Posts Tagged: Academic Personnel unit

2016 call for Cooperative Extension positions released

Colleagues,

Continuing our commitment to deploying Cooperative Extension (CE) specialists and advisors to address critical issues, ANR is soliciting proposals for these CE positions. The new 2016 call aims to identify positions for strengthening and rebuilding the ANR network to address programmatic gaps and emerging needs. The call, including the updated position proposal template as well as the process flowchart timeline and criteria documents, is posted at http://ucanr.edu/2016callforpositions.

The online position-proposal submittal process will be open from Jan. 12 to May 5 at 5 p.m. to allow as much time as possible for internal consultation and discussions with ANR stakeholders in all program areas. We expect and strongly encourage engaging external stakeholders – including commodity groups, cooperating programs, agency partners, community groups, and others – to explicitly discuss priority needs for positions.

Filling critical academic positions is a top priority for ANR. Since the beginning of 2012, ANR has hired 86 advisors and specialists, and has 45 approved positions under recruitment or to be recruited in 2016. This list is posted on the 2016 call website. New 2016 position proposals should identify additional crucial positions.

The resources released through retirements and separations continue to enable us to hire new advisors and specialists. As with the current recruitments, we will remain nimble with future hiring in phases over time to enable us to accomplish the search and hiring process in an orderly fashion, evaluate resources on a real-time basis, deal with unexpected changes in staffing, and address unforeseen critical gaps as they emerge.

Sincerely,

Glenda Humiston
Vice President

UC ANR programmatic orientation to be held at KARE Oct. 27-29

Recently hired ANR academics are invited to attend a programmatic orientation on Oct. 27-29 at the Kearney Agricultural Research & Extension Center in Parlier.

ANR academics who have been hired in the past five years and did not attend the 2014 Programmatic Orientation should attend.

A draft agenda for the 2015 programmatic orientation is available at http://ucanr.edu/sites/orientations/Programmatic_Orientation/Agenda/ and will be updated with tour details.

Register for the ANR programmatic orientation at http://ucanr.edu/sites/orientations/Programmatic_Orientation/Registration.

For more information, contact ANR Program Support Unit Sherry Cooper at (530) 750-1256 or Saundra Wais at (530) 750-1260.

New ANR academics to meet for programmatic orientation Oct. 27-29

All new ANR academics, please mark your calendars now for the 2015 Programmatic Orientation, which will be held Oct. 27, 28 and 29, 2015, at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center.

This orientation is open to all new UC Cooperative Extension advisors, UC Cooperative Extension specialists, academic coordinators, academic administrators and Agricultural Experiment Station faculty.

Join Associate Vice President Bill Frost and our new vice president to discuss the mission of UC ANR and our varied roles in California and the University, and see examples of successful research and outreach programs.  The program will begin at noon on Tuesday, Oct. 27, and end at noon on Thursday, Oct. 29. More details on the agenda and registration will be shared this summer.

In August 2014, 56 new academics who had joined ANR since 2009 met at the Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension Center to engage in discussions with colleagues and learn about the resources available through ANR. Evaluations of that orientation were very positive — 4.0 on a scale of 1 to 5.

For new academics who were unable to attend the 2014 workshop, and for those of you who have been hired recently — please mark your calendars now — and plan to join us Oct. 27-29.

If you have questions about the orientation, please contact Jan Corlett, chief of staff to the vice president, at jan.corlett@ucop.edu or (510) 287-3343.

After cyber attack, Anthem offers identity theft protection to current, former members

In response to a recent data breach, Anthem, Inc. is offering identity repair assistance and credit monitoring services to current members and to former members enrolled in 2004 or later.

Affected members can access these services via AnthemFacts.com or AnthemInforma.com for Spanish-speaking members.

Members may receive an email regarding these services from Anthem beginning the week of Feb. 16.  They will also receive a letter from Anthem in the coming weeks, but there is no need to wait for the letter before you begin using the services.

As many of you have heard in the news, Anthem, Inc. disclosed on Feb. 5, 2015, that the health insurer was the target of a very sophisticated external cyber attack and that accessed data for its 80 million members . This potentially includes information about UC students, faculty, staff and retirees, as well as their dependents.

In addition, on Feb. 6, Anthem notified UC of a phishing scam related to the cyber attack. The phishing scam, which sends out an email under Anthem's logo, includes an offer to sign up for a year of credit card protection. If you receive an email similar to this, do not respond to and do not click on any of its links. 

Currently, Anthem is the network provider and claims administrator for UC SHIP, the university's student health insurance plan, at UC San Francisco, Hastings College of the Law, UC Santa Cruz, UC Irvine (graduate students only), UC Merced, UCLA and UC San Diego. UC Irvine undergraduates and UC Davis students have only their vision insurance through Anthem. Anthem provided services for UC SHIP at all campuses from August 2011 through July 2013.

From 2003 until Jan. 1, 2014, Anthem also provided health insurance to UC employees and retirees and their dependents. The UC Anthem plans included Anthem Blue Cross PPO, Anthem Blue Cross PLUS, Anthem Lumenos, Core, Core Medicare, Anthem Blue Cross Medicare PPO and High Option Supplement to Medicare.

According to Anthem, the information accessed through the attack includes member names, member health ID numbers/Social Security numbers (Anthem does not possess Social Security numbers for UC students), dates of birth, addresses, telephone numbers, email addresses, and employment information such as the member's UC campus or medical center location and, for retirees and former employees, the separation date.

Anthem has created a dedicated website AnthemFacts.com, where current and former Anthem members can find information. Members may also call 1-877-263-7995.

UC is in communications with Anthem to understand the effect of this data breach on current and former Anthem members.  Here is a summary of information Anthem has provided:

• Anthem's investigation to-date shows that no confidential health information (e.g., no claims information and no diagnoses) was accessed.
• Anthem has advised UC that there is no indication at this time that any employees', retirees' or students' personal information has been misused.
• Anthem will enroll members affected by the attack in identity repair services. In addition, impacted members will be provided information on how to enroll in free credit monitoring. Anthem will notify affected members only by mail sent through the U.S. Postal Service.
• Once the attack was discovered, Anthem immediately made every effort to close the security vulnerability, contacted the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and began to fully cooperate with their investigation. Anthem has also retained Mandiant, one of the world's leading cybersecurity firms, to provide incident response and security assessment services.

You can find the most up-to-date information at AnthemFacts.com or AnthemInforma.com in Spanish.

 

Sept. 9 deadline to apply for UC ANR Peer Review Committee

Apply now to serve on the UC ANR Peer Review Committee to review academic merit and promotion requests for Cooperative Extension advisors. The new Peer Review Committee will replace the Senior Administrative Council, or SAC, which was composed of the three regional directors and four program leaders and chaired by the associate VP.

This new committee will be chaired by Kimberly Rodrigues, executive director for Academic Personnel, and include seven advisors.  The members will serve 2- to 3-year overlapping terms to ensure consistency in the review process.  The work of this committee requires concentrated effort/review between April-May.  Ad hoc peer review committees will be developed for promotions.

Sept. 9 is the deadline for applying to be part of this important process.

For more information and the application, please see http://ucanr.org/sites/anrstaff/files/47841.doc.

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