ABA NEWS

Financial Services Summer Fun Days

Financial Services found a unique way to keep staff morale up during the dog-days of summer - department-wide summer fun days!

On calendared days spread out over the summer, staff engaged in activities with their colleagues. See the flier promoting the events.

Each event had a specific value to be gained by participants. Gina Curry, interim associate vice president of Financial Services, described them as follows:

Thursday, June 18 - Creativity Contest Day - "Encourage staff to get to know their office folks."

Thursday, July 23 - Office Games Day - "Encourage staff to get to know other folks across Financial Services and Budget."

Tuesday, August 18 - Campus Scavenger Hunt - "Encourage staff to get to know the campus."

Staff enjoyed the events, and appreciated the outcomes. "The events enhanced morale during year-end and helped develop team-building skills by working together," said Priscilla, Llamas-McKaughan, business associate in Financial Services.

Christina Day, accounting technician, agreed: "These days generate some great team comradery, and you get to see your colleagues in a lighter setting."

The summer fun days concluded with a campus-wide scavenger hunt, which encouraged staff participants to solve tricky riddles, while discovering things about the campus that they may not have known.

Facilities Update

While the campus may seem quiet when students are out of session, summer is the ideal time for facilities projects to take place.

A few of the projects that took place during the summer include:

• Smart Classrooms: Fourteen smart classrooms and 18 smart labs were completed for the College of Natural Sciences & Mathematics. These classrooms and labs will ensure that faculty have the state-of-the-art tools necessary to educate today's students.
• Curb Painting: In partnership with UTAPS, the Paint Shop provided paint services to improve designated curbs. "We walked around and noticed that a lot of our curbs needed touchup," said Alfredo Orozco, assistant to the senior director in UTAPS. "This was general maintenance that needed to be done. It is important to ensure the zones are painted appropriately, to help designate loading and unloading zones, fire zones, and disabled parking zones/spaces."
• Crosswalk Zoning: Facilities Management launched a study to "research the existing condition of road lane striping and crosswalks, as well as the placement of crosswalks around perimeter roads," said Todd McComb, Facilities Management project manager. The goal of this study was to ensure that roadways and crosswalks were sufficiently marked to prevent pedestrian vs. bicycle vs. vehicle accidents. "The study indicated the crosswalk placement was adequate, but that striping needed to be refreshed." Crosswalk zones were refreshed this summer with "thermoplastic" striping due it its longevity and visibility.