| January 2025 Office News + Updates | Happy New Year!
We hope you were able to take some time away to recharge and focus on your well-being over the holidays or that you'll be able to do so in the coming weeks before we kick-off another busy semester.
Please continue to share your news, celebrations, or other ideas for these monthly newsletters. Contributions may be sent to kristan-hellige@uiowa.edu at any time.
Best wishes for 2025! | | | | Improving Our Workplace Award Do you know anyone? Winners of the Improving Our Workplace Award (I.O.W.A.) go beyond just being great employees, they demonstrate the positive impact an individual or team can make on their workplace, as well as on the experience of patients, customers, students, and other employees across campus.
The I.O.W.A. focuses on four qualities: initiative, innovation, measurable results, and sustaining impact.
Nominate a colleague for the I.O.W.A. today!
Send your nomination form to oe-leader@uiowa.edu by Feb. 15, 2025, at 11:59 p.m. | | | RegiSTARS Thank you to all the volunteers who dedicated their time and efforts to make our fall commencement ceremony a memorable and successful event. Thank you for helping us celebrate this special day with our graduates and their loved ones!
A heartfelt thank you to everyone who donated to this year’s Angel Tree gifts. The Enrollment Management unit raised over $600, allowing us to purchase gifts for 28 children. This is the largest amount we’ve received in the 10+ years of participating in this program. We deeply appreciate your generosity and support! | | | | What You Should Know About Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 The University of Iowa has established an Accessibility Task Force to meet a recent U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) requirement under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act. The DOJ rule calls for all web content and mobile apps to be accessible by April 24, 2026. A key part of this initiative is ensuring our campus complies with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1, Level AA.
To support this effort, the university has scheduled an additional session of “What You Should Know About WCAG 2.1” on Friday, Jan. 17 at 10:30 a.m. This 90-minute Zoom session will cover essential principles and techniques for WCAG compliance and introduce a range of tools to help you achieve accessibility standards and do the right thing.
Despite the name, WCAG 2.1 AA isn’t just for web content. WCAG 2.1 conformance applies to nearly any technology in use in higher education. Email itaccessibility@uiowa.edu with questions or comments.
Register here for What You Should Know About WCAG 2.1. | | | | UI Staff Award Nominations Open Through Jan. 10 Do you know a University of Iowa Professional and Scientific or Merit employee who is deserving of recognition for an outstanding accomplishment, contribution to the UI or the state of Iowa, or for a superior commitment to public service? If so, please recognize that individual by nominating them for one of the following annual awards.
- Board of Regents Staff Excellence Award
- UI Outstanding Staff Award
- David J. Skorton Staff Excellence Award
- Richard E. Gibson Award
- Staff Award for Welcoming and Respectful Environment
The nomination form, award criteria, and additional details for each award are available on the Staff Council Awards page. If you have questions or need assistance, please email the Staff Awards Committee.
The deadline to submit nominations is Friday, Jan. 10, 2025. | | | Highlights from the Leadership Team | The Office of the Registrar's Leadership Team meets weekly to discuss ongoing matters in the office. To be more transparent about what is discussed during these meetings, we are sharing highlights from the month and providing updates to ongoing conversations.
- Staffing updates:
- The Commencement & Communications Specialist has been filled and our new team member Lindsey Strom will be starting on Jan. 6.
- The two open positions for Curriculum Analysts closed on Dec. 16 and applications are being reviewed.
- Brent Gage has asked the communications leads to meet regularly to allow us to learn more about the communications-related work in each area of Enrollment Management. Kristan Hellige is meeting weekly with Scott Fiddelke (Admissions) and Vanessa Wiest (Office of Student Financial Aid) to go through communications plans for each area.
- Considerations for future open position listings:
- If the role will be hybrid, consider adding the hybrid schedule breakdown (i.e., two days remote, three days in office) for full transparency to everyone applying.
- Consider including further explanation about what equivalent experience and education means (i.e., a bachelor's degree or equivalent experience and education could have the equivalency of an associate's degree plus two additional years or experience, or no post-secondary degree and four additional years of experience).
- A charge has been set for the Enrollment Management Data Governance team to inventory and reduce/consolidate reports and dashboards. Kathryn Stoltenberg will be sending out emails with lists of low-usage reports to leadership team members. Leadership team members will work with their teams to determine if the reports are still needed or if they can be changed to ad-hoc requests.
- The Office of the Registrar will be deactivating our Facebook and Instagram accounts. We do not have the necessary content to develop a robust social media plan, and our current pages are getting limited engagement. We may consider reactivating the accounts again in the future.
- SPOT Awards now require that you have approval from department leadership and the budget approver. If you are considering nominating someone for a SPOT Award, please contact Shawna Saad for approval before you complete the SPOT Award nomination form.
- Guidance for performance reviews was shared with the office.
- The listserv service will end by January 2027. ITS is not setting up any new listservs and they are decommissioning those that aren’t used. They will be reaching out to active list owners over the next 12 months to find alternatives. Learn more about the listserv removal project. This will not impact any lists we are currently using for Dispatch messages.
- Reminder: Please schedule all meetings using Microsoft Teams. Skype for Business will remain our primary phone system as Teams does not yet offer a solution for calls made/received outside of the university.
Ongoing Conversations
- Conversations continue with human resources about a review of the Registrar Services job family because of the continued evolution of the role our office plays on campus and the kind of work our teams are doing.
- Josh Hutchison and Kristan Hellige are meeting bi-weekly with ITS as they continue to work on custom elements of the Office of the Registrar website. These elements include pages such as the academic calendar, five-year calendar, GPA calculator, and more.
You are strongly encouraged to contact your supervisor or a member of the leadership team when you have questions. | | | |
