UAAD Updates-March 2017
The year is flying by and here we are with only two more months of UAAD meetings and events in “the works”. I appreciate all of you who have taken time out of your busy work schedules to attend the many programs we had this year. Being a member of UAAD or any other professional organization is a commitment to participate, in order to benefit from the offerings of that association.
I want to start by thanking the Professional Development Committee (Andrea Balkus, Deb Eisloeffel and Becky Carter) for an excellent workshop which was well-attended March 29th at NET. Josh Erickson, from Team Concepts, led us through a lively and interactive three hours in which participants learned how to use their strengths to manage engagement with their employees and co-workers. Be sure to check out UAAD’s Facebook page for some great pictures, taken by committee chair, Andrea. You will see what I mean by lively and engaging!
Many of you attended the meeting we had in the 2015-2016 year at the Nimbus Lab, where we learned about the research and capabilities of drones in many aspects of our daily lives. We had an opportunity in March to hear Matt Waite present to us about the use of drones in news reporting. The meeting was held at the College of Journalism, where the lab is located. We are so fortunate to have two drone labs on the UNL campus and both engaged in state of the art/cutting edge experiments. Some of our best monthly meetings are those that take us to the departments where great things are happening across this campus.
And sometimes our programs take us to the edge of campus like our March 24th meeting at The Bay. Kudos to Jenny Schnase and Meg Kester for planning a special outreach program on site. We are so used to collecting for various organizations with donations being accepted on campus, and without really seeing where we are donating to in our efforts. It was a pleasure to tour The Bay and hear from those individuals who have been instrumental in growing this wonderful resource for the youth in our community. The work they are doing is phenomenal and in addition, they are one of a small number of indoor skateboard parks in the United States.
Mark your calendar for our April 19th monthly meeting at Campus Recreation’s east campus facility, Recreation and Wellness Center. We will meet at 11:45 (brown bag lunch in the kitchen) and then have a short business meeting at noon. Kimberly Barrett, Assistant Director for Wellness Services & Fitness Programs, will be our presenter. She will be sharing her wealth of knowledge with us on topics ranging from the importance of having a healthy workforce to what UNL is doing to help keep health benefit costs low.
The date for our end-of-the-year picnic will be May 10th. We needed to change the date from what we had originally scheduled so save this date. We will meet at the Wicks Alumni Center at 11:45 and a picnic lunch will be provided. Weather permitting, we will be set up outside on the south side of the building. This is the time of year when we announce the new officers for the next year and recap the current year’s events. More information on this event will be forthcoming.
Human Resources and the Office of Institutional Equity and Compliance is sponsoring a workshop on April 7th at the City Union, titled “Inclusivity Squared”. Ellen “Ellie” Krug will conduct a two-part presentation on inclusivity and personal perspective-building. This is an education and enrichment event for anyone who wants to “get it right” relative to living and working in a more inclusive environment. There will be two sessions; “Gray Area Thinking” from 12:00-1:45 pm and “Transgender 101 from 1:45-3:00 pm. The sessions will be streamed live at: http://its.unl.edu/sets/unl-special-stream. For more information: https://events.unl.edu/diversity/2017/04/07/119264
I want to thank all of you who participated in the tobacco-free campus survey. The response was great from staff, faculty and students and the results were overwhelmingly in favor of developing and implementing a policy for UNL to become a tobacco-free campus. The Tobacco-Free Campus Committee has met since the survey results were finalized and the “heavy lifting” now begins as we work toward developing goals to fully engage the university community in communication and policy implementation plans over the next several months.
I hope you can plan to attend one or both of the remaining UAAD monthly programs. This is a busy time of year for everyone so I appreciate you adding UAAD to your calendars!