Buffy Quinn did not think that the way she organized her Advanced Technological Education (ATE) project was extraordinary until her evaluator praised her timely, efficient process, and said he wished other principal investigators used her approach.

Buffy Quinn’s doctoral degree work led to her creation of the Project Management Handbook for National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Projects.

Quinn honed her project management skills while working for 20 years as a geographic information system analyst prior to teaching at Onondaga Community College (OCC), a State University of New York college. For Quinn it is “instinctive” to break down a project into a sequence of steps with lists of tasks and deadlines on color-coded spreadsheets.  

The evaluator’s comment planted the seed for Quinn’s doctoral dissertation on applying industry project management principles to higher education.

When Quinn told an ATE colleague about her doctoral degree research at the 2023 High Impact Technology Exchange Conference, the person suggested she talk with Pamela Silvers, then the co-principal investigator of Mentor-Connect, about possible applications of her findings.

When Quinn saw Silvers on an elevator in the conference’s Atlanta hotel, their conversation quickly became a pitch session that led to a new collaboration. “I started to talk to Pam about my idea and then she was telling me about PI 101 and it just seemed like a really good way to mesh those two ideas,” Quinn said.

Quinn’s Project Management Handbook for National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Projects was tested by Silvers with last year’s PI 101 cohort of 37 teams. The handbook is now among the materials available from Mentor-Connect’s Resource Library. The library’s materials on proposal development and project implementation are all free and include articles, webinars, checklists, and reference guides.

Broadly Applicable Content

“So I based the Project Management Handbook just on my experience as a project manager and then working with Pam to integrate some activities specific to new ATE PIs,” Quinn explained during an ATE Impacts Blog interview conducted via Zoom with Quinn and Silvers.

Silvers reported the handbook is a valuable resource for PI 101 participants. Many participants find the handbook and other PI 101 resources especially helpful because, while they are subject-matter experts in their discipline, many are leading grant-funded projects for the first time.

Both Quinn and Silvers think the 11-page, step-by-step guide with its practical advice on how to use tools such as Gantt charts, is adaptable for use in many disciplines and for projects of all sizes.

 Mentor-Connect Principal Investigator Pamela Silvers tested the Project Management Handbook for National Science Foundation (NSF) Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Projects with PI 101 participants; the handbook is now available from Mentor-Connect’s Resource Library.

“I think the principles are the same, whether you're building a bridge or running a grant—principles of project management are the same. It's all about managing risk, staying on budget, staying on schedule, keeping communication [open] with your team and other stakeholders,” Quinn said.

Silvers said she hopes that ATE principal investigators will be “able to take this to other endeavors that they're doing, be it other grants or just work at their college.”

Elevator Pitch

In retrospect, the serendipitous elevator meeting at HI-TEC 2023 was a full-circle moment for Quinn.

As a Mentor-Connect mentee in 2019, she learned to develop a 90-second “elevator pitch” of her first ATE project proposal, which was awarded funding in 2020. The Mentor-Connect: Leadership Development and Outreach for ATE  project is a partnership between the South Carolina Advanced Technological Education Center at Florence-Darlington Technical College and the American Association of Community Colleges.

Creating an “elevator pitch” is one of the activities Mentor-Connect has mentees do to refine their ATE proposal ideas. The exercise generates a valuable tool for prospective principal investigators to take from their first Mentor-Connect workshop to explain their ATE grant proposals to administrators and to potential academic and industry partners.

In 2023 Silvers was working with PI 101’s first cohort of new ATE principal investigators. Through virtual, group meetings and webinars PI 101 guides new principal investigators and their team members through the first year of project implementation.

PI 101 received the Innovative Program Award at HI-TEC 2024  for developing and implementing “a significant innovation, which has led to a positive impact on student enrollment, retention, and/or advanced technological education.”

Silvers continues to lead PI 101 in her new role as principal investigator of Mentor-Connect. Mentor-Connect’s other services include Second-Chance Mentoring to help faculty rework and resubmit ATE proposals that have been declined for funding; Moving-Up Mentoring to assist faculty who have had successful small ATE grants prepare larger grant proposals; Co-Mentoring that combines discipline-specific guidance from ATE centers and technical expertise from Mentor-Connect.  Mentor-Connect develops new mentors through its Mentors Fellow program.

Quinn is a consultant to Mentor-Connect and was in the first cohort of Community College Presidents' Initiative in STEM Fellows. Since May 2023, when she left OCC, where she was then assistant dean of Natural and Applied Sciences, Quinn has been a project manager at an environmental engineering company. She will complete the requirements for her doctoral degree in higher education from the University of Southern Mississippi in August. She said the use of the handbook by Mentor-Connect is “teed up” for a longitudinal study to see if and how it helps people manage projects.

In addition to PI 101’s accolades and positive reviews, Silvers said participants’ enthusiasm has included several queries about whether Mentor-Connect could add PI 102 to its offerings.