Update from Stacey

This week, supervisors received reports from the most recent Employee Engagement Survey, sometimes called E2. I’ve taken a preliminary look at the results for ASR and had the following takeaways:

• ASR had a great response rate (93%).
• We continue to do well in several areas such as professional development, respect and recognition, and supporting wellbeing.
• A few areas for improvement include increasing cross-departmental communication and developing/communicating a clear department-wide strategy for the future.

We will need time to go over the results and form plans together, but I am looking forward to digging deeper and ultimately deciding where we can make improvements for ASR as a whole. I appreciate all of the feedback that we received from the survey. Thank you!

New chartstrings for professional development

The costs associated with attending conferences and other professional development opportunities are being separated from our regular operating budgets onto new professional development chartstrings, so we can better manage the requests. The Reimbursement EFS/Account Code Info spreadsheet, which is part of the ASR Administrative Support Resource Guide, has been updated with the specific chartstring details for each unit, as well as information regarding what should be charged to the new chartstrings. Please check this reference document before your next expense submission. If you have any questions, please contact ASRCentral@umn.edu.

2022-23 ASR Annual Report now available

The ASR annual report covering the period of September 2022 to August 2023 is complete and available on the ASR website homepage. This document highlights key metrics and accomplishments from each unit. It may be especially useful for new staff or for those we partner with outside of ASR as it provides a comprehensive overview of all we do for the University. Feel free to share with anybody you think would be interested!

Project prioritization for next quarter

The OSI Projects team prioritized 12 projects for the Quarterly Planning Period 3 (P3) of 2024, which starts in February. This is in addition to the 9 projects that are currently in the analysis or implementation phase. You can view these projects below. A more comprehensive view, which includes the “Project Backlog,” is also available on the ASR Project Plan Preview.

Projects prioritized for implementation for the next period:

• OCM website (classroom.umn.edu) redesign
• Tuition Tracking/Forecasting Dashboards

Projects prioritized for analysis for the next period:

• DORS Server
• University catalog PDF Generation
• Redesign Student Records (SR) batch schedule
• ASR Website Update
• Upgrade to Salesforce Lightning
• Chatbot Phase 2: Live Agent Implementation
• 08GRD Transition to Collegiate Units
• EDP Data Governance & PS Table-level review
• System-wide Degree Progress MyU Tab (Student Degree Progress for System Campuses)
• Electronic Payments for 529 Plans

Any project requests that were not prioritized for the upcoming planning period will be held in the Project backlog for reconsideration in the next Quarterly Planning Period (P4), which starts in May. If you would like to submit a project request for the next Quarterly Planning Period, you can do so via the ASR Project Request form.

New year, new you - DEI professional development opportunities

It’s a fresh calendar year, and we’ve all recently completed writing our performance appraisals. This means that, for a number of reasons, you might have goal setting, resolutions, and personal or professional growth on your mind. As higher-education professionals, the work of learning and sharpening our skills is never done, and that includes our work in the diversity, equity, and inclusion space.

DEI professional development opportunities at the University and in the broader higher-education community can be simultaneously overwhelming in number and difficult to find. To help, the DEI Committee compiled a short list of upcoming conferences, workshops, and webinars that center on diversity, equity, and inclusion. We hope that the list of opportunities below can be a starting point as you discuss goals and professional development with your supervisor.

This list is by no means complete! If you know of other opportunities, please share them with the DEI Committee by emailing us at asrdei@umn.edu or share directly with ASR DEI Community of Practice Google group.

Conferences and Workshops

• 2024 Phyllis L. Mable Emerging Leaders Institution, The American College Personnel Association (ACPA)–College Student Educators International (registration fee required)
• Conference on Diversity, Equity, and Student Success, The American Association of Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) (registration fee required)

University of Minnesota-sponsored

• Equity Certificate Hosted Online (ECHO), Office of Equity and Diversity
• Women’s Leadership Institute, Office of Equity and Diversity: The Women’s Center (2024-25 cohort application date is TBD, registration fee required)
• Online Module: The Confidence Gap, Office of Equity and Diversity: The Women’s Center
• Diversity Data Deep Dive, Office of Equity and Diversity: Diversity Community of Practice (2024 date TBD)

Free Webinars

• Understanding Black First-gen Men, Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education—National Association of Student Personnel Administrators (NASPA)
• Insight Into Diversity webinars (past webinar recordings available)
• National Association of Diversity Officers in Higher Education (NADOHE) webinars (past webinar recordings available)

Check out the Office of Equity and Diversity’s Deep Dive Resources for more ideas!

ASR Staff Engagement January 25 Survey

This week’s ASR Staff Engagement Survey examines communication and collaboration. Thank you for continuing to share your stories and experiences!

According to the last survey, most respondents made it to midnight on New Year’s Eve this year (73.1%). When asked about what you are looking forward to in 2024, the new FAFSA simplification or planned travel for this year were mentioned most frequently.

Coca-Cola/Diet Coke was voted your favorite soda/sparkling water (24%) followed by Dr. Pepper (12%). Finally, when asked about your favorite local pizza places, Pizza Luce and Pizzeria Lola were mentioned most frequently by a large margin. Thanks all for your continued participation! It is very much appreciated. The results from the last survey are available below.

January 11 survey results

Did you make it to midnight on New Year's Eve?

• Yes (73.1%)
• No (26.9%)

What are you looking forward to in 2024?

• FAFSA Simplification successful completion!
• Traveling to Dublin to visit my son
• The Olympics
• Finishing up some house projects
• Seeing Madonna in concert!

What's your favorite soda/sparkling water?

• Coca-Cola/Diet Coke (24%)
• Dr. Pepper (12%)
• Sprite (8%)
• LaCroix (8%)
• Bubly (8%)

What's your favorite local pizza place (if any)?

• Specialty pizza: pizzeria Lola, pizza Luce
• Donatelli's in White Bear Lake
• Pizza Luce reigns supreme!
• El Mar's pizza or Jet's pizza
• Pizza Man in Columbia Heights!

Tony's tech terms: Git & Github

To review changes to our application code, we use a tool called “git” that helps us keep track of changes to all of our source code in a “repository,” or “repo” for short. We have one repo per application.

A companion to git is GitHub. There’s a free, public version of GitHub at github.com, but the University also maintains an enterprise version at github.umn.edu that we primarily use.

Whenever we make changes to our code, it’s stored as a git “commit.” We write a message for each commit. In that message, we try to provide the context for why we’re making a code change. This is very helpful when we want to trace the history of code changes. We can see messages we left for ourselves about why a change was made, and when. That history is extremely important, so we tend to write longish commit messages. They’re letters from our past.

Once we’re confident that our code changes are ready, we submit a “pull request” in GitHub that notifies the team. We can then see the changed code and review it. This is the time to ask questions and give suggestions. We’ve built up a healthy culture of supporting each other in pull request reviews.

Once a developer approves a pull request, we “merge” it. That just means it gets included with our deployable code. Some of our longer-lived applications have thousands of commits and pull requests. This gives us a rich history that’s especially helpful when working on fixing bugs.