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News Staff Spotlight

SMU Staff Spotlight – Yvette Castilla

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.

Yvette Castilla grew up in a small town in South Texas, helping run her family’s mom-and-pop grocery store. From there she progressed through jobs that included escrow clerk, bank teller, financial advisor and financial and administrative support for the administrative counselor at a U.S. Embassy. She loved handling accounting work, which led to her joining SMU in 1992 as a financial officer in Development and External Affairs.

Her role in DEA handled a wide range of duties for the department including human resources, contracts, budget training and managing help desk support. Though she worked primarily with the non-academic side of the University, she learned about a number of the challenges and opportunities on the academic side as well. That, and her experience handling multiple financial issues, helped prepare her for a change in roles in December 2016 under Shared Services: Castilla is now the University’s Director of Academic Support.

Academic Support is a new unit in Budget and Finance formed to support the finance and budget needs of the seven academic areas across campus. Castilla oversees a team of seven financial business managers and four accounting liaisons. Their job is to assist academic areas with budget oversight and maintenance, improve consistency for budgeting salary and benefits, and assist with financial business processes like payroll, accounts payable, purchasing, tax compliance, and gift reporting, among many other duties. The new role has given Castilla a chance to dive deeper into the academic workflow.

“I now have a broader perspective of the academic areas’ approach to hiring, funding, budgeting, grants, student support and engagement and many other aspects that are unique to the academic areas,” she says.

In addition, she believes the Shared Services structure offers specific advantages. “Our processes and systems now have resources, especially people with campus-wide experience, which should allow for change and growth in directions that can streamline and improve support on campus.”

When asked about the favorite part of her new position, Castilla says, “I truly enjoy meeting all the folks in the academic areas, although in many cases they are unsure about my role in Academic Support. I try to reassure them that I’m focused on supporting them and assisting them with their unique challenges.” 

Castilla understands that the changes under Shared Services had a broad impact on many areas, including on those who led and participated in the change.

“When you have change as significant and fast-paced as the one we experienced in the interest of Operational Excellence, everyone is impacted – even those who were in the middle of those changes and supported those changes,” she says. “We all had growing pains.”

Realigning her own duties from Development and External Affairs to Budget and Finance was bittersweet, she says, but she was ready for new challenges. As an example, Castilla recently hired four new employees to support four of the academic areas. And, in working to streamline as many processes as possible, even the small ones, she feels they are taking a major step toward a more efficient community.

Castilla’s goal for the future is to continue to keep an eye on the big picture: “If something is not working efficiently for one team then it’s probably a problem for other teams.  If something is working superbly for one team then it can be replicated for other teams,” she says. “Overall, we want to make it as easy as possible for faculty and staff to maintain accounting and reporting standards while they focus on their main responsibility: students’ education.”

Constant communication and attentive customer service are key for Castilla. She practices both every day and talks to her team about what they mean. They are essential to day-to-day operations. 

“Everyone in Shared Services should view themselves as a support position, no matter what level they are in the organization,” she says. “Communicating regularly and taking care of people are critical to our success.”

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News Staff Spotlight

SMU Staff Spotlight – Rachel Mulry

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.

Anyone at SMU who’s gotten assistance from the help desk, had a new computer installed, received upgraded classroom equipment or undertaken Canvas or Sitecore training can thank OIT and one group in particular: the Customer Service department, led by Rachel Mulry.

The department’s teams, totaling 39 members, include the help desk; embedded support (the desktop support team that assists with in-person requests that can’t be resolved by the help desk); audio/video event support (for equipment in classrooms, meeting rooms and events); client systems (hardware/software installation and maintenance); and training and communications.

“I have personnel across all three SMU campuses – Dallas, Plano and Taos,” says Mulry. “I also have the privilege of working with an incredible leadership team that is helping guide OIT to become a trusted strategic partner on campus.”

The services provided by Mulry’s teams touch every area of campus. The help desk handles 2,000 to 3,000 technology-related requests and issues every month. Client systems is responsible for hardware and software installation, repair and support for more than 7,000 devices campus-wide. And the training group offers thousands of courses in person, via webinar, or online through Lynda.com.

Mulry, who joined SMU’s IT department in 1999, was named director of Customer Service as a result of the OE2C Shared Services changes in 2015. It wasn’t a role she foresaw as an SMU undergraduate 20 years ago, though.

