As an organization, NORDP fosters a culture of inclusive excellence by actively promoting and supporting diversity, inclusion, and equity in all its forms to expand our worldview, enrich our work, and elevate our profession for decades to come.
To further enable a richly diverse and robust national peer network of research development professionals as well as organizational representation, we are highlighting members from minority serving institutions (MSIs) in a new blog series.
Our first cameo introduces Xia (Anna) Wood.
Who: Xia (Anna) Wood, Assistant Director of Research Development & International Relations
Where: Johnson C. Smith University
Number of Years in RD: 13
Length of NORDP Membership: 2
What attracted you to NORDP?
I initially discovered NORDP at the recommendation of my supervisor, the Vice President
for Government Sponsored Programs and Research, who is a NORDP member and suggested I look into attending the conference. I then joined the NORDP and learned of the conference travel award, which I applied for and received in 2017. I really like the focus of research enterprise development unique to NORDP that is quite different from other research administration associations I have been involved with.
How does your NORDP membership enhance your own career?
My involvement with the mentoring program stands out for me. I enrolled the RD mentor program and had a mentor at my first conference who has been a great help to me both professionally and personally. My mentor provided a great deal of encouragement and guidance to me as I advanced my RD career.
I also enjoy using the online resources NORDP provides to members, such as the platform for groups with common interests to “hang out” together and archived webinars on professional development, which I can use to recharge myself at any time.
What have you enjoyed about past NORDP conferences you’ve attended?
I have really enjoyed the poster sessions at the past conference where I have been able to connect with colleagues at comparable institutions. These conversations have provided me with numerous strategies to address similar issues that we all face, e.g., how to reduce the number of last-minute submissions, how to motivate our faculty to write more grant proposals while having many other commitments on campus.
I have also enjoyed interactions with R01 universities and learning how they manage proposal development. Most importantly, I learned from them about how to build our research enterprise through both internal and external strategic collaborations. In addition, I appreciated the opportunities to interact with a variety of federal agencies and talk with Program Officers at my last NORDP conference.
Have you implemented something you’ve learned at the Conference in your RD career? What?
First and foremost, one of the outcomes of attending this conference is that our institution created a position for research development. Additionally, I have picked up a number of helpful resources from NORDP that I have been able to incorporate into my own campus workshops for faculty and professional staff. These ideas have really helped me in my efforts to help faculty improve their proposal quality and increase our university’s grant application submissions. I have also integrated some great strategies on challenges that we all face with things like last minute submissions and some marketing strategies into our practice.
Compiled by Daniel Campbell, Member Services Committee
Four years into that position, in 2008, I was asked by the VPR to explore establishing a proposal writing institute for faculty. That same year, the VPR decided to create an Office of Proposal Development. I applied for the manager position and was hired. As the years passed, the office’s portfolio of work grew to encompass much more than proposal development. So, the name was changed to Research Development and I became director. Nowadays, my focus is on implementing and improving resources for faculty – tools, trainings, internal funding, people – to help them increase their competitiveness in the external funding realm.
external funding. On the basis of that scan, I saw that faculty at mid-tier institutions like NIU needed assistance with what I call positioning (strengthening their standing in the literature, as researchers, and as grant writers) in order to compete with their colleagues who were selected out of grad school by larger research universities. On that basis, I created a hybrid job that I called research development specialist, a single role that handled the standard pre-award requirements, but who also worked very closely with faculty to strengthen their positioning prior to (and then throughout) their efforts are seeking funding. I am now the chief research officer at Oakland University, where I have made research development integral to our office.
