Student Health Benefit Plan messaging in MyU

Students who are admitted to a degree program and registered for six or more credits per semester are required to have health insurance (see full eligibility rules). If students do not complete a survey indicating that they already have health insurance, they are automatically enrolled in the student health benefit plan. The student health benefit plan costs $1116 a semester, and students have approximately three weeks after the first day of classes to waive this coverage before they are charged. Many students appeal the charge once they see it on their bill.

This spring, messaging about waiving the student health benefit plan was added to the My Finances tab of MyU. Responses to the student health benefits survey increased by 15%.

 

	Total eligible students	Total completed (waive or enroll)	Total waived	Total enrolled	Total pending (incomplete)	Overall completion percentage
Spring 2018	8214	5300	2746	2554	2914	65%
Spring 2019	7423	5924	3252	2672	1499	80%
Difference	-791	+624	+506	+118	-1415	+15%

Boynton Health will maintain this messaging and continue to present it through the My Finances tab in the future.

Chrome River updates

A new job aid was released by the Chrome River support team: Lodging Expense Itemization. As a reminder, process and policies for Chrome River and reimbursements can be found in the ASR Admin Resource Guide. You can search to find specific topics.

Please also keep in mind the two critical deadlines when submitting transactions. For those staff with Travel Cards (TCards), transactions must be submitted within 30 days of the charge which means some of your advance purchases (e.g. registrations, airfare) need to be submitted before the trip. For those staff with out-of-pocket expenses, IRS rules require any reimbursement paid after 60 days to be flagged as taxable income so it is in your best interest to submit requests timely.

ASR March Madness 2019

Is your bracket busted? Want to compete in a new March Madness? Do you have what it takes to dethrone The Bakernators? If so, good news, the ASR March Madness tournament is starting next week. If you want to participate, you need to join the qualifying round. Shoot 10 shots next week and send your score to Marcus Muller or Max Herman. Here's how you can do that:

On your friend's honor style - Go to Williamson Hall (right next to Alex Rose's desk), or Fraser 200 (right by the welcome desk) or Bruininks Hall (inside the Onestop Staff area) with a friend/witness and take 10 shots. You can shoot from either the 1 point line or the 3 point line. Keep track of your score and send the following information to Mull0262@umn.edu and nmherman@umn.edu:

• Name
• Team Nickname
• Work email address
• Your score 
• CC your friend on the email so we can claim it is on your friend's honor. 

If you don't have a friend/witness, you can go to Fraser Hall room 200 next Thursday (April 4) from 11-12pm and take your shots in front of Max. Additionally, you can go to Williamson Hall on Friday (April 5) from 2-3pm and take your shots in front of Marcus.

After the qualifying round is finished, we will determine who made the elite 8 and we will reach out to those individuals to organize future tournament play. The winner of the whole tournament will be forever recognized on the board of champions and will learn the secret to happiness. You will also get the great desk decoration as seen in the picture.

ASR March Madness Champions

Due March 29: performance appraisals

Your performance appraisal is due to your supervisor on March 29. See the full schedule for performance reviews. Please remember not to fill out the form if it opens in your web browser window. You must locate the file on your computer (likely in your Downloads folder) and open the file in Adobe Reader or a similar program. If you fill out the form in a web browser, you are likely to lose any information you type.

ASR Google Groups - please use appropriately

Please be mindful of when it is or is not appropriate to send emails using any of our ASR Google Groups. Google Groups are only for work-related topics. Some of the Google Groups are monitored and your message may be rejected if it is not appropriate. If you have a message to share more personal in nature, please send it to those individuals directly. Contact your administrative support contact (Lindsay/Megan) with questions.

ASR Engagement team updates

The ASR Engagement team is working on a few things including reviewing the equitable distribution of work and updating nameplates department-wide. New nameplates will include individuals’ work schedule and personal pronouns if desired.

Your calendar

As a reminder, please include your working hours and telecommute times in your Google Calendar. Learn how to set your working hours. Indicate your telecommute times with an event on your calendar set to “free” instead of “busy”. Use a description like “Working remotely - available for meetings.” This will allow others to schedule meetings with you while seeing that you are remote.

Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion survey: help us improve ASR

We invite you to take the 2019 ASR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion survey. The survey was created by the ASR DEI committee to help ASR gain a better understanding of your perspectives and experiences related to your work in ASR. It will be used to shape future initiatives towards creating a more inclusive and equitable organization. The survey takes less than five minutes. Thank you for your participation.

Negotiated Rulemaking, round two

In February we shared that Tina Falkner has been selected to serve as an alternate negotiator representing four-year public institutions for the current round of Negotiated Rulemaking with the federal Department of Education (ED). She shared her reflections about round one, and now has thoughts to share about round two.