Annual Report of the Office of Grant Development

Introduction

The Office of Grant Development in the College of Education at Texas Tech University began operations August 1, 2003, with the appointment of Dr. Judy Aycock Simpson, Director. The Mission of the Office is that in keeping with the goal of Texas Tech University to be “a research intensive institution where faculty discovery enhances learning and prepares students to compete in a knowledge-based society,” the Office of Grant Development in the College of Education will assist the faculty and staff of the College of Education in developing effective grant-seeking skills and will assist them in all phases of grant proposal preparation. In addition, the Office of Grant Development will strive to enable the faculty and staff of the College of Education to increase the number and types of external grants funded and to be viewed as an exemplary service-oriented office by the faculty and staff of the College of Education.

The Office of Grant Development in the College of Education was established because the University, as a research university, must increase its funded research in order to be truly competitive among other research universities in the nation as it seeks to prepare its students for the 21st Century. In turn, the College of Education is stipulating that tenure and promotion are more dependant on faculty producing external funds than they have been in the past so that the College can help the University meet this goal. Without the support of the Office of Grant Development, this would be much more difficult for faculty than it will be presently.

The first year of the Three-Year Strategic plan was designed to build a strong, lasting foundation for the Office of Grant Development, which would enable the Office to assist with and ease the grant application process for both faculty and staff; to develop a network of collaborators both on and off campus; and to begin producing applications for funding, working toward the 5% yearly increase in external funding stipulated by the strategic plan of the departments.

Goals of the Strategic Plan and Their Degree of Implementation

In order to insure that the Office of Grant Development would be built on a strong foundation, a three year strategic plan was written and was approved by the Associate Dean for Research, Dr. Fred Hartmeister.

The Goals of the Strategic Plan are in various stages of implementation:

1. A survey was developed as a basis for interviewing faculty to determine their research needs and interests. Approximately, 35 of the faculty have been interviewed this year. New faculty and those not interviewed in 2002-2003 who are interested will be interviewed in 2003-2004.

2. The Research Mentoring Program has not been developed. Both those who would mentor and those who wished to be mentored have been interviewed and approved the concept. The Program will begin in fall 2003.

3. The Office of Grant Development has sent out funding opportunities each week from the Community of Science database and many other sources, such as the Department of Education and Texas Educational Association, etc.

Individual searches have also been conducted and the results sent to the faculty/staff seeking them.

The Web page is under development, but I no longer see it as a place to put the funding opportunities. It is better to send them directly to the faculty.

4. The Office of Grant Development has begun developing a network of collaborators.

I have visited with the Deans of Arts and Science, Business, and Engineering to express interest in collaboration. I need to meet with Human Sciences.

I have visited with Lubbock Independent School District officials to seek collaboration for a college-wide grant application.

I have also accompanied faculty visiting with Lubbock Independent School District.

I have met Region 17 professional development personnel who indicated an interest in working with Tech. I will pursue this if Project LEAD is funded.

I have visited with the Helen DeVitt Jones Foundation Directors.

I have formed a relationship with the grant writer from the Lubbock-Cooper ISD and facilitated his holding grant-writing meetings for area school personnel in our facility.

I have also actively encouraged faculty to assist Lubbock-Cooper with projects.

I applied for and was accepted for reviewing FIPSE pre-proposals.

5. This year the Office of Grant Development hosted two workshops—one an introduction to grant writing and one on developing budgets.
Thirty-two people attended the two workshops and gave outstanding evaluations. The first seminar was facilitated by experienced grant writers from the COE, and one was led by ORS personnel

6. The Office of Grant Development has developed and published a quarterly newsletter entitled The Resource, which is primarily a marketing tool. The web site is under development and will be finished by the end of the school year. It is designed to be a general source of information about grant writing.

7. The most important goal of the Office of Grant Development is to assist the faculty in any way possible to develop grant applications so that faculty and staff will be encouraged to do so. This endeavor has been very successful.

For example, In 2001-2002, the College of Education accounted for 4% of the research dollars brought into the University. Besides grants that were on-going, twelve grants totaling $6,929,589 were sought, and one was funded. Total monies brought into the University via the College of Education was $1, 462,821.

Since the development of the Office of Grant Development, faculty and staff have created or helped create 46 grant applications, such as proposals, pre-proposals, subcontracts, and grant renewals.

To date, April 15, 2003, three grants, four subcontracts, and one renewal have been funded. While it is too early to know what percentage of the grants will be funded, the College is much ahead of last year in terms of how many grant applications have been submitted, as well as funded for that matter.

I read all the RFP’s and made checklists for the applicants if they wished.

I conducted, participated in and recorded any special negotiations that were necessary for the comfort of the grant applicant.

I did for faculty and staff what I consider the dirty work of grant application. For example, I prepared budgets and got them approved, made copies, got signatures, filled out forms, delivered the forms and completed applications to ORS, etc.

I have also helped write one grant, wrote one grant for a College-wide committee and wrote two templates for faculty to use when preparing their grant applications.

I helped with the brainstorming of ideas, as well as the revision and editing of the proposal if I was asked to do so.

Most of all, I have tried to indicate that I am willing to do anything that I can to help expedite the grant application process. It took a while for the faculty and staff to believe that I was here to help them, but I believe that they do now, for the most part.

8. The goal of seeking to insure that sponsored projects meet funding agency guidelines has been accomplished this year.

I have worked with faculty to help them understand what is expected of them by the grant, college and university if a proposal should be funded.

I have done the paperwork and taken care of new procedures that have been instituted by the state of Texas.

