Mail*Link(r) SMTP               FWD>Grant Proposal Submission

To qualify the response that follows, we are fairly small compared to many of
you and only submit about 100 grants/year.  This allows my office (pre-award,
me and a half-time secretary) to be flexible in a way that perhaps larger
offices could not.  That said...

I've clearly defined my office as one in which faculty support is the major
focus.  Of course, watching out for the university's interests is equally
important but -- with a focus on the support -- I've so far been able to
juggle the two and also come to terms with the frequent ulcer-forming ritual
of faculty arriving In my office at 2pm on the mailing day with a proposal
I've not heard of before.  (Or, as happened this month, seven arriving at
noon, all with an incorrect fringe benefit rate! For each we retyping three
forms, collected signatures on all three forms and our routing slip, made the
multiple copies and mailed by 4:30.)  Data entry etc.is routinely done after
the fact.

Our institutional policy states that all proposals have to be routed before
being mailed and specifies that proposals should arrive in my office four days
before the mailing date. This happens rarely and I've given up losing sleep
over it. Routing requires the signature of the PI, the department head, the
Dean, the academic VP, and the VP for finance.  Sometimes they're not all here
to sign off on a last minute proposal. We still get the infrequent
notification that a grant has been submitted after the fact.  We always seem
to manage and the administration reserves the right to recall the proposal if
any problems are found. We will hold a proposal if there's no time to fix it.
(Not situations we ever want to get into, but it's the only solution we've
managed to find so far.)

We state very clearly that we do not guarantee approval of proposals submitted
with less than four days turn-around time and that getting the approval
signatures, copying and mailing are then the responsibility of the PI.  We
always run around and do all these things for them anyway.  The consequences
for the PI are usually no more than a gentle reminder of the procedures and
tons of help.

Imagination and a little empathy goes a long way.  The focus at this
university is on teaching; most of our grant-writing faculty are investing
lots of personal time and effort on top of their regular load.  Most external
funding dollars have been won for sponsored programs rather than research and
in many cases the motivation is community-minded rather than personal.  So I
go home in tears once in a while -- for the most part the last-minute rush is
fun and I enjoy it.

Most importantly though, I've also noticed that providing this environment and
the last minute help is greatly appreciated and fairly consistently pays off.
The PI is more likely to turn up earlier once they realize how we can help
and, once that happens, we get to the stage where I can contribute more and
also manage the situation better.  Pretty soon they get dependent on me for
all kinds of help and realize that I can save them a bunch of time, and grief,
if they involve me in the process.

Alexandra Thompson
Armstrong Atlantic State University
Savannah  GA  31419-1997