Dean's Faculty Update
DSR Partnership Delivers new face (Brandi!) and new commitment to faculty service
Date: October 29th, 2007
From: Mark R. McLellan, Dean
How often have you said -- "I wish they would improve this!" When I first moved here I often heard that about IFAS Sponsored Programs (ISP). We have steadily taken steps to make our service among the best in this university for sponsored research – both pre & post award. We have tackled staffing needs, invoicing, residuals, accounts receivables, IDC, cost sharing, unit training and many, many other unseen issues.
Among the many different improvements being worked on is our relationship with DSR. ISP has often been viewed as DSR’s front door for IFAS faculty. Our primary job was to simply hand off our prep work. Starting in December we envisioned a new "partnership" relationship and I am pleased that DSR Director Tom Walsh and ISP Director, Nancy Wilkinson also saw the value of a partnership relationship. We signed a new agreement that brings the partnership to reality!
Today, DSR Associate Director Brandi Boniface, located in Rm G031A McCarty Hall is the face and hands of DSR in IFAS Sponsored Programs. She offers her expertise, her passion for your proposal’s success and her commitment to make "the system" work for you! Our ISP grants experts now have the eyes, ears and voice of DSR in their mist and the partnership delivers spectacularly!
Thanks to the new closer working relationship – We are able to get DSR input on difficult negotiations quicker and in a more personable eyes-on way. We are able to work closer with DSR to get clarity from sponsors on their regulations – we support each other and go to bat together for the faculty with sponsors. We are now able to get Notice of Awards (NOAs) approved by DSR in a fraction of the time previously. But most important of all, ISP and DSR are now working more in unison than ever before supporting a faster and more accurate execution of faculty proposals than in the past.
To read more about Brandi and her background go to the NEW web site for ISP. And the next time you see DSR Director Tom Walsh or ISP Director Nancy Wilkinson --- THANK THEM for working together to make pre-award services, better and more effective than ever.
Mark R. McLellan
Dean for Research, IFAS
Director, Florida Agricultural Experiment Station
