Grant Rejection Drama

For the past few weeks Gary, myself, Mary (director of FETCH), and her graduate assistant Adam have been working on a CYFAR (Children, Youth, & Families At Risk) Grant for approximately half a million dollars. We put a lot of effort into the grant - we sat through webinars, we had multiple strategy meetings, we would mass email drafts to each other, etc. Gary, in my opinion, put the most work into the grant because he was constantly re-figuring things, contacting people to double and triple check information, going to extra meetings, and staying up all hours of the night to compose the narrative and budget. In fact, the night before it was due Gary and I were up late editing and checking over everything - Gary also redoing the budget with new, last minute information - and then Gary woke up the next morning at 4:00am to head to campus in order to work on the grant more before it was due at 12:00pm (noon) our time (5:00pm on the East Coast). Gary was so utterly exhausted by the time the University of Hawaii finally submitted the grant that he looked like you could knock him over with a piece of string.

Unfortunately for us, even though we put our grant package through the online portal's verification system and was cleared to submit, our grant bounced back because one of the attachments was not in a pdf document. However, because of the convoluted system that the University of Hawaii has for submitting governmental grants, the bounce back was sent to the University official who submitted it, not to us. They didn't check there email until 2 hours after the submission deadline had passed (and supposedly, although I may be wrong, the rejection letter was not sent until after the submission deadline, too).

When Gary was notified, he was upset (rightfully so), but also too exhausted to figure out if there was anything we could do. He informed me and one of Mary's work-study students (Lee) - because he couldn't get a hold of Mary or Adam, of which he had been trying to get a hold of all day in regards to the document that resulted in our proposal being bounced back - and went home for the day.

That was on Tuesday. Friday morning, I was reading through another grant RFA when I hear Mary start yelling downstairs (I work in the same building as Mary and Adam, Gary works in a different building). Lee found me and told me she was talking to Mary about the grant and how it was rejected, and Mary flipped out because apparently she didn't know. For the rest of the day I heard Mary on her phone (she does all her calls on speaker phone) yelling at/arguing with Gary for about an hour, angrily discussing "our" options with the head of the department, contacting partners, trying to contact someone at USDA (where the grant was through), and then having another - more calm - discussion with Gary.

In the majority of her conversations she was blaming Gary for the grant being rejected and for not doing anything about it. Even to Gary's "face" she accused him of not being professional enough to contact her or Adam when he found out because "[she] always has her phone on." 1) That's not true. 2) Gary tried contact both of them multiple times for the entirety of that day, and neither one ever answered or returned his calls or emails (which you think you would if you knew that was a grant submission deadline day). 3) Even Lee said that they never have their phones on them, and if they do they rarely answer.

It was pretty heated here for awhile. I was afraid to come out of my office. Expletives were flying left and right! She basically was making the case that we worked too hard to have a computer error screw us over in the end. Part of me agreed with her, but the other part of me knows that it was a slim chance we would've gotten the funding anyway because it was so competitive, and for her to be barking up all these trees and yelling at all these people is only going to burn bridges for us in the future. Needless to say, I was happy for the weekend.

I come into the office on Monday, and Gary and I find out that Mary has contacted anyone and EVERYONE connected to this grant/grant process on the University, State, and National levels to try and make a case why our grant should be able to be resubmitted. She had actually persuaded (forced) mostly everyone to say yes except the USDA people who basically said, too late... too bad, so sad. I have to admit I admire Mary's determination, but again I'm afraid of the impression she's leaving on people who will have the decision power over whether or not we get funding in the future.

When Gary originally talked to Mary about moving on to the next grant (right after the rejection drama), she said that she refused to work on any more grants if this was how things were going to be, but when she talked with him Monday afternoon she was completely on board with this next proposal... so much so that she wanted to take it over and be the principle investigator (PI) on it. Gary flat out told her no, and she got pissed off. This morning, Gary informed Karen and I that Mary sent him a long apologetic email for her temper and actions, and requested that FETCH still be able to be a part of this next grant, and understands that it was wrong for her to try to take over as PI.

This has been like a freaking roller-coaster! I hope that we can make it through this next grant submission without falling off the tracks completely!