Day: July 14, 2009

Guidelines for Appropriate Use of All Campus Electronic Mail Messages

The following guidelines are adapted from Middlebury’s policy on the use of college email.  We think they make sense for us as well, and would like to ask that all members of the community to follow them.

1. Messages must relate directly to College business. Announcements of non-college events should be handled through other channels.

2. E-mail messages should be avoided for College events already listed on-line or in publications, unless there is significant supplemental information or last-minute changes in location or time.

Currently, everyone has the ability to send an all faculty or all staff message, and it would be wonderful if everyone could voluntarily use these guidelines so that we don’t have to restrict access.

When the students return in the fall, we will need to adopt similar guidelines for messages to all students, and student messages to faculty and staff.

We understand that there is a need for a place to post “classifieds” and other messages of a more personal nature, and we are working on a solution.

Thanks for your patience!

Advancement(and many others)@work

With the closing of the Institute’s fiscal year on June 30th, Institutional Advancement also marked the end of its FY09 fundraising efforts.  While the economic downturn did present significant challenges, there are several bright spots to report:

The number of faculty/staff donors grew from 44 at the close of FY08 to 52 at the close of FY09 (18% increase)

The number of alumni donors grew from 131 at the close of FY08 to 162 at the close of FY09 (24% increase)

Overall cash received grew from $5,315,554 million in FY08 to $5,355,569 million in FY09 (a slight, slight increase)

While Institutional Advancement is the hub of these efforts, we could not have reached any of these results without the help of many across campus.  Special thanks to the Digital Media Commons for their help with our digital solicitation and stewardship pieces, Recruiting and Student Financial Services for providing us with many compelling student stories, and to the members of the academic leadership and faculty who have spent time with both our prospective and existing donors.  We look forward to, hopefully, even better results in the coming year! 

Asian Studies News

Professor Tsuneo Akaha has been elected to serve on the Board of Asian Studies on the Pacific Coast (ASPAC), a regional affiliate of the Association for Asian Studies for another two-year term, beginning in June 2009. Jeet Sapkota, a Waseda University student from Nepal, whom Professor Akaha advised while in Tokyo last year, won the best graduate student paper at this year’s ASPAC annual convention.

A few more Fulbright hosts needed– share a meal with an international visitor!

Intensive English Programs is hosting a three-week Pre-academic Program for Fulbright students this summer from July 20th-August 7th. These students come from all over the world and will be pursuing Master’s degrees and PhD’s in fields as diverse as engineering, veterinary medicine, music, and political science. One of the activities the students participate in is a host family dinner. We are looking for families who would like to welcome 3 or 4 Fulbright students into their home and serve them dinner on the evenings of July 27th or August 3rd. The homestay dinner is a wonderful opportunity for the Fulbrighters to learn more about American culture, and for your family to meet and develop bonds with people from around the world. A small stipend is available for the families that participate. If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact the Fulbright Pre-academic Program Coordinator, Kate Braun, at english@miis.edu.

M-squared HR offices share new applicant tracking system

We are pleased to announce the selection of a new applicant tracking system (ATS) to be hosted by Greentree Systems, Inc., a California-based software company that’s been in existence since 1983. After recently undertaking a thorough analysis of available ATS products with our HR counterparts at Middlebury College, we have elected to replace our existing ATS with an automated recruitment tool that can effectively support the employment functions at both institutions. The characteristic that distinguishes the Greentree product from the others we reviewed is its straightforward ability to support multiple hiring processes on each campus without requiring either school to conform to a shared set of internal process requirements. Instead, the new system will provide both institutions with improved functionality and greater customization while allowing each to maintain its own distinct brand, requisition/posting processes, and recruitment forms. By pooling resources to purchase this new software, both campuses will be able to obtain an enhanced recruitment system that we believe will better sustain the ongoing recruitment needs of both institutions for some time to come — and at a more affordable price!

If you participate in the hiring process, stay tuned for more information about the timeline for rolling out the new system, and training for hiring managers.