Has it really been three months already?

It's hard to believe, but it's that time again! 

Our second Staff Council Block 6 Block Party is set for one week from today. Unfortunately I won't be there until 5, since I have class :-( Even so, come on out to blow off steam and enjoy some fall treats!

Let's party!

Back in June when we had the first Staff Council meeting after elections, we all got together by block and discussed topics and issues our constituents face. While brainstorming, we came up with the idea of a Block Party, where we could invite our constituents to join us in an informal setting. This would allow us to meet our constituents face to face, could help us keep our fingers on the pulse of what's happening, and might even help recruit staff into joining Staff Council.

Earlier this week the Block 6 representatives all got together to determine the format and timing for our first Block Party. I took on the task of creating an e-mail invitation, which describes what we decided on, and which went out today:

Looks like fun, don't you think? Come on out and join us!

I have to tell you something... I've been seeing another blog.

It may feel as if this blog has been a little neglected lately. That's kind of true, but not for lack of being busy. Actually, if you need a dose of my blogging you can check out something I wrote for the Staff Council blog about a pressing issue taking place right now at RIT. This particular topic has been dominating Staff Council lately, and has also been requiring a lot out of me thanks to my position as an RSC representative and Executive Committee member. It is difficult because I am very busy otherwise, but it is my duty to perform this service to the institute. In fact, it is incredibly important for all staff to get involved, hence my motivation to write that post. On the plus side, I've already gotten an incredible amount of positive feedback with regards to its message. Unfortunately, as I'm sure is the case for many others,  my to-do list just keeps growing in the meantime... :-\

Happy Bethany Day 2012

Today's my birthday, NBD. I spent it working, that's how I roll. (I've only been celebrating my birthday in various ways for like, 2 weeks already, anyways.) This morning the interns sang Happy Birthday really awkwardly so I left the meeting (for the record I did show my gratitude on my way out the door). This afternoon was the Staff Council annual retreat, which started with a fantastic lunch from Brick City Catering:

This picture would look better if it were outside.

There we go.

The feast included BBQ ribs, roast chicken, corn on the cob, salt potatoes, corn bread smothered in honey, and oh darn I ran out of room on my plate for the salads. Oh and watermelon, too! It was very summery and also very messy, but I managed not to get anything on my pretty dress (that's a first!).

The retreat was incredibly positive and productive, which actually made it rather uneventful (in a good way). All in all, a very successful retreat. During break time I was subjected to another round of Happy Birthday singing, this time even more awkward and reluctant than the interns. I couldn't leave this meeting though, so I had to sit there and blush through it; luckily I was rewarded in the end by being served the first plate of strawberries and angel food cake:

That was worth it.

And then I went on working and wrote this blog. The end! Happy birthday to me!

Movin' on up

You are looking at the new Communications Officer for RIT Staff Council! Woo!

So in case it wasn't obvious already, Staff Council leadership elections were today. I'll admit, I had three outcomes I was expecting - and this wasn't one of them. But I couldn't be happier that this was how things ultimately worked out! 

So since I never hold anything back on here, I'll go ahead and share what went down: leading up to the elections, I knew I wanted to be on RSC-EC again, but I wasn't sure in what capacity. I wanted to at least be an At-Large again, but I wasn't ready to take on Chair (with work + EYP + classes again in the fall + life... I am overwhelmed enough as it is!). So I suggested to fit me in wherever. Once the rest of the slate of candidates was worked out, things got tricky and I needed to exercise a little strategy... See, the EC must consist of an equal number of exempt and non-exempt employees. The candidates for Chair, Vice Chair, and Communications were ALL exempt (as am I) - and since the elections go top-down, that left only one open spot for an exempt At-Large. Uhoh. Not a big fan of those odds. So it was time to up my game.

Communications and Events already had more than 1 candidate each (all of whom I thought were great and I didn't want to run against), and I wasn't interested in Chair (for reasons stated previously). So that left Vice Chair.... There was only one candidate, and I wasn't keen on running against him either, but it wouldn't be proper governance to have both the chair and vice chair run unopposed. So, I figured: Hey, if I get Vice Chair, bonus; if not, hopefully people would take pity on me when it came down to At-Large. So I went ahead and volunteered to run for Vice, and that's how I came to my three expected outcomes: Vice, At-Large, or nada. Now, of course I couldn't tell anyone that Vice wasn't my original intent - I took my candidacy very seriously, and besides, the more I looked into Vice the more I started to like it and see myself doing it! But I knew I had a strong opponent, so I didn't want to get my hopes up too much even though I started to really want the position.

