- Author: Deanne Meyer
June zoomed by in a whirlwind. We're all excited to welcome Brent Hales as AVP for Research and Extension. Brent hit the ground running on Monday. His schedule is filled with meeting direct reports, getting to know Academic Human Resources team members, and getting his emails to work. As many know, the key item is to have a functional email. Thanks to everyone who did the pre-arrival onboarding both his ANR and UCOP emails work! This is a BIG reminder to everyone who is onboarding employees to start the email acquisition process as soon as possible so people. A huge shout out to IT Kathy Eftekhari and IT for making this all happen! I'll work with Brent over the next two months as he settles in.
I'll do a combination of June summary and July adventures over the next few weeks.
June 29 was the magical day for Advisors Jim Downer, Cindy Fake, John Harper, Craig Kallsen, Rachael Long, Brian Marsh, Fe Moncloa, and Marisa Neelon. We congratulate them on Emeritus title, wish them well in retirement and look forward to seeing them working on their emeritus workplan beginning August 1 as they finish up projects. Combined these colleagues shared over 200 years of service. Simultaneously, Specialists Alan Mchughen (housed at UCR) and Specialists Loren Oki, Stephen Kaffka, Elizabeth Mitcham, and Dan Putnam (housed at UCD) retired with 143 years of combined service. Their impacts will be realized for decades to come! Meanwhile, July 3rd marked 50 years of service (fifty, it is not a typo) for David Zilberman, Professor, Robinson Chair and CE Specialist at UCB. Congratulations one and all on incredible accomplishments and milestones!
As our academics know, the merit and promotion season ended in June. There were 68 dossiers. A huge thank you to the members of the PRC, Ad Hoc committees, and Personnel Committee for their thoughtful analyses of each dossier. This remarkable group of academics makes the process run. Thank you, Steven Worker who worked with Vice Provost Obrist, in managing the process and to Michelle Leinfelder-Miles for her leadership with the Personnel Committee. We have a remarkable group of academics who dedicate time to make this happen. A special congratulations and thank you to Daniel Obrist who championed his first merit and promotion cycle and Vanya Woodward who gathered the many letters of evaluation from external evaluators. My takeaway from reading 68 dossiers: we have impactful work occurring statewide! It's impressive. A few suggestions to all academics: 1) take time to read the eBook long before you start assembling your dossier; 2) attend trainings regularly during your first 6 years as your responsibilities in the first three terms change; 3) prepare your dossier in advance to request input from peers and your CD; and 4) view dossier preparation to reflect on your work. Since academics are proud of their work it stands to reason time is invested to assemble a fabulous dossier to share.
