Kim Moreland wins grants group's first national service award

General Article
August 1, 2002

By LAUREN VANE

"This career is terrific, because I have a low threshold for boredom, and in research administration, the rules change every day."

With fresh ambition, that's how Kim Moreland sees the career path she's followed for 20-plus years.

Moreland, who has directed Grant and Contract Administration for two years, recently won the National Council of University Research Administrators' first distinguished-service award.

"I cannot think of any other individual who is more committed to the council and the entire research community than Kim Moreland," said the council's executive director, Kathleen Larmett.

Steve Hansen, graduate-school dean at Southern Illinois University, nominated her for the award.

"More than the quantity of Kim's activities is the benefit we have received from the quality of her service," he said.

With more than 3,500 members, the council holds workshops about sponsored research. This November, at the council's annual meeting in Washington D.C., Moreland will receive her award from the organization for which she has served as president, vice president and board member.

Moreland said she has learned "very interesting lessons" during her council service. "Working with a volunteer board, volunteer committees and volunteers who put on training sessions and organize events requires a kind of cooperation and collaboration that is always a challenge because you have to convince people that they really want to commit large amounts of time. With volunteers, it's all a matter of influence and persuasion."

Admitting she remains "fairly shy," Moreland used her council service to overcome her initial fear of giving presentations. "I learned a skill at providing educational material to people fairly effectively," she said. "I learned a little bit about teaching that I would not know any other way."

Moreland labels the council as "the organization that threw me a lifeline," noting there were no books to turn to for guidance in her field.

"I could ask all sorts of dumb questions, and nobody laughed at me," she said. "They just told me how they did it, or they laughed because they couldn't figure it out either."

The council's "superb networking and training possibilities" sustained her interest. "It allowed me to get enough of a hand-hold, so that I could stick it out long enough to find that I really liked it."

Moreland, who came to the center from the University of Kansas, says her job is to provide "an administrative infrastructure that allows scientists to perform science and not have to work so much with the incredible number of regulations that stipulate how they can actually perform their research. We have a responsibility, which is quite paradoxical, and that is to protect the institution."

Though her job may be challenging, her work at the center is personally rewarding.

"It is a creative process from time to time, and sometimes it's a discouraging process," she said, "but you get to work with people whose science may make a difference. It's fun to be in a wing of that larger effort that is hopefully helping somebody else do what they do well."

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