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FAQ

Procurement: An FAQ on Water Purchases

I’ve seen a variety of water purchases on campus ranging from bottled water, filtered water and water coolers, sometimes in the same building. What is SMU’s policy on water purchases and is there a way to streamline our spending in this area?

Individual bottles of water should be purchased using University funds only for guests.  If individual bottles of water are purchased for guests, there are two guidelines: 1) per the University’s contract with Coca-Cola, the water must be Dasani or Smart Water brands and 2) the water must be purchased through an authorized source.  Please contact Cathy Heckman (checkman@smu.edu) for sourcing assistance. 

Departments make their own arrangements for providing drinking water, including in-line plumbed machines and stand-alone coolers, depending on their needs. Any department that is interested in participating in a campus-wide effort to receive quality, filtered water at a reduced cost should contact Cathy Heckman at checkman@smu.edu.

 If you have ideas about how the University can generate additional cost savings, please send them to the Office of Operational Excellence via our online comment form. Comments and questions can be submitted completely anonymously and all submissions that include contact information are sent quick responses.

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News Staff Spotlight

SMU Staff Spotlight – Vali Dicus

This summer, the Operational Excellence website is featuring a series of staff spotlights: stories about staff members who’ve taken on new leadership roles since the implementation of OE2C and are helping bring more innovation and efficiency to campus operations.

SMU is a family affair for Vali Dicus (’84). “Both of my twins, Beau and Cady, my husband, father, brother, two nephews, and one niece are also alumni of SMU,” said Dicus. “SMU is more than just a job to me. It has been a part of my life as long as I can remember.”

After finishing her B.B.A. at SMU, Dicus went to work for Arthur Andersen and completed her CPA, allowing her to audit many types of businesses. She later held posts with Greyhound and Allied Pilots Association and then spent years doing contract work for numerous companies while raising her family. In 2004, after serving as co-chair for her 30th SMU reunion, she got to know some of the Development and External Affairs (DEA) staff. “The next year, DEA needed temporary staff to help with homecoming and asked me if I would be interested,” said Dicus. “This led me to doing temporary work for SMU in various areas of DEA until I took a full-time position as the coordinator for the DEA Integrated Marketing department in July 2009.”

Her roles at SMU continued to evolve and change. “In 2014, I had just moved from being an accounting specialist for DEA to serving as the assistant financial officer for Residence Life and Student Housing (RLSH),” said Dicus. “Within a couple weeks, my position was pulled into Shared Services, where my additional duties included Benefits accounting and implementing the new TouchNet eCommerce system. It was a challenge taking on those new responsibilities! I worked hard to learn everything and stay focused and organized.”

“She is a true unsung heroine,” said colleague Bobbie Watson, financial reporting accountant in the Controller’s Office. “She almost single-handedly helped many areas on campus convert to TouchNet credit card processing over a very short period of time, while juggling two or three other demanding jobs simultaneously, including RLSH support and an assignment in Benefits.”

Then, last fall, several positions opened up for financial business managers in the Academic Support unit of Budget and Finance. “Although I hated to leave the work I was doing, I had always hoped that one day I would have the opportunity to take on a higher level role for a school or division, and I decided to apply for one of the positions,” said Dicus. “My new position as financial business manager for Simmons School of Education and Development allows me to handle financial reporting and budget management for the entire Simmons school rather than smaller pieces as I have done in the past.”

Dicus said she has learned a great deal in the reorganization. “The Shared Services initiative gave me an opportunity to use and improve my skills,” she said. “I appreciate the fact that the Business and Finance leadership took the time to look at my background as a whole when the Shared Services initiative started. This change gave me the chance to learn and do things I would have never been able to do under the old structure. I was able to do multiple jobs that had totally different subject matter. Since I love to multitask, this was good for me. In my newest role, I am looking forward to handling more analytical issues.”

On her experiences working with various departments across campus, Dicus said, “I had been working in DEA for around 10 years and loved the people. I was really sad to leave that group and thought I would never be able to create those kinds of relationships in a work environment again. However, each area I have been in during the transition has been great. I was only in RLSH for a short time but made some wonderful friendships. The group in Shared Services proved that accountants can have a sense of humor! Although I haven’t gotten to know the people in Simmons very well yet, I have come to the conclusion that SMU is full of fantastic people.”

Dicus believes having all the financial staff work under the same umbrella is a good thing. “We now have a peer network and can develop procedures to do things in a standardized manner across campus,” said Dicus. “When I was in DEA, I was hesitant to approach Business and Finance staff. Now that I am part of the same unit, I feel more comfortable asking questions and have a better understanding of the bigger financial picture. As financial business manager of Simmons, I want the Simmons faculty/staff to feel that I am ‘serving’ them and am a part of their team, too. Also, I think the new structure could give the leadership of Business and Finance the ability to create more opportunities for a career path for financial staff.”

In her new role, Dicus will become intimately acquainted with the financial matters at Simmons. “We have a new dean, Stephanie Knight, starting in August,” she said. “I want to understand her expectations from Shared Services and do my best to provide her, and the entire school, with what they need.”

