Pam Vargas leads as grant director and university first lady
Being chosen as the president of a university is a daunting task, and so comes with being the president's wife. Pam Vargas has held the title of first lady since her husband, Dr. Carlos Vargas, took office as Southeast Missouri State University's 18th president on July 1. Pam Vargas also is the director for Research and Grant Development at Southeast, previously serving as executive director of Kutztown University Research Center.
What's it like holding the title as first lady of Southeast?
That's an interesting one, because it's still something that I'm trying to get wrapped around. With the whole first lady thing, it still seems kind of weird in some ways. Introducing myself to people, I usually say, "I'm the president's wife," because the whole first lady thing hasn't quite sunk in, and it just feels a little strange sometimes. But it's been a really great experience getting to do so many things with the university and in the community as well. It's a lot of fun to be able to promote the university and the students and faculty and staff.
What does your work include as director?
The office is assigned the task of helping faculty and staff prepare and submit grant proposals to funding agencies, and that can be anything from private foundations to Missouri state organizations and agencies and then federal agencies as well. So that's what we do on a day-to-day basis. I usually tell people that we help faculty find grant money and then try to keep them out of trouble when they do actually get it. Actually, at that point, too, we would be handing things off to the accounting department, but we primarily work with the pre-award and a little bit of what they call post-award, or once something is awarded.
How did you and President Vargas meet?
We actually met at a conference. We met in Omaha, and at that time, he was also in the field that I'm in now, which we usually refer to as research administration. He was working at Kent State University in Ohio, and I was working in Indiana at the University of Notre Dame, and we both attended this conference and we happened to meet there. We didn't live all that far from each other, so we kept in touch and one thing led to another.
How has your relationship shaped you as a leader and role model for others?
It actually is really interesting, because I have learned a lot that is about a university beyond what we normally would in this particular field. For instance, we don't always deal very much with students in this field. It depends on the structure at a particular university, but typically we wouldn't have as much to do with students. We would be encouraging faculty to write students into their grants, and it's a priority, but getting the experience of working more with students, with learning more about academics, has really helped me to be more effective in my job. It allows me insight into the institution that sometimes you can help put into a proposal or at least understand where a faculty or staff member is coming from as well.
How would you describe your leadership style?
... I've actually written and done presentations a number of times on servant leadership, because it was an area that was kind of near and dear to me. It actually does tie in with working with the staff as well, but particularly working with faculty and staff on proposals, I really do believe that you can lead best by example sometimes, and sometimes that means also being a servant, because what we do in our business is to actually provide a service for faculty. We don't really dictate what they're going to do, but we provide the support for them. So you can lead quietly by doing that. We certainly have to steer them in certain directions sometimes to make sure things are in compliance, that the proposal is in the best shape. Just by doing it in the way we do in more of a service mentality, I think that is one of the best ways to provide leadership.
What's your advice to students on how to be successful?
A lot of times I will tell them not to do some of the things that I did, which isn't nearly as exciting as it sounds. It's just I look back at the things that I didn't take as much advantage of. ... Get involved in things on campus, because I didn't get involved in as many things as I should have, as I wish I had now. Use the Career Services offices to help you find internships and things, that's so important now. Again, I had friends who worked in Career Services, and I didn't use it as early as I should have. I used some of the services, but not as early and as often as I should have. Then, be passionate about what you do, and a lot of things will take care of themselves if you're passionate about it.
Read the full Q&A at SoutheastArrow.com.