Writing Proposals with Faculty: A Strategy for Increasing External Funding at Small Undergraduate Teaching Institutions.

INTRODUCTION The University of Wisconsin River Falls (UWRF) is a relatively small (5,000 FTE), regional comprehensive university located in rural west central Wisconsin. UWRF has always been a teaching university. For many years the institutional culture at UWRF discouraged research and any other activity that distracted faculty from teaching. This culture has been replaced by one that encourages or at least tolerates research and other out-of-classroom scholarly activities. Still, these activities continue to be related to undergraduate teaching. In 1990, I was hired as the director of UWRF's first Office of Grants and Research. Before this time, a number of campus administrators shared the responsibility for grant administration at UWRF. These individuals were held accountable for a long list of other chores (e.g. faculty development, administration of the graduate school, and outreach). As a result of this administrative structure, few grant proposals were submitted; fewer were funded. My first task as the new director of the Office of Grants and Research was to encourage faculty interest in sponsored projects. Although a former provost once told me that leading faculty is like herding cats, I reasoned that faculty, like cats, would tend to cooperate when offered something of value. Consequently, the Office of Grants and Research at UWRF began providing faculty with the following services: * A streamlined and unobtrusive approval, copying and mailing process. The motto of our office is: "Bring me a proposal with approval form signed by the department chair and dean, and we will do the rest." * A monthly newsletter containing grant-related news, funding opportunities and a list of submitted proposals and grant awards. (We also distribute this information electronically.) * Assistance with editing proposals, developing proposal budgets, contacting funding agency personnel and any other administrative tasks that faculty might find onerous. * Writing proposals with faculty. The last service has turned out to be the most important service offered by our office. During the first year of the office's operation, I discovered that few faculty at UWRF had had any experience in writing grant proposals. The majority of these faculty had very little confidence in their ability to win grants. As a result, most faculty at UWRF were very reluctant to write a proposal. Although I had never held a position in grants administration prior to becoming director of the OfFice of Grants and Research at UWRF, I had had experience writing several successful grant proposals and conducting workshops on proposal writing. I had learned from these experiences that the best way to bring faculty into the proposal-writing world was to write proposals with them. My first attempt to generate interest in sponsored projects at UWRF was to write a Title III proposal. I wrote the proposal almost entirely by myself, with minimal input from the campus. This turned out to be a good proposal-writing strategy - we were awarded the grant - but not a good teaching strategy. Although my initial success gave me some credibility among faculty and administrators, it failed to teach anyone else how to write successful proposals. Since then I have learned that writing proposals with faculty is a much better way to draw faculty into the proposal-writing process. Faculty gain the experience they need to write successful proposals, and proposals that are written collaboratively are more likely to be funded. When a proposal is funded, the faculty member feels a sense of accomplishment and wants to repeat the experience. Today, faculty at UWRF generate 75 to 85 proposals per year. Eight to ten of these are written collaboratively. I have hired a part-time associate since 1990, and between us we total 1.4 FTE. (We also have access to some clerical assistance in the offices we share with the associate vice chancellor, International Programs, Faculty Development and Institutional Research. …