Categories
News Staff Spotlight

SMU Staff Spotlight – Jason Warner

This summer, the Operational Excellence website is featuring a series of staff spotlights: stories about staff members who’ve taken on new leadership roles since the implementation of OE2C and are helping bring more innovation and efficiency to campus operations.

Before coming to SMU in 1999, Jason Warner was a teacher who began infusing his teaching with technology in innovative ways that improved students’ learning and piqued the interest of his fellow teachers. His work in that role laid an early foundation for his most recent career advancement as director of SMU’s Academic Technology Services.

Academic Technology Services (ATS) is a newly reorganized and unified division of the Office of Information Technology (OIT) created through OE2C’s Shared Services Initiative. It specifically focuses on enhancing academic teaching and research with innovative technology solutions throughout campus. As leader of that division, Warner oversees a team of “technology change agents” who work alongside faculty and students in each academic unit.

“I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to rethink, reorganize and launch an entirely new SMU model for providing academic technology services,” says Warner. “Those used to exist in isolated pockets and fragments across campus. I’m proud of the progress we’ve made unifying IT services, especially those serving our faculty, which I believe continue to pave the way for more rapid and consistent growth and innovation in both instructional and research capabilities.”

Before the Shared Services Initiative, Warner served as the director of technology for the Meadows School of the Arts, where he managed a broad portfolio of technology services and solutions that were critical to Meadows faculty. Warner says, “As part of Shared Services, the academic technology support model we employed at Meadows became the blueprint for creating our new SMU Academic Technology Services team. Now, each school has its own tech facilitator and director who manages the school’s strategic needs and serves as the liaison between the school and SMU OIT.”

Warner’s transition into his new role has, he says, been a work in progress. “I’ve had to learn more in the past few years than I’ve had to learn throughout my entire career. In order to make progress, I have had to be willing to let go of and throw out comfortable models and methodologies. I’ve learned how to be a better manager and to rely more on metrics and data instead of anecdotes and emotions. I’ve worked to develop my own knowledge and experience so that I can serve SMU more effectively. Most importantly, I’ve learned to extend grace as people wrestle with change and I’ve learned how to ask for grace as well.”

His learning in the new position has had a great effect on OIT and SMU. In less than two years, Warner built a team that is able to manage and assist academic units while at the same time participate as a cross-functional campus service team. During the transition, his team successfully helped SMU migrate from Blackboard to Canvas and created an annual program to survey faculty and students to better gauge technology performance and needs. He worked with the Academic Technology Council, a faculty ­committee, to develop a groundbreaking classroom technology prototype experience that will launch in the fall and has overseen the project from its inception. “Above all,” Warner says, “I’m proud that our team is able to help faculty and students by providing sustainable, reliable and innovative technology for teaching and research.”

Grateful for the opportunity to grow in his career and excited by the prospect of working with Dr. Michael Hites, SMU’s incoming chief information officer, Warner has big goals for SMU’s academic technology. “ATS must provide and support the platforms and foundations for growth in hybrid and online learning to help SMU reach existing and new communities of students and learners,” he says. “We need to create and maintain clear paths for transformative research in areas such as high performance computing, digital humanities, and geographic information systems, and into new realms of scholarship not yet explored.  My greatest goal is to ensure that OIT can continue to deliver technology solutions that address the needs of academics – and that continue to adapt and change along with those needs.

“Technology isn’t an end, especially academic technology,” says Warner. “Technology is a rapidly moving vehicle, a powerful tool that enables specific ends and outcomes. At the end of the day, my career and my passions are devoted to the achievement and facilitation of academic outcomes. Fortunately, I geek out about the technology as well.  I have the best job on campus!”

Categories
News

Operational Excellence April – May News and Highlights

April and May were busy months in the Office of Operational Excellence. Two new initiatives were announced: Exit Process to streamline the process for facilitating departing employees, and Staff Recognition to identify, create and promote annual staff recognition opportunities. The Repurposed Property Initiative announced its first two ideas to reduce duplication of office supplies and the re-use of furniture on campus: an office supply email list-serv and an office furniture website, both to be introduced this summer. 

Streamlined purchasing practices enabled SMU to save $84K on technology and pushed the University to the $20M mark for savings from the OE2C project. Of the savings identified, funds have already been allocated to general academic reinvestments, the University Research Council, graduate fellowships, high performance computing and more. For more details visit the updated Operational Excellence Metrics here.

In early April, President Turner announced that the University is complementing its exploration of a data warehouse with the creation of a Data Governance committee structure. The work will be overseen by Michael Tumeo with the support of the Data Governance Steering Committee and the Data Governance Committee. Both groups gathered for an inaugural meeting on May 25. 

Some of most thoughtful cost savings and operational improvement ideas implemented at SMU have come directly from faculty and staff members. If you have an idea for how the University could save money and/or streamline processes, submit your thoughts via the online comment form. All submissions may be submitted completely anonymously.

 Featured News 

President Turner Introduces Data Governance Initiative

Exit Process Initiative Announced

The First Two Ideas of The Repurposed Property Initiative

Streamlined Technology Purchasing Saves SMU $84K

Staff Recognition Initiative Announced

SMU Now Saving $20 Million Annually From OE2C

Data Governance Committees Begin Assignments