Campus Climate micro-grants

The Campus Climate Micro-Grants program, sponsored by the Office for Equity & Diversity through generous support from the Office of the President, is back! Applications open on Monday, January 29, and close on Thursday, March 7. If you have a project in mind that aligns with their mission to create a more inclusive and welcoming campus, apply for funding! This invitation extends systemwide to all University of Minnesota students, faculty, staff, and affiliated organizations.

Caucus night

Tuesday, February 27, 2024 is caucus night. Per Board of Regents resolution, the University may schedule classes or events on caucus night with the Board’s authorization. However, students and/or instructors are permitted to attend their party’s caucus night if they wish. Students must notify their instructor in advance, and instructors are expected to accommodate their requests. If enough students indicate that they will be attending their caucus so that holding class becomes impractical, instructors may cancel the class or make alternative arrangements.

Floating holiday survey

The Civil Service Consultative Committee (CSCC) is tasked with making recommendations to the Office of the President for the University of Minnesota Twin Cities and Rochester floating holiday schedule. The CSCC is seeking input from multiple employee groups about which days to recommend. You can provide your input by taking the UMN TC and Rochester Floating Holiday Poll, which is available until February 9. You will be asked to select your first, second, and third choices from a list of possible dates for floating holidays for the 2027-2028 academic year.

Wellness app

If you are looking for a way to get healthy and save money, check out the UMN Employee Wellbeing Program. It offers tailored programming in six areas: financial, social, career, emotional, community, and physical health. Programming opportunities range from webinars, to guided meditations, to biometric screenings. Program participants can also save money on their health insurance by earning points throughout the calendar year.

Program’s upcoming events:

• The Mindful Monday series
• Invest Confidently in Your Future
• Working With Challenging People
• Health Coaching: Know Your Numbers

Interested employees and spouses can sign up for the program through the Virgin Pulse wellbeing app. This app is an easy way to track your progress, sign up for webinars and events, and see your rewards in one place. The app also offers a video library, fitness classes, recipes and cooking suggestions, wellness ideas, and creative tips to start a fitness routine. Sign up in the Virgin Pulse Portal to start taking advantage of these wellbeing opportunities.

ASR Staff Engagement February 8 Survey

This week’s ASR Staff Engagement Survey assesses your knowledge of phishing/email scams. Thank you for continuing to share your stories and experiences.

According to the last survey, most would describe the style of communication within their unit as assertive (52.4%): confident but also respectful of others’ thoughts and feelings. In addition, most say that they do not do icebreaker questions in their recurring meetings (72.7%). When asked about how you typically communicate with your colleagues, 54.5% communicate through chat, followed by 18.2% who typically use email, and 9.1% who typically use Slack.

Finally, we asked what song/music has been stuck in your head lately. Most responses mentioned songs from musicals, such as Bikini Bottom Day from Spongebob the Musical, Six the musical, and 10 Minutes Ago from Rodgers and Hammerstein's Cinderella. Thanks all for your continued participation! It is very much appreciated. The results from the last survey are available below

January 25 survey results

Which of the following best describes the style of communication within your unit?

• Passive communication ("I don't care one way or the other") (33.3%)
• Passive-aggressive communication ("I'll just take care of it myself") (9.5%)
• Aggressive communication ("We're doing it my way. End of discussion.") (4.8%)
• Assertive communication ("Great idea, but have you considered...?") (52.4%)

Are icebreaker questions used in any of your recurring meetings?

• Yes (27.3%)
• No (72.7%)

How do you typically communicate with your colleagues?

• Chat (54.5%)
• Email (18.2%)
• Slack (9.1%)
• In meetings (4.5%)
• Balance between all of the above (4.5%)

What song/music has been stuck in your head lately?

• All the music from the show Beef...earworms of my youth
• Rollout by Ludacris
• What Was I Made For?
• I Drove All Night - Celine Dion
• Unwritten - Natasha Bedingfield

Tony's tech terms: Pair programming

We work in pairs a lot. On face value, it would seem that we’d get about half as much done. Multiple studies have found this to be a false assumption. For example:

In a 1999 controlled experiment in a classroom setting, Dr. Laurie Williams found pair programming took a team about 15 percent more developer hours than working as individuals. However, she found defects to be 15 percent lower, design quality higher, and the project completed in 45 percent less calendar time.

—Practical Pair Programming by Jason Garber, page 6

We see a lot of benefits from pair programming. It prevents us from working in isolation. Having someone else present to check our thinking reduces the number of errors and results in better, more stable code that is easier to maintain. We write code that is intended to be read and understood by other developers—sometimes years later. Working with another person improves our code readability.

It also spreads context on the team so that it’s easier to support our applications when someone is on vacation or sick. And it helps us maintain relationships with each other since we mostly work remotely. Everyone on the team rotates through a pairing schedule. We learn from each other as we each bring our own tips, tricks, and experiences to share.

Meet the comma splice, eradicator of conjunctions!

He loves reading, he hates libraries. What’s wrong with that sentence? Other than being entirely nonsensical, the sentence contains the dreaded comma splice. A comma splice is when two independent clauses are joined by a comma instead of a conjunction (junction) or a “stronger” form of punctuation, like a period or semicolon. This is also known as a run-on sentence.

The comma splice is a formal writing no-no. So, what should you do when you use a comma splice at work? You have three options:

• Add one of the FANBOYS after the comma:
• For, And, Nor, But, Or, Yet, So
• Add a period to make each independent clause its own sentence
• Change the comma into a semicolon

He loves reading, but he hates libraries. He loves reading. He hates libraries. He loves reading; he hates libraries. The subject may still need an attitude adjustment. But at least the sentences are now grammatically correct.