Enter: Elections! So the chair ran unopposed and was successful; next came Vice. We each gave a little spiel, and then everyone voted. It came out to a TIE - but then it was discovered that one too many people voted! Unfortunately that person's vote was for me (thank you, person!)... so I lost, waaah waaaaaaaaah. Yeah, I was disappointed (but very happy for the winner, yes really!). Next came Communications... and on top of the two nominees, I was nominated by someone on the floor! What! This caught me by surprise, and I was afraid that my reaction might have made people think I wasn't totally interested, but it must not have mattered - I guess the pity factor totally worked (and sooner than I expected,) because obviously we know how that race turned out! I'm so psyched!!!

The rest of the election went more smoothly, though there actually was one more tie - this time with the legitimate number of votes, so it resulted in one of the candidates opting to step back and serve as an alternate instead. All of the runner-up candidates for the various positions were successfully elected into other positions (pity FTW!), so all in all I think we all ended up with results we are pleased with! (Or at least I hope so...)

I am really looking forward to stepping into my new role as Communications Chair! As the Ad-Hoc Outreach Committee was really only established as a one year deal, it works out perfectly for me to carry the torch of the few things we had remaining that we wanted to do but hadn't completed over to Communications (as it was a bit redundant to have the two committees separate anyways - lesson learned). I am also looking forward to working with the new Executive Committee and new Chair - though I am definitely going to miss our outgoing chair :*(!!!!!! A bunch of us from EC stood up and said some parting words to her as part of the "passing of the gavel" - it was very heartfelt and emotional and touching. It was hard not to well up a little. Our outgoing chair did such a wonderful job and worked so hard, and I can say for me personally, had a huge impact on my experience with Staff Council and decision to stay on as part of it - MOLLY, I WILL MISS YOU!!!!!!! (Good thing you're still on RSC... and now you don't have to sit at the head of the room :-) You can come sit with me and be the Statler to my Waldorf.)

I am definitely excited to see what we'll accomplish in the year ahead, and to see how my second year on Staff Council compares to the first. Onwards and upwards, let's do this!

For every tiger that ever there was Will gather there for certain, because Today's the day the RIT Staff have their picnic

Today was the 16th annual RIT Staff Appreciation Day & Community Picnic! And it couldn't have fallen on a more beautiful day. 

Awwwww yeah: blue skies, ice cream, and gorgeous cars. Does it get any better??

The picnic includes a classic car show, rides in a vintage taxi (see above; though this was more of a heist than a ride, I even set off some kind of alarm or something....oops), mini golf, segway rides, info tables (which included my Staff Council brochure, which looks even better on paper might I add), a photo booth, and of course: FREE LUNCH! YES! 

This was my second year working the picnic (oh yeah, while I was away on vacation the Staff Council election results came in and I have been elected to another term - thank you, thank you, hold your applause), and this year I signed up for two shifts: handing out tickets redeemable for ice cream at a buffet line from 12-1, and crowd control at the photo booth from 1-2:30. So I made sure to get to the picnic early (around 11:15) so that I could eat before getting down to business. Catered by Brick City, there was salad, pasta salad, hot dogs (and hot sauce!), salt potatoes, roast chicken, and cooooookies.

Beating the crowds for first pick at the noms, that's how I roll

My day life was made complete when Ritchie came by and got his picture taken with me. I totally snuzzled in there.
(For the record, I have no idea who was in that suit, and no one would tell me.)

I had a great time handing out tickets at the buffet line, though I was surprised how many people said no to ice cream! What! I've decided this was the best job of all because I got to say hello to many of my favorites from around campus who came through the buffet lines. Though, on second thought, handing out the actual ice cream may have been even better, since there was only one line for that and I would have gotten to see EVERYBODY (except those spoil sports who didn't even want ice cream....)

1 o'clock rolled around and it was time for me to change shifts, which worked out well because the lines for food really started to dwindle around that time. I moved on to performing "crowd control" for the photo booth, though you can hardly call it that since the line never got more than 2 groups long. By the time half an hour passed, pretty much everyone was gone from the picnic, so I decided to give the photo booth a shot - but everyone I knew was long gone along with everyone else, so I was left to go in there all by my awkward lonesome. Therefore I decided that my photo strip needed to tell some kind of story, to make up for the fact that I was in there by myself. My "story" didn't really work - the first attempt was a miserable failure and the second didn't really make sense - and overall I ended up making the photos even MORE awkward than if I had gone in there taking myself seriously. So I went in there one last time and defaulted to a little good ol' fashioned school spirit.