I have worked closely with the Office of Research Services to ensure that all necessary procedures are completed.

9. The goal which calls for celebrating the funding of successful grant applications has been accomplished in part.

I sent out emails congratulating those who have received funding.

I have dedicated an edition of the newsletter to this function.

I have made plans to speak to the faculty about the accomplishments of the year.

I have made plans to purchase and present a plaque honoring those who received funding this year at the annual Awards Day Celebration of the College.

10. A survey for assessing the activities of the Office of Grant Development has been developed and administered. Sixteen short answer questions and two open-ended questions were asked. The rating scale was 1 to 4, with 4 representing the most favorable response. The overall rating for the sixteen questions was 3.7. The assessment is given below as are the results for each question:

Assessment of the Office of Grant Development

The total number of respondents for the assessment was 13. Not all respondents completed all 16 items.

The overall score for the Office of Grant Development was 3.7 on a 4.0 scale.

Below you will find the scores on each of the questions, as well as reponses given on the open-ended questions:

__________________________________________________________________

Thank you for taking a few minutes to help the Office of Grant Development serve you better. Please put completed assessments in Kay’s box by May 19, 2003.

If you have yet to utilize the services of the Office of Grant Development, please answer questions 1-7.

If you have utilized the services of the Office of Grant Development, please answer all of the following questions.

Please rate each item from 1 to 4, with 4 representing the most favorable response.

1. The marketing of the Office of Grant Development has served to keep research and externally funded opportunities in the forefront of College activities.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.7)

2. Grant-writing seminars each semester are adequate to meet the needs of faculty and staff.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.5)

3. Grant writing seminars should be continued.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.6)

4.The providing of electronic grant opportunities each week should be continued.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.8)

5. The grant opportunities provided each week meet the needs of most of the faculty and staff.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.5)

6. The newsletter of the Office of Grant Development, The Re$ource, contains useful information.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.0)

7.The newsletter should be continued.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.4)

8. The topics covered by the grant writing seminars were relevant.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.6)

9. When you asked the Office of Grant Development to do tasks for you, they were completed.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.8)

10. When you asked the Office of Grant Development to do grant searches, they were completed in a timely fashion.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.8)

11. The assistance or guidance that you received from the Office of Grant Development in getting your grant application/s completed was timely.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.8)

12. The help that you received in getting your grant application/s completed was provided in a professional manner.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.8)

13. Services provided by the Office of Grant Development facilitate working with Texas Tech’s Office of Research Services (e.g. obtaining signatures on Routing Sheets, helping prepare and get budgets approved, etc.).

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.9)

14. The Office of Grant Development worked efficiently to help you get your grant application/s completed.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.9)

15. The Office of Grant Development did the types of chores that allowed you to concentrate on writing the actual application.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.7)

16. The Office of Grant Development made a difference in whether or not you chose to make grant applications.

1__________2__________3__________4__________ (3.5)

What other services would you like to see the Office of Grant Development perform? Please list below.

Forge ties with LISD
Seminars on Partnership building
Identifying opportunities for faculty to serve as federal and state grant reviews
Identification of local RFA’s
Connecting with LEA’s in area

Comments: _____________________________________________________

Great job!
Judy is doing a great job, as is Fred Hartmeister
Great job overall! Keep it up!
Judy does a great job!

Since the two lowest scores related to the newsletter, it would seem that steps need to be taken in regard to it. One suggestion was to make it electronic, which I had already planned to do as soon as the web site is up.

Goals of the Strategic Plan That Need Better Implementation

While all of the goals of the Strategic Plan are in some stage of implementation,
they can all be fulfilled to a greater extent, and that is what I will spend the second year accomplishing since these are basically three-year goals, especially in regard to networking with LEA’s.

Additional Goals for 2003-2004

Just as I can now see that some of the objectives set forth in the Strategic Plan are not appropriate necessarily, I have also determined that there are additional Goals that need to be developed and implemented. I need to

1. Appoint an advisory committee made up of experienced grant writers to help make programmatic decisions.

2. Hold workshops exclusively for graduate students on the general subject of grant applications--one in fall and one in spring--if there is interest.

3. Be allowed to take an active part in planning and implementing Research Day activities.

4. Host a kick-off celebration in the fall at my home for Resource and Honorary Resource Faculty, new faculty and relevant administrators.

5. Implement the Resource Mentorship Program.

6. Create more materials for the web site.

7. Participate in more actual grant writing.

8. Become a reviewer for national grant writing projects.

Personal Assessment and Goals

There are several areas in which I need to make significant personal process so that the work of the Office of Grant Development will be more successful.

1. I feel that I need to know more about the College of Education so that I will have a better feel for whether grant applications are appropriate.

2. I make far too many mistakes in paperwork and need to develop steps to solve this problem—or develop more tolerance since most of the time they don’t really matter.

3. I would like to be able to have a clearer idea of whether a grant application is going to be successful.

4. I would like to have a more significant role in the development and writing of grant applications. I enjoy working with committees and writing with and for them.

5. I would like to see a pre-proposal form instituted, but I think the faculty would see this as a hindrance rather than a help. It is true that the process needs to be as simple as possible.

6. I hope that we can double the number of grant applications and double the number funded in 2003-2004.

7. I need to adjust to the uncertainties related to this job. I find it very hard to be involved in things over which I have no control—whether a grant application is worthy of being funded or whether it is funded.

8. I need to get information from ORS about who gets funded. ORS says that is “out of the ordinary.” I do not agree and will continue to push for this.