Tag: NORDP LEAD

Written by: Roshni Singh, Kindling Crew

Sue Elkins, CRA is the International & Research Services Manager at Drexel University. In this role, she has been tasked with re-envisioning and developing research support from a Central Office, for the university. Sue has over 10 years of research administration experience in higher education and hospital settings with a wealth of understanding on research administration, networking, relationship building, professional development, and communication. 

Prior to joining Drexel, Sue had worked at Auburn University and Rhode Island Hospital in positions that were RD adjacent, but lacked the work-life balance she required. In addition to these two roles, she had over 10 years’ experience in wrangling contracts and navigating legal systems through two prior positions as a real estate assistant/transaction manager, and a daycare/pre-school owner in a foreign country. In spring of 2021, she began planning an intentional career transition that would allow her the work/life balance she needed as well as advance her career. Sue wanted to get involved with increasing grantsmanship knowledge leading to increased efficiencies and better proposals in turn increasing an institution’s award rate. She strategically targeted institutions that were looking to measurably increase research expenditures and willing to increase training across campus as part of their strategic plan. Based on her desired career path, she designed a 24-month plan for the career transition and strategically started adding the skills she needed while at her prior role in Auburn University. She accomplished her goal, 6 months ahead of her deadline, joining Drexel as a Grants Administrator in October 2022. Sue has not let the lack of an advanced degree hold her back from pursuing her career goals and has successfully leveraged all prior experiences in conveying her aptitude for her desired positions. Understanding her soft skills helped Sue maximize her career advancement proving past employment outside of the field added to her ability to address the role Drexel University was looking to fill. Sue was promoted to her current position in April 2023. 

With her role as the International & Research Services Manager in the Office of Sponsored Programs, Sue plans/creates/adds/fosters training opportunities for those across campus to improving institutional research support. Determining a road map to develop training for all involved with research to improve processes, knowledge base & community is Sue’s ultimate goal and the big picture aim for her current position. She also understands the constantly evolving demands of the field and that between now and completely setting up training our world will change and she is looking forward to helping Drexel University keep up! It is the thought of these upcoming and unknown challenges that keeps Sue interested in Research Development; understanding her soft skills has helped Sue maximize her career advancement.

Sue suggests networking as one of the best ways to connect, learn, and increase one’s knowledge base. When she worked directly with faculty and after a proposal and they asked if they could do anything for her, Sue asked that they write an email to her boss on how she was a beneficial part of the proposal. These faculty members turned out to be some of her best references. Additionally, in her experience NORDP is very welcoming, empowering, and accessible to everyone, and a great place to network. Another great way to network is to VOLUNTEER! Sue currently is involved with NORDP on a volunteer basis for the following roles: Co-Chair for the NORDP Professional Development (PD) Committee, Liaison for PD and the iKnoW on the NORDP Communications Working Group (CWG), PD representative for iKnoW, and a cohort mentor for this year’s Mentoring Program.

Fun Fact about Sue: Being a horrible test taker has been to Sue’s advantage. In order to pass the CRA exam she really had to understand the principles behind any question that could be asked; and thus, this knowledge is stuck in her head for the long haul! This is the same as understanding every grant that comes her way!

Sue would love to answer any questions you have for her, so please feel free to email her at sue.elkins@drexel.edu

To listen to her full Career Stories interview, please click on this link (you must log in as a NORDP member to access): MC LMS – NORDP LEAD presents: “Career Stories” – Sue Elkins – February 14, 2024

Kayla Dryden is the first-ever Research Development Officer for Arts and Humanities at The University of Texas at Austin. In this role, she provides major proposal development support for faculty, facilitates skill-building and team research, and leads arts and humanities strategy in the central Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Endeavors

Kayla holds an MA in Museum Studies from NYU and as an undergraduate, studied English and Art History at Cornell University. Within NORDP, she is a member-at-large of the Creative Arts, Social Science, and Humanities affinity group and the co-chair of the Membership Services Committee.

As an undergrad, Kayla wanted to be an arts journalist or critic, however, after a couple of lackluster media internships, she realized that wasn’t her path. A summer job working at the university art museum led her to a career at the intersection of arts management and philanthropy. Before joining UT Austin in 2021, she spent 15 years both in-house and as a consultant to arts and cultural organizations and artists, specializing in grants, communications, and project management. She has worked at the Asian Art Museum (San Francisco), The Museum of Modern Art (New York City), and other museums, galleries, and grant-makers in the U.S. and in Asia.

During a seven-year tenure with MoMA, she led the grants portfolio and administered the internal Wallis Annenberg Fund for Innovation in Contemporary Art together with leadership at the museum and at the Annenberg Foundation. The cutting-edge projects supported by this fund were deemed unlikey to receive external funding, often pushing the boundaries of what was possible to present in a public institutional space. Kayla credits this experience with honing her ability to break any concieveable proposal down to component parts for review, and to steward a diverse group of stakeholders to “get to yes.”

All these experiences led her to her first “capital R” Research Development position at UT Austin and a niche that suits her skills and abilities both as a writer and administrator and as a people person. In her current role, she works to earn trust from arts and humanities faculty members who may have had a range of experiences with the research enterprise. She is inspired by the opportunity to advocate for these faculty, and by the importance and impact of their work.

Here are some questions from the Career story that went unanswered: 

Q. How big is your office? How many RD staff members work with you in support of the faculty?

A: I sit in UT Austin’s central Office of the Vice President for Research, Scholarship, and Creative Endeavors. Our Research Development team has about 20 staff members, including program staff for our three grand challenges, an operations and events team, limited submissions and competitive intelligence specialists, research administrators, and more. I’m part of a cohort of three other Research Development Officers, including our Deputy VP for Research and fearless leader, Jennifer Lyon Gardner.

Q: What should other universities do to better support arts & humanities faculty in research funding?

A: If you are serious about fostering a culture of arts and humanities research, there must be an investment in infrastructure like post-award support at the local level. Central offices should consider if their offerings truly serve all disciplines, and think about their terminology. Do you really need to ask for a biosketch when any short bio will do, or use the term team science when you mean team research? Not all art and humanities scholars are going to be interested in pursuing external funding. Find those that are already doing this work (perhaps outside of the university), those who want to do this work, and those who are curious about it.

Q: Are there other staff members (not in the central office) who support these faculty with research development? How do you coordinate with them?

A: Local support for arts and humanities research varies widely across UT Austin’s 19 colleges and schools. I work very closely with college-level research administrators, associate deans of research, and staff in units like our Humanities Institute, as well as foundation relations and development. Some of these colleagues serve formally or informally as research development specialists in their college, and in other cases I am more hands-on. My role entails a large amount of internal coordination and relationship-building! However, it’s been so helpful to have a birds-eye view of what’s happening across campus: I can connect RAs who are supporting PIs on the same opportunity, introduce potential collaborators, or refer folks to resources available in another college.

Kayla would love to answer any questions you have for her, so please feel free to email her at kayla.dryden@austin.utexas.edu

To listen to her full interview by the career/kindle team, please click on this link ((you must log in as a NORDP member to access): MC LMS – NORDP LEAD presents: “Career Stories” – Kayla Dryden – January 10, 2024