Awkward photo booth attempts 1, 2, and 3.
1 and 2 mean to show a lonely bethy looking over her shoulder to see a lonely ritchie looking up at her (Brady Bunch style). The two are delighted to find each other in such a lonely photo booth, and decide to take a happy picture together.
For #3 I just spelled out RIT in ASL and then made a heart.
Overall, my favorite picture of all is the one of just a blank curtain. That's the money shot right there.

Overall, it was super fun and a really great day - around 2,000 people showed up! You can view a bunch of pictures from today's picnic here, and read some updates about the day in 140 characters or less on the RIT Staff Council twitter.

Now that I'm a brochure designing MASTER, maybe I'll make a flashy new one for ImSci.

I've been working on a brochure for Staff Council for some time, and I am happy to report that as of today it is now DONE! I even asked President Destler to approve a quote for the back, and he got back to me within 5 minutes with a positive response. Way cool.

You can check out the brochure below (note, there are marks and bleeds around the edges):

They're gr-r-r-r-r-reat!

So I'm not going to get into all the behind-the-scenes debates regarding these (and believe me, there are some passionate arguments) but the bottom line is that I've put together a few consistently designed materials for Staff Council's use:

This is for a sandwich board that is often put out in the Student Alumni Union to promote Staff Council. Instead of being a plain black board with some laser printouts on it, there will now be a nice, attention-grabbing backer.

These represent the front and back designs for a new bookmark to be given out to RIT Staff at picnics, New Employee Orientation, etc. Functional, informational, and eye-catching!

These are currently only drafts, but the reception so far has been very positive!

sniff sniff

So the Staff Recognition Awards were today! Yay! But I didn't win. Boo.

Haha - Just kidding. It's not all about winning! Anyways, what a great day. As if the anticipation leading up to the awards wasn't enough, the excitement in the Fireside Lounge in the minutes leading up to the ceremony was so energizing, I felt like I was getting ready for a wedding or something. It was great to see the faces of the other nominees, especially people whom I actually know but did not realize were nominated! I was so happy for so many of my fellow staff members, but let's face it - that room was full of some stiff competition! ;-)

We all filed into Ingle Auditorium and waited for the ceremony to begin. Everyone was so excited and happy, it felt wonderful to be surrounded with such positive spirits. After the usual pomp and circumstance and introductions, professional images of all of the nominees were projected and we each had our names and positions read aloud. Despite there being around 50 nominees, this was a surprisingly smooth and efficient presentation - though I felt kind of bad for the interpreter, who was probably suffering from arthritis by the end of it. 

As the winners were announced one by one, I felt like I was in some kind of winner's circle - first someone right behind me won, then Michelle on my left won, then Jenn right behind me won, and the person next to her won! Unfortunately their luck did not rub off on me, but I was so proud to see people that I have worked closely with get recognized for all they do for RIT. Well, and especially Jenn - since I'm the one who nominated her :-). I felt like a mommy watching her child graduate Kindergarten, or something - knowing I helped get her up there! YAY!

At the end of the ceremony everyone went back into Fireside for the reception and socializing, and all the nominees received certificates. It was such an honor just to be nominated and to be involved in such a phenomenal event. All of the winners and nominees are all such wonderful and devoted people, and to be included with them is a distinction in its own right. Also I loved seeing the campus community come together in celebration. It's too bad we don't have reasons to do events like this more often. Well, at least I have Brick City to look forward to next week, hooray! Can I get a shout out for the ALUMNI BALL, WOO WOO!

I've got my fingers crossed.

I just posted my first entry to the Staff Council blog! Check it out!

This was my idea. :-)

 Staff Recognition Awards: And the Award Goes to...

Definitely not "bored" meetings

So in another week of many meetings, I am happy to say that I haven't disliked or been bored in a single one of them!

