SURF

I have been out of touch for the past month because I have been caught up in SURF. SURF, the Student Undergraduate Research Fellowship, is a state grant to fund undergraduates to do research in their area of study. I was awarded one as an undergrad for my thesis. This year I am in a grant writing class and my professor felt that my experience with this and my experience with my assistantship in the Sponsored Programs Office gave me a majority of the general information that the course was going to cover, so I was given a special term project. Instead of writing a small grant like the rest of my cohort, I've been given a coordinating role in the SURF process. Our goals this year were to increase our number of applications. We only turn in a handful each year, and we could be more competitive if we would just submit more. I started last month by organizing the interest meeting and trying to get the word out around campus.

I wanted to keep the students from getting neglected by an increase in numbers so I added two workshops to our normal process. The first was a writing workshop intended to help them with their narratives. The students weren't really ready for it. They treated it like another information meeting, but hopefully if it becomes an annual service the mentors will get wise and help their students show up ready. The second was a budgeting workshop and we invited the grants accountant to come and help the students work with their budgets. The students showed up ready for this one. I think they were finally starting to see the differences between a grant application and a scholarship application.

The first drafts were due on the 17^th and I had 13 turned in. My goal was to break our record of 15, but at least it was up from last year's 8. I read through and edited all the proposals that weekend and returned them to the students on Monday. Over the next couple days a few stragglers arrived and shot my stress level up because I couldn't give them the good editing that I had wanted to. Final drafts were due to me on the 26^th, and I managed the whole intake process pretty smoothly. At this point, I was holding completed applications in my hands, so my anxiety started to go down. I learned if you give students a deadline and you stick to it, they will make it happen. If you don't stick to it, they will use every spare moment you give them.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were spent trying to get the attention and time of our campuses administrators so the proposals could get signed and approved. The grants were due yesterday and we hand delivered our 14 (still didn't break that record) submissions. My life is starting to go back to normal now. The proposals are being entered in to our office's electronic system. I'll still have to cull and file them, and in a couple weeks I'll start working with our Post Award Coordinator to streamline the processing of the ones that get awarded. Thankfully, the super-stress, adrenalin-rush portion of this project is over.

I have learned a lot working in the Sponsored Programs office, but I don't think that Sponsored Programs is a department I am going to pursue after graduation. I'm not intimidated by grants. I've decided that they are not hard, they are just tedious. What I don't like about this role is that we are the unacknowledged collaborators. When you work with someone or a group on a project, you have to take into account that they have different work habits and life schedules. Unfortunately, grant writers don't seem to realize they are working with us. We can't take into account how they work because we don't know about their projects until they come to us, and they too often don't take us into account because they don't realize how large our role is. What this leads to is a lot of stress on both parties because so much is being done after the last minute. I like to be able to organize and plan my stress. I like to see it coming and either do what I can to curb it or at least accept responsibility for. I know this isn't always possible, but in my office it seems like we are presented with projects when they are at the peak of their stress levels.

What I loved about this project was getting the opportunity to read the student's proposals. They are submitting some fantastic projects. I'm disappointed that I'm going to miss out on some of their final results because I won't be at UCA any more. I would love to have the opportunity to see these students finish their projects and present nationally. Hopefully, my comments on their proposals helped them get a little more organized and little more prepared for doing research at a level a little bit beyond what is normally expected of undergraduates.