Kristi Koriath is currently the Director of the Sponsored Programs Office (SPO) at Ball State University. This campus service unit helps faculty members identify potential funding opportunities, assists in their development of grant proposal applications, and submits proposals to funding agencies.
The Sponsored Programs Office is currently participating in the campus-wide Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) initiative. This movement is in the process of streamlining and coordinating the technological and business processes of various functions of Ball State University. The selected vendor is Sungard, and the company’s consultants and Ball State personnel together are focusing on understanding how to incorporate what is needed in order to carry out the functions of these various offices using Sungard’s higher education software system. This initiative will put the Sponsored Programs Office in a better position to carry out its work more expeditiously and accurately.
Koriath currently holds a Bachelor of Music from Drake University and Eastman School of Music from her first career as a musician, and a Master of Science degree which she obtained from the Center for Information and Communication Sciences at Ball State University.
Kristi's husband, Kirby, is retiring as a Professor in the School of Music at Ball State University in the spring of 2011. Her oldest son, Tad, is a musician in Denver, her daughter, Lindsay, is the communications manager for the French Pastry School of Chicago, and her youngest son, Parry, just returned from teaching English in Japan and is currently studying graphic design in Chicago.
“The primary 'take-away' from CICS for me,” says Koriath, “was the understanding that you don’t have to be afraid of something new. That experience enabled me to tackle other challenges 'outside my comfort zone,' and to arrive at a place where I felt I could make a contribution to my colleagues and to the field.” Koriath suggests that all CICS students keep investigating and keep trying. “[The Sponsored Programs Office] finds in our work with faculty members seeking grant funding that normally the first application is turned down! By receiving reviewer comments, taking them to heart, revising, and resubmitting a proposal (sometimes more than once), ultimate success can be attained. I think it’s the same process in any walk of life.”