Wednesday, Institute Council: Whoa. So this was my first IC meeting, and it was so interesting. Though, being a newbie, I sat in a place which I thought was in the back of the room. In my defense, there weren't a lot of seats left (even though I was 10 minutes early), and another newb sat next to me (undoubtedly making the same assumption). Well eventually Dr. Mary Beth Cooper came and sat 2 seats away from me... Jaw drop... And then Dr. Haefner sat on the other side of her... Jaw falls to floor... and then President Destler sat next to him... Okay, my jaw was in China at this point. (Side note: Hey China alumni! Come out and meet Dr. Pelz at an alumni reception next week!) Anyways, I apparently accidentally sat in the big-wig area. Gulp. But anyways, it was cool. I was surrounded by staff, faculty, students, and deans - and, oh yeah, upper administration - and got to hear all about campus news and issues before the rest of campus does. Seriously, how cool is all that? It was a great meeting, with great people, and very efficiently run. I am looking forward to the next monthly meeting.

Thursday, Breakfast at Liberty Hill: What an opportunity! Thanks to my leadership in RIT Young Professionals, I got put on the invite list to attend a breakfast discussion at Dr. Destler's house, led by Mayor Tom Richards. Once again: Seriously, how cool is that?! Mayor Richards spoke all about the topic “Innovative Strategies and Creative Thinking That Will Make Rochester, NY Thrive". He was fantastic to listen to, and I really appreciated a lot of what he had to say. He also had great answers to questions posed by audience members, my particular favorite addressing the jobs issue for young graduates in response to how to handle the Rochester area's brain drain. It was an interesting talk and an exciting opportunity to interact. This time, not only was I rubbing elbows with RIT people that I look up to, but with community and industry leaders as well. It was a wonderful experience that I hope to be able to partake in again soon.

Thursday, Staff Council: Not to say that I was shy or uncomfortable before, but I feel so much more at home now at RSC meetings thanks to my experiences on the executive committee, RSC outreach committee, and at Institute Council. My favorite part of this meeting was when we went around and said who we were, what our jobs are and how long we've been at RIT, and one thing that people might not know about us. It was a great way to introduce ourselves and get to know interesting things about each other, like who has twins, belly dances professionally, runs marathons, is a parent to 9 children, and more. One of the reasons I joined Staff Council in the first place was to get to meet people all across campus, so this was perfect for me. After we got down to business and carried out the rest of the meeting, Molly (the chair of RSC) and I updated the Staff Recognition Awards display along the SAU hallway between the cafe and the RITreat. But since the winners haven't actually been announced yet, in place of pictures we put blank silhouettes with question marks over the faces, tee hee. I'll be writing a Staff Council blog about our little teaser next week.

Today, COS Staff Retreat: This morning, the College of Science held their annual Staff Retreat. This is a great way for us to make our voices heard, and it is wonderful of our Dean to provide us this opportunity. We outlined all sorts of hot topics, discussed important items such as professional development, promotions, sabbaticals, awards, and networking, and established a plan to organize a COS staff advisory committee. But my favorite part of the whole experience was getting to see and interact with fellow COS staff members. Although Imaging Science is part of the COS, because we are in a different building we don't often get to be around our fellow COS'ers. I met some new faces, made some new friends, and overall enjoyed the company of my colleagues. I hope that we do make sure to do more social events together in the future, because we really have a great bunch of folks here.

Phew, what a busy two weeks this has been. I thought I really meant this when I said it last Friday, but this time around: TGIF x 1,000! Luckily, my schedule next week is actually pretty open - for now... :-)

School's a brick and I'm drowning slowly

Okay, that title is too dramatic, but WOW what a crazy week this has been. For being a short week (thanks to Labor Day), it sure has felt looooong. I feel like I am barely treading water to keep myself afloat! The start of the school year means a number of things:

• *POOF!* Welcome back, thousands of students! The campus goes from a ghost town to a bustling metropolis in a single day. Orientation does little to prepare for this, especially because freshmen can't park anywhere near where I do, and have all their own activities to participate in that don't involve our building. But I welcome the activity, and am excited to have students back :-) ...even though I have lousier parking (more exercise!).
• TONS of RIT emails.
• The restart of the Seminar Series. Not only does the series starting back up mean quite a bit of maintenance on my part, but other schools are now back in session also - which means a number of future presenters are getting their abstract/bios/et cetera to me simultaneously right now.
• The start of classes - which does impact me since I am continuing to take a graduate class each quarter. (I feel like I just finally recovered from my class over summer!)
• Regular Staff Council meetings. Since my tenure on Staff Council started in June, meetings have been irregular during the summer months. Now it's time for me to adjust to a regular meeting schedule... And since I'm on the Executive Committee, that means I am now busy from 2-4 every Thursday from now until forever. Plus there's the Ad-Hoc Outreach Committee that I am liaison for - we only meet once per month, but our one meeting so far has generated a fair amount of action items. Oh, AND there's Institute Council meetings once/month.
• Regular IS&T (Imaging Science & Technology Club) meetings every Friday.
• Espresso Cart socials 4 days a week
• And last but not least, my personal favorite: Noon-time skating every day!!!! Woo hoo!!!!!

