ASR Conference Calendar

There is a new Google calendar called “ASR Conference Calendar” that has been shared with all ASR staff members. Staff have been given access to update this calendar.

Previously, staff members were directed to use a Google spreadsheet to communicate conference attendance; the spreadsheet is no longer necessary. By using the new calendar, all staff will be able to see conferences to which any ASR staff are attending.

If you did not receive an email with a link to add the calendar, you can do so in the Google Calendar app:

• Click on “Other calendars” drop down arrow
• Select “Add coworker’s calendar”
• Copy and paste: umn.edu_togdfn15bfthftp5343baufjjc@group.calendar.google.com
• Hit enter

Entries will appear at the top of the calendar as all-day events.

When creating a conference entry include:

• What: Name of organization of the conference, summit, or forum 
• Where: Location
• When: Start and end dates
• A description of the event and or sponsoring organization is always helpful.
• Optional: listed attendees 

Sign-up for Advising Update newsletter

The Office of Undergraduate Education (OUE) has created a new newsletter for undergraduate academic advisors. It is used to share updates and promote awareness of initiatives that inform advising practices. Planned topics for the newsletter include:

• graduation and retention rates,
• student survey data results,
• transfer student initiatives,
• tuition and financial aid,
• educational policy,
• and updates from OUE coordinated committees.

While the content is created with undergraduate advisors in mind, it is available to anyone interested in the topics. You can read the June edition and/or sign up to receive future editions.

Summer in The School Yard

The School Yard on the McNamara Alumni Center lawn

Looking to soak up some rays on your lunch break? Grab a co-worker (or two or three) and visit The School Yard on the McNamara Alumni Center lawn!

With the goal of making full use of the park outside McNamara, The School Yard program invites all students, faculty, and staff to have some healthy fun in the Minnesota sun. Enjoy Wednesday concerts, lunchtime fitness classes, yard games, and more. As the summer heat rises, don’t forget your water bottle!

Join The School Yard newsletter, or take a look at the list of activities and concerts on The School Yard Facebook page.

Hurry sickness: do you have it?

Do you rush from meeting to meeting? Do you often over-commit your time, sometimes even skipping lunch? Does your work week sometimes feel like a never-ending cycle of panic?

If you answered yes—or even considered yes—to the questions above, you may suffer from “hurry sickness.” Discover new strategies that can help you slow down and make the most of your time »

Compensation plan for ASR FY17

The Provost has approved our compensation plan for FY17. For civil service, and professional and administrative (P&A) staff, increases are based on performance appraisal ratings as follows:

Rating	Increase
3 - outstanding	3.25% increase
2 - successful	2.5% increase
1 - needs improvement	0%

The rate increase information in this chart does not include bargaining unit staff.

Staff will receive letters with their compensation information this June. Staff will not receive a letter if they started in a new position after December 31, 2015. Thank you to everyone for your work this past year. If you have questions, contact Sue Van Voorhis.

Strategic direction for ASR

We will continue to provide updates on our strategic direction and priorities in News & Notes and Sue’s videos. In this issue, we are featuring the Organizational Effectiveness priority. Several projects are part of this priority currently:

• IDP and Performance Appraisal projects: the forms have been revised and used for this performance cycle and the IDP process was defined and improved. Feedback will be gathered on these changes.

• E2 team: The ASR Staff Engagement team is focused on collaboration this month. Each ASR unit has identified their top engagement initiatives for the year. Team members are now sharing that information with one another, and looking for initiatives that are common or overlapping in order to take advantage of, and build, cross-functional collaboration opportunities.

• Diversity & inclusion: ASR has started a group to evaluate our processes and structures within ASR, and ensure that we have the best work environment possible. The group just formed last month and is beginning to determine the areas of focus, but will likely look at recruiting and hiring practices, as well as raising awareness on issues of diversity, equity, and and inclusion.

• ASR leadership development: ASR is identifying many current and future leaders to lead projects in ASR, and identifying professional development opportunities to ensure ASR has strong leadership capabilities.

• Development team: the development team is reviewing feedback from the most recent event and is beginning to plan the 2016-17 staff events. New members will be replacing those cycling off the team. The next staff event will be in October; more information will be available soon.

Grade entry statistics

Our ASR business analysts were busy this spring 2016 term managing and manually entering grades that were never entered or approved, and therefore never picked up by scheduled processes.

• Not-Graded grades: These grades are given to courses that don’t receive a traditional grade. ASR business analysts manually entered more than 5,570 grades spanning 410 classes throughout the University of Minnesota system.
• Not-Reported grades: Instructors did not enter grades by the grades due deadline. Over 9,800 grades spanning 960 classes on the Twin Cities campus were posted manually.

• Non-Approved grades: These grades were entered and saved, but never officially approved by instructors for posting. ASR business analysts entered 480 non-approved grades for 188 different classes.