@michaelmayer, you understood correctly. Regarding your possible options, mounting the server directory via NFS or CIFS/SMB may not be a viable solution for me because, as you point out, it would require admin changes, for which I do not have privileges. It's possible to access the files via sshfs, although I'm not sure this is available for mac. I have learned there is an R package called SSH which may work to create this bridge. I will need to figure out how to address the two-factor authentication process to access the server.
As far as the use of Rstudio Server, the network admins have installed a version of Rstudio on the server, but it's too slow and restricts my access to personal libraries.
I'll explore the sshfs or the ssh-package solutions. Thank you.