Facilities and Administrative Costs: It’s Still Indirect To Me December 18, 2018 Written by Lori Ann (McAllester) Schultz It was called  “indirect cost” yesterday. Now we refer to it as “F&A”. “Indirect” had a negative connotation they say. It’s more meaningful to emphasize … the “F” and the “A”. Call it indirect cost, overhead, or […]

Subawards December 4, 2018 Written by Tricia Callahan and Kris Miller SUBAWARD DETERMINATION A subaward is issued when a substantive portion of a scope of work under an award will be performed by another entity. When CSU receives an award, a subaward is the instrument used to pass a portion of our award to a […]

Proposal Writing: It’s Not Novel Written by Tricia Callahan In creative writing, we are taught to avoid using the same words over and over and to not overtly state the moral of the story.  Adjectives become the lazy person’s way of writing and the main characters should have at least one flaw or weakness.  Good […]

Fireworks Written by Diane Barrett The illicit shooting off of firecrackers has begun, bringing to mind long-ago July 4th celebrations in the small town in western Oklahoma where I grew up. When I was a kid, my brother and sister and I would spend days making invitations for the neighbors to come to the Barrett Blow-out […]

Effective Presentations: The Keys to Success Written by Tricia Callahan Jerry Seinfeld once told a joke about public speaking, “According to most studies, people’s number one fear is public speaking.  Number two is death.  Death is number two.  Does that sound right?  This means to the average person, if you go to a funeral, you’re […]

Written by Diane Barrett Effort reporting is a federal requirement to certify that salaries and wages charged to a sponsored account are reasonable in relation to the actual work performed. For institutes of higher education, effort reporting does not make much sense. It has been a source of continuing friction between universities and the Office of […]

Best Practices in Research Administration Written by Tricia Callahan Research administrators from across campus came together to learn about and discuss best practices when working with faculty and staff to develop, submit, and manage their sponsored projects.  Heather Offhaus, Director of Grant Review & Analysis at the University of Michigan Medical School, led participants in […]

You Say Tomato…A Look At Grants, Cooperative Agreements, and Contracts Written by Tricia Callahan You say tomato, and I say… well, tomato, but we mean completely different things. When I first started in research administration, I thought the use of the terms “grant” and “contract” were interchangeable.  I figured when someone said “grant,” they were […]

Budgeting Trifecta Written by Tricia Callahan With the Kentucky Derby quickly approaching, coupled with my twelve years in Louisville, Kentucky, I couldn’t help but market our recent series of hands-on budget workshops as a “trifecta.”  For those of you unfamiliar with horse racing, a trifecta is a bet in which the person betting forecasts the first […]

The Importance Of A Good Budget Justification Written by Tricia Callahan and Tracey Trujillo “Budget justifications are like recipes – if it’s your recipe, you know it by heart and don’t need instructions to make it – but if your friend would like to prepare it, they need to know all of the details.  Like […]