November forum highlights changes in research support

The Office of Sponsored Programs will move, add staff, and change its name as part of an effort to meet campus strategic plan goals and meet the needs of faculty conducting scholarly works.

Mary Coussons-Read, executive vice chancellor, Academic Affairs, and Kelli Klebe, associate vice chancellor for research and faculty development, Academic Affairs, shared a variety of changes designed help faculty be successful in research and creative works during a Nov. 11 campus forum.

The Office of Sponsored Programs will move from Main Hall to the Academic Office Building Nov. 25 and be renamed Office of Sponsored Programs and Research Integrity, Klebe said. Additionally, the department will double its staff to four individuals dedicated to helping faculty with sponsored program activity. A research compliance specialist search is underway and a pre-award specialist search will begin in December.

“We’re really here to help you do your research with integrity and to stay out of trouble,” Klebe said. “And, do good research.”

Coussons-Read and Klebe also emphasized electronic tools that are available to help faculty connect with each other or to learn who else on campus might have similar interests.

A website, http://vivo.uccs.edu, uses faculty professional activity reports to create a database of faculty members across CU campuses and their interests.

Klebe demonstrated the database by typing “criminal justice” into the site’s search box. The search produced expected results of faculty members in the School of Public Affairs, home to criminal justice studies. But it also showed a College of Education faculty member.

“If you’re interested in finding other people on campus who are doing similar research to you or complimentary research to you when you’re trying to put together a team, you can search in Vivo under topic, department or researcher,” Klebe said. “You can also search the faculty at Boulder.”

Coussons-Read emphasized that while UCCS will not be a large graduate-intensive institution, the campus should develop its strengths in specific areas, develop opportunities, and embrace the connection between teaching, research and student experience.

“A lot of the research that we do never gets a lot of external funding,” Coussons-Read said. “But it’s still transformation for faculty and for students. I don’t want us to forget that when we discuss research and creative work.”

– Video provided by the Media Services Department