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On the Job with the Research Administration
and Contract Administration

The Bulletin spoke with David Earwicker, assistant vice president of Research Administration and Contract Administration.

What do people think you do? 
People typically think we submit their proposals and manage their grants and contracts. They also see us as the place to go for the internal awards programs and human subjects committee protocols. We are often seen as a place to go directly for resources.  In fact, we help shorten the time and distance between concept development and funding.

What do you really do? 
Our great fortune is that we get to work with a dynamite group of faculty and staff collaborators who are actively engaged in research, scholarship and student support.  Our enviable task is to celebrate the efforts of our faculty to a broader external audience interested in supporting our faculty’s work. With internal funds for scholarly activity limited, we realize the importance of obtaining external support for the numerous activities underway on this campus.  

Describe your office.
We’re a partnership between Academic Affairs and University Enterprises, Inc. (UEI), and our approach brings a new energy to this aspect of campus. As a hybrid unit, we have many constituencies deserving attention and support. We bridge the intellectual inquiry of the campus with the entrepreneurial spirit of UEI in order to help our internal clients and their ideas compete in a very difficult funding environment.  

For UEI we coordinate the Student Employment Services program, which supports more than 1,500 student employment positions across the region, and we also manage the accounts functions for the University Foundation at Sacramento State.

What surprises people? 
How enthusiastic we are about their research and project ideas and the ways in which we can work with them to translate ideas into reality with sponsor funding.  We’re helpful, we’re motivated, we’re professional and we’re focused on our faculty, staff and students and their success. 

What’s your biggest challenge?
I would say that getting people to recognize the ways in which we can help them. Our recent changes allow us to be even more responsive and creative, and we are moving this summer to the third floor of the new Hornet Bookstore, so our new location will be even more convenient for people to come by, investigate funding opportunities and talk with us about their project ideas. 

We also help funded projects spend their resources within the rules -- and often there are quite a few rules -- so our efforts can at times seem constraining. We are sincere and flexible always, but at times need to be firm. Meeting people’s expectations while staying within guidelines can be a challenge sometimes.  But we enjoy a good challenge.

What do you get asked the most?
First, “Do you have any money for our project?”  The answer is “no” but we can help people and organizations in their pursuit of external funds for that exciting project. The second is, “Why are you making me go through this paperwork?”  Well, it is actually a federal/state/California State University system requirement, but we work to try and make it easier and faster for our customers.