Khris,

Combine the two offices for a number of reasons.

First, one prevents at the proposal stage, problems that will appear
during administration in the award stage.  Sometimes people preparing the
proposals don't appreciate the consequences of their actions.

Second, the office gains that many more people to prepare proposals (hows
that for alliteration), a boon during those crunch times when everyone is
trying to make that NSF deadline.

Third, you can provide better service.  Those using your office can have
one person assigned to them, one point of contact throughout the entire
proposal-award process.  The ORSP folks also become that much more
familiar with the interests of their charges, thus better able to
determine whether a funding opportunity is appropriate or not.

Fourth, your people will have a more varied workload and become more
skilled.  A positive (or negative, depending upon your viewpoint)
consequence is the staff becomes more saleable, with a great set of
skills.

So just do it.

Doug Wilde
xxxxxx@engr.uark.edu