On top of all of this going on this week, some other things happened to coincide:

• We have a new Assoc. Director of Alumni Relations for COS - which is GREAT news! It has been difficult to organize alumni events in the absence of a dedicated person over in Alumni Relations. So this is wonderful, but just happened to coincide with everything else busy going on in this short week - so I have planning upcoming receptions now on my plate with everything else.
• New CIS Promotional Items - which in turn need their own promoting, kind of. I'm advertising our new SWAG to entice people to participate with our Foursquare and Ambassador Program initiatives.

So all of those have been the major themes of my week, with even some more little things here and there - getting promo materials together for the Office of Graduate & Part Time Enrollment to use on their recruiting trips; promoting the espresso cart and seminar series; putting out fires regarding the seminar series live feed (or rather, an unannounced lack thereof...); getting in the hang of our foursquare presence; making connections with new people across campus; so on, so on. Oh my! And I really, REALLY need to get the next CIS Imaging Connection newsletter finished. I have been trying to get it done now for 2 weeks but between meetings, more pressing/urgent matters, and the not-quite-decided-on elements of the newsletter (namely, upcoming events and receptions), it remains incomplete. This is stressing me out quite a bit.

It has been a difficult week because I feel like I have been so busy, and yet I feel like I have gotten so little accomplished. For everything I can check off of my to-do list, 3 more things get put on! I don't mean to vent or sound negative; I am just trying to objectively and accurately illustrate how my week has been. I don't let it get me down - I prefer being busy because I love my job! Well, TGIF!

NY Wine and Culinary Center? Don't mind if I do...

At one of the Staff Council Executive Committee meetings, we toyed around with the idea of moving the  Staff Council annual retreat off campus somewhere. The suggestion came up that we try for the NY Wine and Culinary Center, since there are connections between them and RIT. It sounded cost prohibitive, but what do you know - someone worked some magic and made it happen!

So today was the big day of the Staff Council retreat. Although I've been involved in RSC now for a couple months, this felt like a true initiation and orientation. The retreat started with a DELICIOUS lunch prepared by NYW&CC, which I shamelessly went back for seconds (and thirds on the cookies) for. This was a nice and informal way to get to know each other more. And, what do you know - I learned that a fellow RSC'er also used to work for Pictometry! She was there before my time, which made it even more interesting. Small world.

After lunch, we each stood up and introduced ourselves to everyone, and said one thing that has happened in our jobs to make us proud of our roles at RIT. I related my experience at Greece Apollo's NTO Day, when I felt so welcomed and honored. After this, the general roles & responsibilities as RSC members were described, after which we broke out into our respective blocks to divide up the constituents lists. This was a lot of fun, because it gave me a chance to get to know my fellow block 6'ers better. I took all of CIS and the Center for Detectors, IHST, and a few folks in Engineering. My next steps are to go out and introduce myself to all of these people.

After this, there was a brainstorming session to come up with a list of topics, tasks, and issues for RSC to address in the coming year. We then broke out into our committees - I am on the new ad hoc outreach committee. This was yet another chance to meet some new folks, including a captionist who is actually enrolled in Imaging Science courses for the fall! We established how often we will be meeting and when, who the chair of the committee is, and what we would like to accomplish.

At this point, we were way behind schedule, so we quickly packed it up and called it a day. And what a wonderful day it was! I was so glad to get off campus. It really allowed us to expand our imaginations and was a pleasant opportunity to congregate in a different atmosphere. NYW&CC is breathtaking - What a treat! And I had a pleasant scenic drive back along Routes 5 & 20 (I love that drive).

This was my first time going up to the 7th floor of Eastman

If you keep up with any of the news coming out of RIT as a whole, you're probably aware that RIT's 9th college will be starting up this fall: the Institute of Health Sciences and Technology (IHST). The IHST will be an academic unit that will include a College of Health Sciences and Technology, a Health Sciences Research Center, and a Health Sciences Outreach Center, and is a product of the RIT-RGHS (Rochester General Health System) partnership. RIT is currently undergoing a search to appoint a VP/Dean for IHST, and the Staff Council Executive Committee has been invited to meet with the candidates in joint meetings with members of RIT's Academic Senate.

