (perhaps almost a year) I sent an email out asking what sort of lead time your office/school requires for the grant approval process. I am revisiting that topic, as I am trying to prepare a policy change for my institution.
>
>Who at your institution has to sign off on a grant for it to be submitted? Oddly enough, our institutional policy does not include the PI or the Department Chair. Right now we require:
>
>  *   Director of Grants (myself)
>  *   President
>  *   Provost
>  *   VP for Administration and Finance
>  *   VP for Institutional Advancement
>  *   VP for Student Affairs
>  *   VP for Enrollment Management/Dean of Admission
>
>As you can imagine this takes a lot of work and coordination, and policy has always been a 30 day lead time on all grants submitted. If any one of these people objects, changes have to be made to the proposal or it simply does not get submitted.
>
>I figure as we are trying to transition to electronic approvals, it is a good time to make other changes as well. Any data I can have from other institutions, especially small PUI's/Liberal Arts institutions, would be extremely helpful.
>
>Thank you for all your input!
>
>Robin
>
>**********************************************
>Robin N Dewey, MS, CRA
>Director, Office of Academic and Government Grants McDaniel College
>2 College Hill
>Westminster, MD 21157-4390
>Voice: 410-386-4699
>Cell: 585-797-8536
>
>
>
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 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including  subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available  via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the  "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)

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 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.healthresearch.org (click on the
 "LISTSERV" link in the upper right corner)

 A link directly to helpful tips:  http://tinyurl.com/resadm-l-help
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