ASR Collegiate Connection tour

On behalf of Academic Support Resources (ASR), Sue VanVoorhis, associate provost and University registrar, recently completed visits with the leadership of every Twin Cities college and visits with Morris, Duluth, and Crookston campus leadership (23 meetings with approximately 120 people). Sue used ASR's five strategic initiatives as a framework to talk about ASR's work, and the operational and policy issues that impact the colleges. The sessions were helpful in making connections with important stakeholder groups, providing a forum for hearing each college's needs, and answering questions about issues important to them.

Sue was supported on selected topics by Stacey Tidball, Jeff Idle, Jeremy Todd, Tina Falkner and Adrienne Bricker.

Thanks Sue for this huge effort on behalf of ASR!

Upcoming IDP review and performance appraisal timeline

Stay tuned as the final form and instructions are distributed in the near future, so staff will soon be able to begin their self-assessments. With that in mind, here is an overview timeline for performance appraisals and IDP review (specific dates will be available soon):

• February: Employees should review IDPs with supervisors
• April 3: Employees submit self-assessments to their supervisor
• Mid-April: Supervisors submit to unit director
• End of April: Unit directors complete review and edits for all appraisals in their unit 
• First week of May: Directors complete review for consistency across ASR
• May: Supervisors and employees meet to discuss

Reminder: On Thursday, February 23, join in on a special ASR-wide in-service where Grant Clavelle will speak more in-depth about the self-evaluation process, followed by a refresher on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the federal law that protects the privacy of student education records presented by Stacey Tidball and Tina Falkner.

Developmental conversations

The supervisor/employee relationship is one of the keys to employee satisfaction and employees who work with their supervisors on goal-setting are 17 times more likely to be engaged, according to Gallup. To build on the good work already happening with IDPs, ASR is forming a project team to provide tools and supportive skill-based learning opportunities for supervisors, focused on developmental conversations. 

We are seeking both supervisors and individual contributors who are able to commit 2-3 hours per week to this effort. Your help is needed if you have experience with and passion for developing people and searching for best practices and developmental models. If interested, please email Adrienne Bricker with a few details about what is drawing you to this project team before Monday, February 20. 

ASR staff attend implicit bias training

Several members of ASR attended a training on “Identifying and Challenging Implicit Bias in Staff Searches.” The Office of Human Resources staff who presented the workshop shared best practices for recruiting and hiring. This information will be helpful for the ASR Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee as they work to enhance ASR’s recruiting, search and hiring practices. Some of the key takeaways included the importance of increasing candidate pools by promoting new jobs outside of the typical ways the University recruits and making sure to avoid taking shortcuts in the hiring process to move things along, which can result in implicit bias. 

Celebrating Black History Month

Since 1976, every US president has officially designated the month of February as Black History Month. It serves as an annual celebration of achievements by black Americans and recognizes the central role of African Americans in US history. There are a number of events for celebration on campus. See more details. 

OCM annual report

The Office of Classroom Management (OCM) and the communications team collaborated to create an annual report, which is now available. The annual report highlights OCM accomplishments and identifies trends that will impact OCM in the next year.

PCMC spring book club

Join the Project & Change Management Collaborators for their spring book club. We will be reading The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life by Twyla Tharp (ISBN-10: 0743235274 paperback edition). Give your creative mind and skills a tune-up and learn how to apply creativity while managing projects. Join us for a lunchtime group discussion on Wednesday, April 19, 12:00-1:30 p.m. Read the PCMC Notice and check out the PCMC Book Club Page for more info.