Update from Stacey

It was great to see so many faces at this morning’s Zoom meeting about the ASR relocation. Thanks for attending!

It’s been a busy couple of weeks with the start of term, moving my office over to Williamson 130, and -- on the home front -- celebrating my son’s 14th birthday. In addition to all of this, we have been reviewing next steps in the ASR Central, Continuity & Compliance, and OTR alignment work that kicked off in June 2021 and concluded in August. We have a few updates on the progress of the alignment work:

• Following the alignment group’s recommendation, Ingrid Nuttall’s title will be changed to reflect the campus-wide and system responsibilities of her position. Her new title will be Deputy Registrar. As part of this change, Ingrid and I are working closely to ensure that work is correctly distributed between the University Registrar role and that of Deputy Registrar and the Office of the Registrar. I will keep you updated on changes that might affect your work. The APAS, GPAS, & TES staff will continue to report to the Office of the Registrar.
• Also following the alignment group’s recommendations, ASR Central and the unit formerly known as Continuity & Compliance will be combined into a single unit (we are still working on coming up with the right unit name). We will not be posting the director position that I held previously. The combined unit is being led by Carin Anderson-Thoms. We have future work to formalize these role changes and shift some responsibilities.
• The work of this unit spans operations, logistics, strategic initiatives, user experience and communications, training, organizational effectiveness, data privacy, and compliance coordination including academic policy support.
• The directors are continuing to shape a role to be posted that will focus on project management and prioritization. This role will report to Carin and utilizes the position formerly held by Lindsay.
• Carin Anderson-Thomas, Ingrid Nuttall, and I have been sharing FERPA responsibilities for several months and are formalizing some separate responsibilities in this area. Ingrid is taking on FERPA consultation (answering the many questions that come up from staff and faculty) with Carin as a partner and back-up. Carin will be focusing on compliance work in this space, including training content, web content, and coordination with the Office of General Counsel. At this time, I’m continuing to handle vendor contract review, governance representation, and general FERPA support. We are coordinating using a shared email address so if you have FERPA questions, please feel free to contact us (or refer others to) ferpa@umn.edu.

I’m excited about these changes, and I’m grateful to the many people that have supported the alignment work. Thank you!

PI Planning and SAFe

Last month, we provided an overview of Program Increment (PI) Planning, a quarterly event that brings technology teams together, to plan work from January to April 2022. Stacey and Bernie Gulacheck kicked off the planning sessions with the Executive Briefing, which provides an overview of OIT’s strategic themes, alignment with MPact25, and great information on our important work in ASR and partnerships with OIT.

We are continuing to train leads and managers who work or collaborate closely with OIT teams and are starting to see OIT reach out for more participation from other units. For example, Andy Hill will be spending part of his time as the Product Owner supporting the Infrastructure and Production team starting this PI. OIT teams are presenting their PI Planning summaries over the course of the next two weeks, and in our February update, we’ll share these summaries. Please contact Jaime Wascalus (wascalus@umn.edu) if you have any questions.

Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Committee

International Holocaust Remembrance Day

Today is designated by the United Nations as an international memorial day to commemorate the six million Jewish victims of the Holocaust, as well as the millions more victims of Nazism during the Second World War. January 27 was chosen as it is the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz concentration camp in 1945.

The day is also a call to develop educational programs and preserve the true historic accounts of these events to prevent another Holocaust from happening. This is particularly important given recent rises in antisemitism, such as the hostage attack at a Texas synagogue, as well as Americans’ lack of knowledge about the way Adolf Hilter came into power or the scale of the Holocaust. 

To learn more or take part in commemorating victims and survivors, you can explore online resources at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.

A look back on 2021

With 2022 now underway, we wanted to take a moment to share what the ASR DEI Committee accomplished last year, as well as what we are continuing to work toward in the months ahead.

Projects in 2021

• Developed the DEI Hiring Principles of Commitment, Accountability, Representation, and Empathy (CARE)
• Reviewed ASR’s hiring checklist to incorporate CARE principles throughout the hiring process and beyond
• Piloted a process to reduce unintentional bias by redacting identifying information from job applicants’ resumes/cover letters (we will determine if this becomes a recommended practice within ASR)
• Continued to host DEI Community of Practice Coffee Hours as a space to informally discuss DEI topics

Goals for 2022

• Determine opportunities for more focused educational presentations through collaboration with other groups
• Explore the addition of DEI competencies into the annual ASR performance appraisal and staff onboarding
• Explore the DEI impacts of hybrid/remote work spaces

We recognize that this work is ongoing and takes commitment, intentionality, and collaboration from all of us. As always, we welcome sharing any feedback or recommendations with your unit representative or a member of the committee, which is available on the ASR intranet.

