Early Bird

Inside the President’s Cabinet

Faculty and staff recognition, next phase of President’s Advisory Councils and Roadrunners Give Back highlight Feb. 13 meeting.

By Dan Vaccaro

February 14, 2019

Couldn’t make it to the Feb. 13 President’s Cabinet meeting? The Early Bird has you covered. Here are the highlights.

President Janine Davidson, Ph.D., kicked off the meeting with an update on the next phase for the President’s Advisory Councils. She began by reiterating the purpose of the councils, calling them an opportunity to “provide structure and process, and over time, build a culture where people from all parts of the University can bring ideas, challenges and opportunities.”

She highlighted several council successes, including recommendations from the Workplace and Culture Council that led to changes in Human Resources policy and an inaugural campus awards ceremony “Roadrunners Who Soar,” planned for April 8.

Of the six groups, three will continue their current work, but with changes to leadership. The Academic Excellence and Student Success Council will be helmed by Matt Forcella, professional academic advisor, and Kristy Lyons, Ph.D., assistant professor, both from the Department of Psychology. The Built Environment and Infrastructure and Culture and Workplace councils will also remain in place with changes to leadership. Nominations for council leadership are still being accepted. More information should be available at the next Cabinet meeting.

The Fiscal Responsibility, Strategy and University Policy councils will be rolled into other parts of the day-to-day operations of the University.

Retention Book Club recognized

The members of the Department of Psychology’s Student Retention Book Club were presented with a certificate of appreciation by Provost Vicki Golich, Ph.D., and President Davidson (members in attendance pictured here). The club started spontaneously in the department with the goal finding evidence-based research on successful student-retention practices.

The club’s organizers were Matt Forcella, Lisa Hagan, Courtney Rocheleau and Greg Singer. Other team members included: Pam Ansburg, Jake Cooney, Layton Seth Curl, Bethany Fleck, Mo Flynn, Chris Garris, Christine Good, Jovan Hernandez, Katherine Hill, Lorraine Kubicek, Kristy Lyons, Chad Mortensen, Aaron Richmond, Anna Ropp and Bill Taylor.

Process transformation

Sarah Buller, process transformation specialist, presented on her work assisting teams in improving their processes. All told, her office engaged 58 units across campus, facilitated 64 events and completed seven process-improvement projects in 2018. Among the highlights was a project to make master’s faculty budgets more seamless, efficient and accurate through the development of a single standardized tool. The result was 38 hours in annual time-savings.

Buller will be expanding her work further with a new training coming this March, and said that any team interested in starting a conversation about processes can complete the Process Transformation Inquiry form.

Roadrunners Give Back Day 2019

Julie Lucas — special projects manager in the Strategy, Marketing and Communications Branch —announced that Roadrunners Give Back Day 2019, the University’s annual institutionwide day of service, will take place on April 11.

Participants will be able to volunteer at one of 11 projects such as Denver Health’s Newborns in Need program. The registration website will be launched next week. Stay tuned to the Early Bird for more details.

Are you cyber hygienic?

Mike Hart, director of security, infrastructure and network services in Information Technology Services, shared an update on cyber hygiene. He said that the beginning of the year brings new types of phishing scams — many of which can be very sophisticated.

Among the best-practices for cyber hygiene are: keeping work data and personal data separate, avoiding email when sharing sensitive data and not saving sensitive data any longer than necessary. Hart recommended using collaboration tools like SharePoint rather than email wherever possible.    

Hart also pointed people to the new Early Bird series, Technically Speaking, which features regular updates and tips from ITS.

And other updates

• Strategic Plan 2025 Co-chair Cathy Lucas, vice president of strategy, announced that she and Co-chair Matt Makley, Ph.D., selected Prosono as the consultant for the University’s strategic-planning initiative. 
• Lucas also reported that MSU Denver is still collecting nominations for the Strategic Planning Team. You can nominate yourself or a colleague for the SPT until the end of the month. The team will be announced in early March.  
• As part of the spring 2019 ad campaign, new MSU Denver ads were recently placed in Denver International Airport. If you see them, take a photo and share on social media.
• Christine Márquez-Hudson, vice president of University Advancement, shared that fundraising training for deans and senior leaders will happen this Friday. Next month, faculty and chairs will be trained. If you haven’t been able to make these trainings, there will be additional sessions happening in fall 2019.
• Anthony Grant, Ph.D., director of Athletics, reported that the Division I feasibility study report is now being reviewed by the Board of Trustees. Over the next two months, data will be considered, and results will be reported to the campus community.
• George Middlemist, Ph.D., associate vice president for Administration/CFO and interim vice president for Administration, reported that final candidates for the associate vice president of Human Resources position will be on campus over the next week. He encouraged all Roadrunners to attend the open sessions.

For those who can’t attend Cabinet meetings, you can always listen online. The next meeting is scheduled for March 6 from 9-10:30 a.m. in JSSB 400.