Assessing the grants office.

How to Evaluate and Improve Your Grants Effort. Second edition. David G. Bauer.

American Council on Education. Series on Higher Education. Oryx Press: 2001. 320 pages hardcover. $44.95.

David G. Bauer is practically an industry in himself'. Author, presenter, consultant, as well as owner and president of David G. Bauer Associates, Inc., Bauer has sought for more than two decades to answer the needs of the burgeoning grant seeking and fundraising fields. His organization is an education-based consulting firm that provides in-house seminars on various aspects of these fields. Additionally, Bauer, who was a research administrator himself; has published at least 27 titles since the mid-1980's, focusing on How To grants manuals, or source books, or grant program management. He is, arguably, one of the grants field's best known consultants. He is an entrepreneur, and if he has succeeded it is in large part because he knows his stuff:

One would be hard pressed to find a more comprehensive work of reference. In more than 300 packed pages, this second edition, published in 2001, provides assistance to research administrators in evaluating the grants system and pre- and post-award services. Bauer's 17 chapters cover the gamut of issues research administration offices typically address, including discussing the purpose of the office; developing a pre-proposal review system; increasing faculty interest in grants activity; contacting funding sources; tracking proposals; administering Federal funds; understanding indirect cost recovery and disbursement; evaluating and developing a web site; and defining trends and changes in grants office personnel.

Bauer explains that this book differs from the first by focusing on techniques of evaluation and assessment and by helping the research administrator develop his/her own ability to assess the system and to gather feedback regularly. In seeking to accomplish his goal, Bauer makes liberal use of more than 100 separate diagrams, worksheets, and checklists which are comprehensive enough to be highly useful to various research administrators.

A glance at the book's helpful exhibits reveals this wide variety: sample project budget forms, sample Standard Form 424, suggested research administration office inventory forms, a sample letter to a private funding source for an appointment, a letter proposal, a job description of a research and program officer. The reader may, however, have trouble discerning the intricacies of some of his loop diagrams that are designed to help the administrator map out or diagram programs which are based on the management techniques of Peter Senge (pp. 6-11).

Among the documents provided to assist the research administrator is the Eastern Michigan University Client Satisfaction Survey. This survey differentiates among faculty who have had recent submission or award activity, those who have not had recent grants activity, and those who have never had grants activity. Bauer not only discusses the survey in detail--his discussion extends to tabulating the responses--but also as part of the volume package he provides the reader with a survey CD.

I found reviewing this book three years aster publication interesting. In the environment of electronic research administration and increasing Federal interventions, one may legitimately question the wisdom of an investment in a print volume such as this. The resources we use and the challenges we face in research administration change quickly. The book is so comprehensive that it is essential to keep in mind that restrictive quality, whether reading about electronic proposal submission or consulting the List of Resources. The reader should be mindful of this time frame, also, in referring to Chapter 9, which discusses the role of the research administration office in Assurances, Certifications, Institutional Reviews, and Research Compliance.

The book has no bibliography, but the time lag shows up in some of Bauer's citations. For instance, in Chapter 1, he cites the work of experts in the field, such as Sharon Davis and Peggy Lowry (although Lowry's name is misspelled in the Index). Davis and Lowry wrote their various articles on that theme in the early-mid 1990's.

Another citation, that of the work of Sharol Jacobsen and Mary Elizabeth O'Brien, is from 1992. Did Bauer simply borrow these from the First Edition or have they remained the standards in the field?

However, even as some things change exponentially, at their core some research administration variables remain remarkably the same, and this volume is so inclusive and offers such well-founded advice that I believe it would be an important addition to your professional bookshelf, for ready reference.

References

Senge, P. (1990). The Fifth Discipline: The Art and Practice of the Learning Organization. New York: Doubleday.

Senge, P., Kleiner, A., Roberts, C., Ross, R., and Smith, B. (1994). The Fifth Discipline Fieldbook. New York: Doubleday.

Linda L. Schwarz

Northern Illinois University