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Meaningful conversations – thank you for your feedback!

In the January 13 News & Notes, we asked for your feedback on the topic of meaningful conversations. A huge thank you to all who responded as this will help shape the work that we do moving forward. If you’d still like to provide feedback, you may do so through the Meaningful Conversations Feedback form through January 31. Below is a quick recap of what we’ve heard thus far:

• How interested are you in the topic of meaningful conversations?
• The majority of respondents (66.6%) were interested in the topic, 14.8% fell into the middle of the pack, and 18.5% were not interested.
• We also asked about specific topics to gauge where we could/should focus our work.
• The most popular topic (57.1%) was resources for conversations between colleagues/teams followed by a cheat sheet of conversation starters/prompts (50%). Active listening and resources for initiating conversations with a supervisor rounded out the most popular topics (42.9%).
• A few of you shared some additional resources and several provided us with other topics that the working group should be thinking about, such as understanding strengths and values as an individual to build trust, workload, working conditions, and taking a more holistic view of mental wellness and necessary support structures in ASR.

“You DO Matter” campaign

The Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing has launched a new campaign: You DO Matter. The Center also has a new website dedicated to the campaign where you can sign up to receive weekly messages and gather resources.

ASR Staff Engagement January 27th Survey

This week’s ASR Staff Engagement Survey January 27, 2022 examines how we handle our workload. Thank you for continuing to share your stories and experiences!

According to the last survey, 82.1% of respondents think that their hybrid/remote work experience is going great, followed by 17.9% who think that it is going okay, but it depends. When asked whether folks feel connected to their colleagues, 61.5% reported that they feel connected, followed by 33.3% who sometimes feel connected, and 5.1% who do not feel connected. We received some great additional feedback in regard to this question as well, so thank you for the feedback!

Finally, we had some excellent recommendations when asked about what movies, tv shows, or music have you experienced lately that others should check out. The most frequently mentioned were Insecure, The Witcher, Yellowstone, Ted Lasso, and Don’t Look Up. Thanks all for your continued participation! It is very much appreciated. The results from the last survey are available below.

January 13th, 2021 survey results

How is your hybrid/remote work experience going?

• It’s going great! - 82.1%
• It’s okay, it depends - 17.9%
• It’s not going well - N/A

Do you feel connected to your colleagues?

• Yes - 61.5%
• Sometimes - 33.3%
• No - 5.1%

What movie(s), TV show(s), or music have you experienced lately that everyone in ASR should check out?

• Ted Lasso, Psych
• Don’t Look Up
• West Side Story!
• Wheels of Time
• Cruella
• Ray Donovan
• Red Notice
• Yellowstone, Dexter New Blood
• Staged
• Tick, Tick…boom! (Netflix)

Update from Stacey

Thank you everyone for your work as we approach the start of the spring 2022 term. In lieu of a longer update this issue, please read the message Megan sent earlier today regarding the ASR relocation plans. Like any large project, it has multiple steps, some of which are happening very quickly. I also encourage you to attend the upcoming ASR All Staff Assembly where we will discuss the relocation further. Thanks again, and happy start of term!

Mental Wellness in the Workplace

Meaningful Conversations: Moving beyond, “How are you?” “I’m fine.”

Recently, the Mental Wellness in the Workplace working group has been exploring the topic of meaningful conversations and looking for ways to provide resources and tools for supervisors, staff, and colleagues to create spaces and opportunities to have deeper, more meaningful conversations related to mental wellness, work stress, etc. We recognize that some of our colleagues intentionally choose to draw a line during work conversations, and this series is meant to provide folks with the tools to equip themselves and to not prescribe a style that needs to be adopted.

The working group will continue to build on resources that we already have available (e.g., developmental conversations, google drive resources, etc.), but it is important for us to better understand where folks are coming from right now and what would be most useful to you. We have developed this quick Meaningful Conversations Feedback survey to gather input.

We will be presenting this topic in a series of News & Notes articles over the coming months and look forward to hearing from you.