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| Staff Newsletter | May 2022 |
Dear colleagues,
With Graduation Weekend just around the corner, we are about to close the books on another successful academic year. As Provost Kathleen Hagerty has said many times, our units serve as the support structure upon which Northwestern's incredible teaching, research and scholarly activities are built. While this year presented many challenges, we have much to be proud of in our first full academic year of in-person operations since 2018-2019.
This end-of-year reflection falls during the period when staff and supervisors complete year-end performance reviews as part of the University’s Performance Excellence process. This year, the deadline for staff to submit their written self-reviews is Wednesday, May 25.
Northwestern provides a number of resources for staff and for supervisors to facilitate a process that truly helps individuals to reflect and excel. As you write your own self-evaluation this year, I encourage you to take the necessary time to consider your accomplishments, your challenges, and areas where your supervisor can help with your growth, and to document those in your self-review. I have similarly asked supervisors to evaluate staff with clarity and transparency. Supervisor written reviews are due by June 15.
Performance discussions should take place from June 23 through July 20. At these meetings, my hope is that every staff member in the Office of the Provost has a direct and productive conversation with their supervisor about their performance over the past year and, more importantly, their goals and opportunities in the coming year. These conversations will make us stronger as individuals and a better team.
Kathleen and I thank you for all that you have done this year and look forward to preparing for many more successful years to come.
Sincerely,
Jake Julia |
Awards and recognition |
Best Book prize for Kyle Long
Office of Organizational Strategy and Change Senior Director Kyle Long, a scholar of international education, recently won an award for his book, “The Emergence of the American University Abroad.” At its annual meeting in April, the Higher Education Special Interest Group of the Comparative and International Education Society (CIES) recognized him with its Best Book prize. CIES is the leading professional association for international education scholars and the world’s largest international education society. Kyle’s pioneering book explores the history of—and contemporary challenges to—independent American-modeled higher education institutions around the world. Its intended audiences are students and scholars of higher education, international education, international relations, history, and sociology, as well as diplomats and policy analysts. |
All about the staff |
Meet Norvell Watts
This month’s featured colleague is Norvell Watts, program manager for the Buffett Institute for Global Affairs Global Learning Office (GLO). Norvell began working at Northwestern in a temporary capacity in January 2021 as a quarantine and isolation housing coordinator before transitioning to his full-time GLO position.
What was your career path that led you to Northwestern? Much of my professional background is in student affairs, specifically residence life. As much as residence life was formative for my professional identity, I wanted to explore my interests outside of higher education, and to finally live off campus. After volunteering for a nonprofit network of hostels while I was still working in residence life, I accepted a role as the community engagement manager at the Boston hostel. In that role, I got to work with hundreds of international travelers every week and partner with other nonprofits for various international exchange and education programs. After my time working at the hostel, I completed one of my bucket list goals of living abroad. I worked as an English teacher in Bangkok, Thailand, then in Montreal, Canada. Once I moved back to Chicago, I worked in compliance for international education providers in Chicago until the beginning of the pandemic.
What kind of work do you do with Northwestern students? As a program manager, I hold advising meetings for students looking to study abroad in the Czech Republic and for the Global Engagement Studies Institute. Along with my colleagues, I lead Study Abroad 101 sessions for students and support them through the entire study abroad cycle. A huge passion of mine is making study abroad and global spaces more accessible to students who have been traditionally left out of study abroad. One of my favorite things about my job is that I’ve gotten to introduce programs such as Black History Month Global Week and been invited to speak to student groups about navigating identity abroad.
Can you share a personal fun fact about yourself? My very first time traveling abroad was in the fourth grade for a marine biology trip to the Bahamas with Michael Jordan’s mother.
Brag about your teammates! We feature one staff member in each newsletter. Nominate someone by emailing the Office of the Provost and telling us, in a sentence or two, how your colleague contributes to Northwestern’s mission and why everyone in the Office of the Provost should get to know them.
April staff arrivals
Buffett Institute for Global Affairs
Chicago Biomedical Consortium
Office of Equity
Searle Center
University Enrollment Analytics
Staff Handbook revised
Northwestern has updated the Staff Handbook as part of a regular review by the Staff Handbook committee. This handbook serves as a comprehensive resource, covering a range of information on Northwestern’s policies and programs. It is available on the Human Resources website, along with a summary of this year's key updates. Please contact HRBP@northwestern.edu if you have any questions or need further information. |
News and notes |
Help staffing graduation weekend
Northwestern is seeking staff to support Graduation Weekend events, which will take place Saturday through Monday, June 11-13, at Ryan Fieldhouse, Welsh-Ryan Arena and Ryan Field. You can sign up for as few as 3.5 hours, and hourly staff can be paid for this time. The following roles are needed during each ceremony:
Direct questions to Assistant Provost and University Registrar Jaci Casazza.
Women’s Center strategic plan update
The Women’s Center is working on a 2022-2026 strategic plan that acknowledges and institutionalizes the growth of the unit in recent years and charts a course for sustainable, continuous and courageous commitment to gender equity for all Northwestern students, staff and faculty. Director Sarah Brown is facilitating a comment period that will end June 3, including a listening session at 3 p.m. May 31.
Support for Ukrainian scholars and more from Buffett
The Northwestern Buffett Institute for Global Affairs is working with the Russian, Eurasian, and East European Studies Program (REEES) and other schools and units across the University to launch several new initiatives that support students and scholars affected by the Russian war in Ukraine. Among the many initiatives, Northwestern Buffett and the Office of the Provost have created a humanitarian fund for Northwestern students who cannot return to their homes for the summer term due to war or civil unrest in their home region, including but not limited to Ukraine. This summer, the fund will support living expenses for students in these circumstances.
In other Buffett news:
Affordable teaching materials
Sixteen applicants of the 2022 Open Educational Resource grant will receive at least $5,000 to develop free teaching material for a Northwestern undergraduate course. The grant committee estimates that the completed projects will save 1,650 undergraduates $193,000 in the first year, and every additional year the materials are assigned. Funded by the Office of the Provost and University Libraries, the Open Educational Resources Grant (OER) Program is designed to support faculty who are interested in developing free teaching materials for their undergraduate courses, from textbooks to websites, videos, and homework sets. The program supports the work involved in finding, creating, using and sharing OER as a replacement for commercial textbooks and courseware.
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Help us build future newsletters! If your unit is working on a project that is relevant to the entire Office of the Provost, or if you have awards, honors or accomplishments to share, send an email to officeoftheprovost@northwestern.edu. |
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