My name is Sritama Chatterjee. I am a fourth year PhD student in Literature at the Department of English. My current research at the intersection of Postcolonial Studies, Indian Ocean Studies and Environmental Humanities asks: How does one envision modes of doing Indian Ocean Studies in the Postcolonial Anthropocene that is alive to enduring forms of life when a form of eco-pessimism has grasped the present? How does Indian Ocean Studies reframe the ways in which we think about Postcolonial Anthropocene?

In this summer, I spent eight weeks as an intern with the Office of the Senior Vice-Chancellor for Research (OSVCR, hereafter) supported by the Humanities Engage Administrative Micro-Internship program. The primary work of this office is to support the research mission of the university, grants administration, faculty and research development. I was working on three projects during the internship: 1) reviewing the planning documents, Call for Grant Applications, Guidelines, FAQs and emails to reviewers for the internal Momentum Grants Program of Pitt; 2) finding an “awards ladder” for the Humanities and Social Sciences as well revising the existing power-point slides for the Prestigious Awards Bootcamp meant to encourage faculty to compete for awards; and 3) finally offering a general review of the Big Proposal Bootcamp, designing evaluation and assessment of the program for faculty. As these were three separate projects, I spent the first two weeks of the internship understanding and thoroughly reviewing the documents that already existed. This was facilitated by Mike Holland, Vice-Chancellor for Science Policy and Research Strategy, who was also my supervisor for this internship and Ryan Champagne, Assistant Director for Research Development, who explained to me how the documents were organized in the university storage space Box. I am grateful to them for their support and patience with me. Being able to look at the documents for the Momentum Funds allowed me to gain insights about the Grants Management Process and the long planning that goes behind every grant administration, that is not always visible to me when I am on the receiving end of a grant. For instance, a potential grant applicant might see a few deadlines : initial deadline for expression of interest, final submission of application, a time when they would be notified about their application. However, when one is administering a grant, the timeline would something like this: review drafts of call for applications, decide on dates for information events, email potential reviewers, send out acceptance and rejection emails and finalize show-case event. Therefore, essentially grants management is about precision and thorough attention to details. Since my PhD coursework trained me to be detail-oriented while not missing out the big picture, I brought this training into practice while working on the Momentum Documents. Let me provide two concrete examples of what I brought into this internship. First, making a budget is an integral aspect of any grant application. Applicants often end up budgeting items for which money won’t be granted while not asking for any money when an item can be accounted for. I noticed that the FAQ document for the Momentum mentioned what is allowed and not allowed, but there was opportunity to make it clearer. I had a discussion with Mike and Ryan specifically about the budget and proposed to make this accessible and even more transparent. I made a table clearly showing three aspects: what items can be completely budgeted, what can be partially budgeted and what is not allowed. Secondly, to date, a specific stream of the Momentum funds titled Seeding Grants was reserved for faculty starting a small-scale research project. I advocated that the Seeding Grants might also be helpful for faculty who needs to complete a research project, such as a book manuscript and needs access to funds, for which their Research Funds might not be enough or does not cover. Being able to understand how money is distributed, circulated and what ways exist to generate funding for your work is crucial for any profession, within academia or beyond.

For the Big Proposal Bootcamp, meant for preparing faculty to pursue large scale grants and project, I wrote a report suggesting possible revisions and changes to the program as well as specifying ways to enhance faculty engagement. One of my primary suggestions was to shift the course from Box to Canvas, the learning management system of the university to better organize modules and make use of the discussion boards on Canvas. I also recommended that each session of the training specifies at least two concrete objectives rather than a mere mention of topics covered. This would allow faculty to understand what they can expect from the program and help them formulate their takeaways in a better way. I see the space of the university as a practice of interconnected ecologies and OSVCR as only one piece of the puzzle that allowed me to understand multiple aspects: What kind of research does the university encourage, sustain and promote? How does the university mediate between communities and researchers? Who and what gets prioritized when it comes to funding projects? What type of support structures are available and not available to faculty for strengthening their work? Moving forward, working in OSVCR has enabled me as a researcher to figure out the questions that I need to be asking from university administrators, being specific about my asks to support my work, knowing where to go when I need help, advocating for myself and others, and being aware that there are certain modes of research imagination that our universities are not yet ready for. This experience was crucial for me to redefine my relationship with institutional spaces. As a researcher, I have a clearer sense of what is possible and what to do to make certain things possible, when universities might not necessarily see tangible benefits to a supposed research project.

I will end my piece noting that internships, especially those integrated within the graduate program training, are generative to understand the university as a text and place, with its own ecosystem. I found it important to clarify what it means to be a university citizen and practical ways in which to make the places that we inhabit equitable. My intention is not to regurgitate the argument that scholars have made about the ‘crisis of the university’ but it is undeniable that our universities, especially humanities and social sciences, face serious threats of being defunded and are almost always underfunded in comparison to their STEM counterparts. Under such circumstances, this internship was crucial for me to reclaim the university space as ours. It belongs to students, teachers and laborers who keep the university running. Let’s take up every space that we can in the university!