Suzette,
Travel budgets for program officers tends to be very limited.

One way to interest federal (and state) program officers in coming to the
campus is to invite them to something that involves multiple campuses or in
which they could come to a couple of campuses at the same time.

When a chapter meeting of SRA was held on the RU campus, we were able to
attract a couple of program officers.  One was also conducting a site visit
at another campus 2 hours away.

Securing acceptances of invitations is not always easy.  We averaged over
20 calls per person who actual came.  In one case, the individual who
indicated a willingness to come and meet/talk changed twice before the
actual date.

I agree with your desire for a recommendation of someone or a position, at
least.  An individual who offers to serve at the speaking representative of
a specific agency may not know anything about programs for predominately
undergraduate institutions.  The individual just happens to be going to a
nearby institution for some reason.  We had one very unfortunate example of
that when I had clearly indicated that the audience would include public
school administrators as well as faculty members interested in
instructional projects and ended up with an audience full of
superintendents of schools and curriculum specialists who had driven
several hours to attend a talk and the program officer concentrated on
major research funding and did not have the background to respond to
questions from the audience.  Major frustration!

Keep the federal fiscal year in mind.  They can't always reserve funds to
travel close to the end of the fiscal year and are not permitted to be
reimbursed for their travel costs.

By the way, Radford University is about half-way between DC and Boone.  We
would be delighted to also host someone on a coordinated "lecture tour."
Perhaps a speaker would be willing to stop at Radford on day 1, Appalachian
on day 2, and another primarily undergraduate institution on the way back
on day 3.  I'm sure I could suggest several good possibilities or the
program officer might have a target institution in mind.  Let me know if
you are interested.

Janet

At 02:11 PM 11/30/99 -0500, you wrote:
>Suzette,
>
>Inviting program officers to your campus is the best way to go
>on a limited budget!
>
>I hope that people respond to the list because I am also interested
>in which program officers would be good to invite from Dept. of Ed.
>
>Ruth Tallman
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From:   Suzette Mauney [SMTP:xxxxxx@APPSTATE.EDU]
>Sent:   Tuesday, November 30, 1999 12:06 PM
>To:     xxxxxx@hrinet.org
>Subject:        DOED Program Officers
>
>I am looking for a program officer from the U.S. Department of ED to
>come to our campus for an overview of  programs for Predominantly
>Undergraduate Institutions.
> I would like to hear about your experiences and if, in fact, it is
>possible to get program officers to come to smaller schools. Our faculty
>are willing to submit proposals but they aren't aware of the many
>programs NSF and DOED have available to PUI schools. I am not looking
>for a discipline specific officer, however any contact would be
>helpful.  We would like to bring someone from NSF and DOED to talk to
>our faculty.  Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated! Our volume
>is around 7.3 with a constrained budget. We can't afford the high priced
>grant writer workshop presenters.  Thank You!
>
>
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******************************************************************************
Janet M. Hahn, C.R.A.                           xxxxxx@runet.edu
Executive Director, Sponsored Programs          phone: 540-831-5479
Radford University                              fax: 540-831-6636
Radford, VA 24142-6926                          http://www.runet.edu/~sponsrpr/

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