Preparing for change

CAPA Fall Forum provides a preview of strategic positioning impact on employment

Vice president for human resources Carol Carrier, summer 2005.

Photo courtesy of the Office of Human Resources

By Anita Cholewa

Brief, December 14, 2005

What will strategic positioning mean for academic professional administrative staff employment across the University? This group--commonly called P&A staff-- makes up about a quarter of the U workforce statewide.

With that question in mind, the Council of Academic Professionals and Administrators (CAPA) invited two leaders from the Office of Human Resources to speak at the CAPA Fall Forum on November 29.

Carol Carrier, vice president for human resources, and Rosie Barry, director of the Employee Career Enrichment Program, facilitated a discussion with a group of about 20 P&A staff in a Wilson Library meeting room on the Twin Cities campus. About 30 more P&A staff systemwide participated using Breeze software on the Web, which allowed them to ask questions from across the U.

It was the seventh time Carrier and Barry had made the presentation, which was prepared for the six "wave one" colleges on the Twin Cities campus: College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences; College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture; College of Education and Human Development; College of Human Ecology; College of Natural Resources; and General College.

Carrier discussed the transformation of the six colleges. Barry then talked about specific career resources designed by OHR for "wave one" staff making the transition. She also identified those resources available to all the U's P&A employees.

Carrier and Barry stressed that the Office of Human Resources is committed to helping maximize career opportunities and to minimizing the loss of experienced and skilled university employees.

In a question-and-answer session with P&A employees attending in person and online, participants discussed the impact of strategic positioning thus far, measuring the success of strategic planning, and the work of implementing change.

See the presentation

To view the Breeze broadcast of the CAPA Fall Forum, log on to http://breeze4.umn.edu/p54807869. Please note that the Breeze recording includes setup time before the actual presentation starts. Also, the presentation does not include post-presentation changes--see the University's Strategic Positioning Web site for updates at http://www.umn.edu/systemwide/strategic_positioning.

The presentation will be on the Web until December 30.

Career services are available

To view career services available through the Office of Human Resources, see http://www.umn.edu/ohr/ecep.

On the Twin Cities campus, career counselors are available on a walk-in basis to discuss career strategies:

Minneapolis--Fridays, 8 a.m.-noon, 216 Donhowe
St. Paul--Mondays, 8 a.m.-noon, 120 Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Anita Cholewa chairs the CAPA Professional Development and Recognition Committee. She is a curator at the Bell Museum of Natural History, Twin Cities campus.