Role of Coordinator

In the first research team meeting in October 2002, we had a lengthy conversation about roles. We talked about the role of coordinator, and we decided upon Evelyn. No one else particularly wanted the job, and most of us felt that she had the greatest sense of urgency to get the job done.

The role of coordinator was a tricky one for a number of reasons. First, the coordinator was also a researcher and so there were confused dynamics. The coordinator had intimate knowledge of the big picture in terms of time lines and funding realities. Although this was shared regularly and others in the groups helped make decisions, always there was a sense of being the "boss" or the one who would make sure the group pulled off the feat. Although all members of the group have coordinated projects many times, they often let this work rest with the coordinator because it wasn't their direct responsibility and the coordinator went back and forth between letting the group go where it would and pulling at them to meet perceived deadlines and limits.

Secondly, the group was led in many ways by the research friends who had the expertise and vision of the process of which the rest of us were quite innocent. Although we made decisions and shaped the project, the research friends were often in a position of being the only ones who could imagine where our decisions might take us. In the middle of this, the coordinator was (and to some degree the other researcher practitioners were) making decisions also in terms of timing and funding realities. All of us instructors were familiar with the deadlines of finishing projects because the term was over and we had different responsibilities the next term, but those familiar with academy-based research are more used to working to the vagaries and demands of the analysis process which does not necessarily fall within an allotted time slot. These two versions of getting the work done were often conflicted and sometimes represented in the persons of Evelyn, as co-ordinator, and Marina, as the principle research friend.

Thirdly, this project was being administered out of three funding agencies and two community groups, and four colleges were involved in submitting bills and receiving payments. We operated on two different funding years, one a calendar year and one a school year. The two major funders had somewhat different interests in the project and, consequently, we researchers were coping with two sets of expectations. The allotted time for the coordinator was inadequate to dealing with this many players and this many expectations. At one point, funding was held up for a number of months because agencies couldn't agree on what version of a budget report was acceptable! Furthermore, at the height of the project, we were expected to produce four progress reports in one year. These are just two examples of how funding and administration can complicate a seemingly straightforward task!