The IPAs we've encountered have all been with the VA and far from
being PERSONNEL agreements, they pertain to many categories of
expenditure--i.e., "IPA" is another term for "contract," and the
parties to it are the university (not a faculty member as an individual)
and a sponsor.  Of course they should be handled by the sponsored
programs office.  I'm looking forward to reading the responses to
this and finding out more about IPAs.

Incidentally, I've encountered a spate of similar proposals here:
to distinguish certain sets of transactions that the college has
always regarded as sponsored programs and route them through some
other office.  Seems crazy to me, if only because suddenly someone
must now determine whether each transaction meets the criteria that
route it away from sponsored programs--unnecessary work.  Also the
proposed processing office is generally inexperienced and cut off from
the schools compliance apparatus and other operations in the sponsored
programs cascade.
Peter J. Dolce
Director, Research Support Services
Meharry Medical College
P 615 327 6703
F 625 327 6738
xxxxxx@ccvax.mmc.edu