- 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.
- Author: Julie Sievert
Saturday Night Fever won album of the year, The Dukes of Hazzard roared onto our television screens, and a very young Diana Nickel answered a newspaper ad for a job at Kearney. Hired as a Secretary One with Shorthand, Diana would see plenty of changes over the next 40 years, but one constant would be working at Kearney. When asked how it was to start at Kearney, Diana replied, “I made the choice to take this new job, but honestly, I am not good with change. It was tough.”
As an increasingly important center of research, Kearney continued to develop assets and so did Diana. She was reclassified to Word Processing Specialist and then Administrative Assistant. Following the trail of technological advances, Diana said the office personnel took some classes to learn the new word processing and computer skills, but much of her skill set came from just figuring things out herself. Knowing there was a need to be met, that her assistance mattered and made a difference motivated her to keep growing.
New skills at Kearney were only exceeded by new skills at home as Diana married, raised children, and then learned to cope as a young widow. Through it all she says, Kearney has been a constant, like a family. In fact, Diana credits the people at Kearney as the reason she has stayed 40 years.
Also a key factor in Diana's longevity at Kearney is her drive to help. “I don't want anyone to leave here without getting something.” This usually means being an excellent resource of information about research, planning, catering, etc., but sometimes it is different. One time a woman came into the reception area and asked Diana to throw out a handful of garbage for her. No problem. Thunk-goosh, into the can. A short time later, Diana heard back from the woman, “I think my teeth were in that. Could you please check?” Sure enough. Diana, very helpfully, gave them back.
There are chapters left to write about Diana's past 40 years, and many more to write about her continuing future here. For now, we will close with these words from Kearney's director at a celebration held for Diana on March 20th, as Jeff Dahlberg thanked Diana Nix for her “…extraordinary service to the UC-ANR KARE community. It is not often that we have the opportunity to thank someone for 40 years of service to our organization, and it was a pleasure to present a Certificate of Appreciation and a pin to Diana in recognition of her years of service.”