Years ago, professors and officials at small colleges felt that the process of sending out grant proposals was, well, tedious, writes Carol Kolmerten, who teaches American literature at Hood College, in Chronicle Careers: "It took what seemed like quite a while — perhaps an hour or two — to stand by an old duplicating machine as it churned out pages that we then had to staple together to make the 11 or 14 or 16 copies of a grant proposal that government agencies wanted."
What could be less efficient than that? Only Grants.gov, the Web site that was created to make trips to the copy machine obsolete.
The site "has made grant getting nigh impossible" for small colleges like Hood, according to Ms. Kolmerten:
At many colleges, like the one where I have taught for 28 years, there is no grants office — no cadre of workers hired to decipher the unreadable jargon or find the end of the maze that Grants.gov has created to keep applicants away from federal money.
We'd love to hear from readers about their experiences — positive or negative — with Grants.gov. –Brock Read
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