So far, 3 of the 4 identified candidates have visited campus, and I participated in meetings with each of them. RSC-EC is not exactly involved in the whole process, as we don't really get any say in the final decision of who is hired; but we do get the unique and powerful opportunity to meet with the candidates, ask questions, and express concerns from a staff point of view. We then fill out a campus-wide Clipboard survey with our thoughts and reactions. It has been very interesting for me to be involved in the meetings, particularly because I am not directly involved with IHST or the new position (and admittedly have not participated in many candidate interviews period in my young professional life). Despite my limited familiarity with IHST and the new position, I have learned a lot from meeting with the different candidates. All of them are very well qualified, and as such I am confident that RIT's newest college will be a groundbreaking success.

If you would like to hear more details about my meetings with the candidates, leave a comment and I will respond!

I'm AT LARGE! (But not in the criminal sense.)

Today I was elected to the At-Large position on RIT Staff Council (RSC)'s Executive Committee! The At Large position is described as:

•  Working with officers in forming the direction of RIT Staff Council
• Attend Executive Committee (EC) meetings 
• Opportunity to ask questions of top administrators
• Understand the ‘why’ of Institute issues 
• Support things that are good for constituents, challenge things that are not
• Attend Institute Council meetings
• Learn many things happening across campus 
• Interact with faculty, staff, students and administration across RIT

I was drawn to the position because I would like to get more involved in RSC and the happenings around campus. Through my regular work, I can be thought of as "the face" of CIS... And now I can be "the face" (well really, one of the faces) of Staff Council! (I wonder how much my hair had to do with getting me the vote?)

I served as Member at Large at WITR for two years (before coming General Manager), which was a job that I loved - so I'm hoping to draw on my experiences from that to become a successful representative for RSC at Institute Council meetings. Although I am new to Staff Council, I believe my ambitious personality and fresh outlook will prove beneficial.

I am very excited to take on this new opportunity! And I am extremely grateful to my RSC peers who voted for me : )

I'm definitely signing up for mini golf next year.

Today was RIT's annual Staff Appreciation Picnic! As I am now a part of Staff Council, I signed up to help out at the event. I signed up for mini golf, hoping for a nice day... And I got it!

Getting my staff appreciation mini golf on

I signed up for 11AM-12PM, which as it turns out is not a very popular time for mini golf... Most folks wanted to eat first. But I didn't mind - in fact that meant I got to try out the course myself and perfect my "technique". I got a hole in 1 first try on THREE of the holes, yeah! But I made up for my good luck - I mean, skills - on some other holes that took me more like 6 strokes, like the curlicue ramp (which as it turns out, you don't want to actually roll your ball around - the "3 bounce" method is key). It was great fun to interact with the players who did come around, and to get to know some fellow RIT staffers better. So much fun, in fact, that I came back out after eating the (delicious!!!) Brick City Catering lunch and volunteered some extra time outside of what I had signed up for. And it's a good thing, too, because otherwise I would have missed Ritchie - apparently the "Ritchie photo booth" ended at 1PM but luckily I caught him on his way back to his den:

At least this time it's not MY hair upsetting the photo's color balance...

I had a great time at this year's picnic! Many thank yous to Staff Council!

Meet your NEW Staff Council Representative!

Well this post was supposed to go up last Thursday but Blogger wasn't working! So you've waited long and hard, and now it is finally revealed: you are looking at the NEW RIT Staff Council Block 6 representative! A special election was held this spring to fill an empty Block 6 seat, for a 1 year term ending in May, 2012. Lo and behold, I won! (Well, I think I'm the only one who ran.)

Check out my fancy nametag.

My experience in Staff Council thus far has really only consisted of an orientation lunch and one meeting (which I technically attended as an "Apprentice Member" - i.e., I couldn't vote yet). But, I am very excited for this opportunity! I am looking forward to meeting people from other departments across campus who represent a variety of careers. And (as is always in the back of my mind) I am hoping to increase awareness of Imaging Science and serve as an ambassador for the Center. We "Apprentice Members" haven't outlined our list of constituents yet, but even so I've already had some people come to me with concerns that they would like voiced - which is awesome!

I'm really looking forward to hearing more about the inner workings of campus and getting involved. Stay tuned and watch out for more posts with the Staff Council label!