“I actually graduated in 1997 with a Bachelor of Music degree in music education,” she says. “I had the honor of studying piano under now-Dean Sam Holland – an incredible teacher!  After graduation, I spent two years as a middle school choir director. The summer after my first year of teaching, I worked at SMU as a temp assisting with computer installations.  The following summer, I worked again as a temp preparing campus computers for Y2K and begged to stay!  I started full time at the help desk and have served in many roles with OIT since then.”

By 2015, she was assistant director in Customer Service, responsible for the help desk, desktop support and cellular support teams. “Then, following Shared Services, I assumed responsibility for the entire Customer Service department, which grew in number due to the reorganization of staff,” she says. “Although I still spend time in similar tasks (such as customer service issues, project management, process development, etc.), those tasks have become much more complex.  Leading such a large team and navigating the rapid changes of both the organization and technology is a responsibility I do not take lightly!  I have grown a tremendous amount personally through the experience and look forward to continued growth and development.”

Mulry sees a number of advantages with the unified resources now available under the new Shared Services structure. “I think one of the advantages is a deeper understanding of the differences between each school and their unique needs,” she says. “We can now more clearly understand the challenges they are facing, and we’re better able to coordinate efforts to meet their needs. Eliminating some of the differences in the technology landscape (such as unique accounts and passwords) has reduced confusion while allowing us to deliver services in a more streamlined way. We are able to communicate more effectively and provide a more consistent support experience in many areas, such as computer installations, software implementation, classroom technology, etc.”

Of course, the reorganization also brought challenges. Probably the biggest one, Mulry says, was resistance to change. “Each person has a different attitude and appetite for change. That’s true both internally in IT as well as across campus,” she says. “No matter how good an initiative might be, it takes a lot of time and energy to ensure that you’ve addressed the concerns, clarified the path, communicated the ‘why,’ and obtained the buy-in before you begin. There’s been tremendous pressure to make significant changes in so many areas quickly, and balancing the work while tending to the emotional/personal aspects of change management has been challenging!”

Mulry and her teams have persevered through the changes and are regularly praised in campus surveys for the quality they deliver. “I am so proud of all of my teams. We have come a long way in two years!” she says. “The training team has expanded their services to reach more students by partnering with the Altshuler Learning Enhancement Center and career center. The help desk has continued to provide incredible support while taking on more and more responsibilities for service requests. The embedded support team has really pulled together to respond to technology issues while learning many new technologies that were unique to each area. The client systems team has revamped innumerable processes, allowing us to rapidly deploy computers and software while reducing costs.”

One particular point of pride, she adds, is the department’s work to improve classroom technology. “We collaborated with the faculty, the Academic Service directors and leadership to decide what those improvements should be. The technology in classrooms can have such a tremendous impact on teaching and learning. Ensuring that the equipment is functional, that help arrives quickly, and that faculty can quickly learn and easily use the system, requires a tremendous amount of work from multiple teams.

“Our team members are amazing people who care deeply about serving the campus community and do so with such positive energy and passion. I am incredibly blessed.”

Mulry says her leadership role brings satisfaction every day. “I love serving people and helping develop my teams to better support everyone at SMU,” she says. “I am a total geek about processes. I love diving in and revamping processes to make them better – better for the customers and more efficient for my teams. I love that the work I do, although behind the scenes, has a direct, positive impact on student learning and the overall college experience. I love being challenged and technology never fails to deliver another challenge!”

As for the future, Mulry says, “I’m a firm believer in continual improvement. I have a number of goals for the next year targeting the account permissions process, the online help desk portal, proactive classroom support, training, and a few exciting initiatives that I can’t share quite yet! Our commitment to SMU is to continue to develop and enhance the service we provide to campus each and every day.”

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SMU Staff Spotlight – Melanie Bailey

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.

Melanie Bailey has been saving time for SMU employees ever since she took the new post of senior contracts administrator in SMU’s Business and Finance office in March 2015. She, and a team of 29 contract leads in academic and business units across campus, are the key reasons why processing contracts at SMU now typically takes two days instead of 44.

“We are part of a new system that was begun in April 2015 as a result of the OE2C Contract Administration initiative,” says Bailey. “Before then, almost all contracts had to be processed by Legal Affairs and, due to their huge workload, contract turnarounds usually took a good six weeks. Under the new system, all contracts go directly to the appropriate lead in each campus department, and they funnel them to me. I review each one and, when needed, I may also consult with Risk Management, OIT, Research Administration, Legal Affairs or other areas for additional review. As a result, our average turnaround time for getting contracts processed is now just two days.”

