By Yael Mayer, Business Administrator 2, McC Bioemedical Engineering & Den Gonzales, Senior Research Administrator, FSM Basic Science Administration
NURAP had a chance to chat with Shandra White, the new Executive Director of the Office for Sponsored Research. During our conversation, she recounted what she learned during her 20-year journey in Research Administration.
Pre-Research Administration Years
Prior to her research administration career, Shandra spent time as a stay-at-home mom raising her son. When her son got older, Shandra landed a position in higher education as an executive associate to a dean, where she assisted with speech writing and administering scholarship programs. After several years, she pivoted to the non-profit sector, specifically public broadcasting, where she worked with the general counsel in contract administration. While there, she managed grants and amendments for television shows such as Barney and The Magic School Bus. She did a quick stint at Starbucks head-quarters for 11 months, until she realized that her heart was in higher education.
George Mason and George Washington Years
Shandra spent the next period at George Mason University (GMU) serving in the Office of Sponsored Programs. She began as a Grants Administrator, where she was mentored by skilled managers and colleagues who taught her the ins and outs of pre-award grant management. Early challenges also served as learning opportunities to help her acquire deep expertise and understanding of research ad-ministration and concomitant confidence in her research administration skills. These experiences, along with her process-improvement mindset, allowed Shandra to transform the way the grants management process operated at GMU. She did this by instituting standardization amongst principal investigators. Says White, “I’ve always had a can-do attitude and was always asking how can it be better?”
When Shandra was promoted to Senior Financial Services Manager, she relied on the post-award administration team to teach her all about post-award management. This team, her background in pre-award management, plus the development opportunities provided by her managers, all contributed to her success in this role.
After six years at George Mason University, Shandra took a step back to take a step forward. She moved to a non-managerial research administrator role in the Office of the Comptroller at George Washington University (GW), where she was able to learn more about the back-end of research administration by doing invoice, financial reporting and auditing reviews. Shandra chose this role because she wanted to fill in gaps of her broad spectrum of research administration expertise. Based on her experiences, she keenly understood that PI’s were handing over their life to research administrators, given the deep connection between life and research for most PIs. Knowing this, she became an advocate for faculty and maintained a close connection to research.
With this knowledge, she applied for a position in the Office of the Vice President for Research as Director of Research Enhancement and later as Director of Sponsored Projects. In these roles, she developed and implemented an intensive 18-month training program that enhanced her team’s effectiveness and provided improved customer service to university researchers. She also spearheaded structural changes that streamlined processes and better aligned resources to strengthen performance, all while working to create an inclusive, respectful office culture.
Coming to Chicago
Shandra had never thought about coming to Chicago and only visited once before. However, when she was contacted by headhunters for the Executive Director position, she seized on the opportunity. Shandra soon found that she had a great connection with Dr. Rex Chisholm, Associate Vice President for Research in the Office of Research, and was impressed by staff who tended to focus on the larger picture. “The Office for Sponsored Research did an amazing job without a leader of their unit.”
She decided to leave George Washington University which was in a great place, and felt good about moving to Chicago. She went from a sponsored portfolio of $200 million to Northwestern which operates with a sponsored portfolio of $800 million. “I want to transform how we do research administration at Northwestern. A bad-to-good model would be easy; the good-to-great model like we have here at NU is always harder!”
Vision for OSR
“I believe that OSR is not just in support of transformation but also wants to be transformative.” Shandra’s plan is to use research to transform the office and doesn’t see constraints or limitations. Instead she focuses on the four “I”s of research administration’s role in the research ecosystem: Impacts, Integrates, Interrupts, and Intersects. “Taking responsibility for what you own.”
She also wants to repair relationships between central and the departments. “We shouldn’t be recognized for what we did yesterday – research administration is valuable. I’d like to see faculty feel supported and their research administrators be their advocates as they are in the departments and act as ex-tensions of OSR – there is no separation. The University doesn’t want central and local research administration to need administrators to simply “push a button”, they need all of us to do everything that hap-pens before and after we push the button.”
Another of Shandra’s goals is to change the structure of the Northwestern University Research Administration Leadership group. She wants to have a core group that would advise her on implementation and quick decisions. From that advisory group she will have other OSR staff and NURAL membership meet to strategize with solutions and plans. She wants to have rotating membership for new energizing ideas.
What would you tell your younger self?
“Don’t overlook any opportunities. Give everyone a fair shake. We’re all a part of research administration and we need to take ownership of all of it. Don’t try to control everything. Learn to prepare for interruptions and assess whether you’re comfortable with ambiguity. Because you may not have all of the answers but you want to be able to move forward. You can try lots of things, you just have to put in the work.”
And Finally…
Shandra has been a human subject in a NIH-funded black women’s health study for 25 years. Her son has also participated in university research as part of a study for autism research. She is a big fan of basketball with the late Kobe Bryant as her favorite player. She also enjoys jazz and plays golf whenever she can.