SMU enters into a wide variety of contracts every year: zero-dollar value contracts, multi-million-dollar contracts, revenue generating contracts and more. Each brings a different level of risk to the University, and Bailey and her colleagues evaluate them individually.

“Most people are surprised by the sheer number of contracts required to conduct University business,” says Bailey. “Since our new procedure started, we’ve processed 2,530 of them! There is no ‘down time.’ Even when the workload feels overwhelming, I figure it out, break it down task by task, get one done and move on to the next.”

The contract processing system is aided by new software, which helps Bailey and her team filter the contracts into categories and also allows for electronic signatures. Paper contracts no longer have to be manually passed around campus for signatures, which speeds up the approval process. Bailey is currently working with OIT to identify even better software with more advanced capabilities, which she hopes to implement within the next year.

Bailey says she is proud of the time-saving results her team has achieved. “We can now handle approximately 90 percent of contracts without involving Legal Affairs, freeing up their time to spend on other important issues. Across campus, we enable colleagues to focus on SMU’s academic mission and not continually spend their time tracking down where their contract is or what the status of it is. The majority of the credit goes to our 29 contract leads, who work extremely hard every single day to get the contracts taken care of for their academic units and business units.  The contracts initiative would not be as successful as it is without them and without the help of Sandra Tefft, who serves as my back-up when I am out of the office.”

Time savings for SMU, and for Bailey

Bailey first arrived at SMU in 2008 looking for a better work-life balance. She had been a paralegal in Dallas working in medical malpractice defense, construction litigation and business litigation, preparing for and attending trials for a number of years. While she loved her job, it required long nights and weekends away from her young children. Finding a position as a legal assistant in SMU’s Legal Affairs office gave her back the family time she was missing. And, her work helping manage contracts in that department paved the way for her current job.

The results of her work are personally meaningful as well. “The best part is the sense of accomplishment I feel when I’ve helped make improvements possible. That includes, for example, the contract that lets an academic unit hire a consultant who will have an important impact on the teaching of students; the contract that will impact our student athletes; the contract that will reach out to a group of students for enrollment services; the contract that will bring new technology into the classrooms; the contract that will bring better health benefits to faculty and staff; the contract for student organizations for help with a charitable cause. What’s important to me is what the contract will deliver to SMU’s students, faculty, staff, alumni, future students, guests and others.”

Looking ahead, Bailey says she has several goals. “As new inefficiencies are identified in processes and workflows, I will work to continue to suggest new processes and make improvements,” she says. “I look forward to helping departments across campus develop new ways to implement standard contracts to make the process easier.”

And she remains grateful for the advantages of her new role. “I have the pleasure of working with great colleagues throughout campus who have the same goal in mind: to get contracts done quickly, meeting the business needs of their department while keeping in mind the best interest of the University. And for myself, even after the transition into my new position, I have been able to maintain the work-life balance that first brought me to SMU!”

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Sign Up For Office Supply Listserv

You are invited to participate in SMU’s new Surplus Office Supply listserv.

The Repurposed Property Initiative Team, under the direction of the Office of Operational Excellence, has announced their first two recommendations, including a voluntary listserv where participants receive email notices of available surplus office supplies in new or gently used condition.  Listserv participants who wish to have the items being offered for on campus use may claim them on a first-come, first serve basis for no charge.  The office supply exchange listserv is designed to match up SMU employees on campus with supply needs with those who have extra, and to save departments on purchases.  As you clean out your supply closets and storage areas, we invite you to use this tool to find new homes for your unwanted materials and/or claim other supplies you need for your work on campus. 

Sign up for the surplus office supplies listserv today!  

To subscribe email: join-surplusofficesupplies@list.smu.edu

Subject: SurplusOfficeSupplies listserv (TEST)

You’ll receive three emails:

1. When you send the join email you’ll receive an email telling you that the membership is pending approval

2. Then you’ll receive the welcome notice with instructions on posting items.

3. Finally an automated message from lyris telling you that you’re approved

We hope you will participate and encourage your colleagues to join as well.  Our goal is to help save the university money and at the same time be environmentally conscious. 

Coming soon!: The Repurposed Property Initiative is looking forward to introducing our solution for repurposing office furniture this fall.  Stay tuned…

Questions? Contact:

Karie Conklin, Project Manager

Repurposed Property Initiative Team

Operational Excellence

kconklin@smu.edu

214.768.3805

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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.”