Opportunities to grow professionally

I won’t take too much of your time up front as I know many of you are engaged in a busy fall cycle. In addition to the usual updates in this newsletter, colleagues and I are pleased to present a few opportunities for continued learning, engagement, and recognition. Thanks for your consideration, and I wish everyone success as you deliver on important program objectives over the coming months. 

CCAE 2021/22 Professional Learning Summits 

It’s summit season again at CCAE, as the organization brings another slate of valuable on-line learning and collaboration opportunities right to your door. Please see the CCAE website for more information on potential sessions of interest including the Advancement Services Summit (beginning Oct. 5), Equity, Diversity, Inclusion, & Indigeneity (EDII) in Advancement Forum (beginning Oct. 18) and Development for Deans (beginning Nov. 24.) Once again, you can register for the entire summit or choose individual sessions along the way. Please work with your supervisor to see if these opportunities align with your programmatic needs. A big thanks to Carlye Brash and Tim Wowk who will be representing Queen’s as presenters at the Advancement Services Summit.  

Building a Better Workplace Update

Now that the Remote Work Arrangements (RWA) requests have been approved, we will be working to formalize them over the next few weeks once we receive the forms from Central HR. In addition to the RWA pilot, two recommendations were slated for completion by the end of September. Please read our guidance on meeting norms that support an inclusive approach to our business, regardless of whether we are working on or off campus. In addition, unit and department profiles have been created and uploaded to QUIRC under the Departments tab.

The Advancement Leadership Team (ALT) has also committed to ongoing development of the following Building a Better Workplace recommendations this fall:

• Working with a university planner to determine a layout of our physical space to test our hybrid model.
• A virtual Everything DiSC Workplace workshop will be offered for new employees and those that have not taken part in a prior session.
• Ongoing assessment of our personal technology to ensure that staff have the equipment they need now and in the future. In addition, we will consider the future state of technology and equipment in the Old Medical Building (Old Meds) and Summerhill as informed by our discussions with PPS.
• Ongoing guidance on data storage and security, file management and the protection and management of sensitive documents while working in a hybrid environment.

Let’s celebrate – join the holiday party planning committee

The Office of Advancement’s year-end holiday celebration is planning (hoping) to be in person this year on Thursday, Dec. 2. We are seeking volunteers to help plan this celebration to make it extra special. If you are interested in joining the planning group, please let Kate Bearse know by Friday, Oct. 15.

The second annual Advancement Data Challenge

By Pat Galloway

Get your data hats ready, as we are excited to announce the return of the Advancement Data Challenge in April 2022.  

Back by popular demand, this friendly competition is an opportunity for us to share all the brilliant ways data is being used across Advancement to drive initiatives and inform decision-making.  As individuals or in small groups, participants will present their project and results to a small panel of judges.  At stake are some fantastic prizes and, even better, the ultimate bragging rights.

Whether you consider yourself a data newbie or a data nerd, this competition is for everyone. So please put on your thinking caps, because it’s time to start brainstorming potential topics.  

Please stay tuned as we provide more information in the coming months. Calls for presentations will come early in the new year, but I would be pleased to help brainstorm ideas or answer any questions in advance.

Join the Queen's Data Quality Community

By Corrine Beckner (Member of the Queen’s Data Quality Group)

Are you interested in learning about best practices in data quality or about the dimensions of data quality?  Would you like a better understanding of how to set up your web-based surveys, forms, or questionnaires so that the information comes back to you in a usable, trustworthy, and workable format? Would you like the opportunity to collaborate with peers across Queen's with similar data quality challenges and interests?

If you answered "yes" to any of the above, I encourage you to join the Queen's Data Quality Community.  
In anticipation of our upcoming 2022 workshop, we will be hosting a virtual meet and greet on Thursday, Nov. 25 at 3:30 pm, and we would love you to join us. The agenda for this event includes a presentation of our cross-university data quality survey results, workshop goals, and a Q&A session.  

For an invitation, please contact Corrine Beckner, who would be happy to add you to the community.  

Refreshed QUIRC orientation video now available

Building on Karen’s note about QUIRC in Planning for progress (ALTogether Now 117), it is great to see renewed activity on our intranet – unique user visits are up 11% this month. Let’s keep it going!  While we agreed to keep ongoing time and energy spent on QUIRC modest, staff in ITM have made a number of simple navigation improvements and removed a few outdated functions. To assist with site orientation and how you can utilize some of its functionality (hint – like building your profile), Jon has refreshed the QUIRC training video which can be found in Advancement News (on QUIRC) – thanks, Jon.

Nominate an Advancement colleague for a Heney Award – Nominations due Nov. 12

The John J. Heney Award is presented in honour of John J. Heney, former Director of Development and recipient of the Queen’s Distinguished Service Award.

It is presented annually to the Advancement employee who best exemplifies the characteristics of commitment to the Advancement profession, superb performance, who exemplifies Advancement mission, vision, and values, and devotion to the organization. Visit the Office of Advancement website to view past award recipients. Any staff member in the Office of Advancement may submit a nomination.

The John J. Heney Award Selection Committee, composed of current Advancement employees who have won the Heney, made revisions to the John J. Heney Award Fund Terms (established 2001.) These changes are in keeping with the original intent of the award and include:

Who can be nominated:

• All staff members of the Office of Advancement, including continuing and term employees are eligible to be nominated.
• In keeping with the original intent and spirit of the Fund, the award is to recognize one individual and not a unit, group, or team.
• Previous award winners may be nominated and receive the award more than once, at the discretion of The John J. Heney Award Selection Committee.
• If the individual in a previous year was not selected, they can be re-nominated.

Award criteria:

Nominations are based on the employee’s previous 12 - to - 18 - month work period and demonstrate concrete examples to support the application criteria.

The nominator must address the rationale for the nomination, based on any of the following criteria: 

• Commitment to the advancement profession, professionalism, and compassion  
• Superb performance in achieving the strategic objectives of the Office of Advancement that embodies the Advancement mission, vision, and values
• Devotion to the organization and/or the broader university
• The nominator must include how the employee has demonstrated initiative above and beyond the regular call of duty in their work.

There is a new online nomination form. All nominations must be submitted no later than 4:00 pm on Friday, Nov 12, 2021. Late applications will not be accepted.

Please take some time to nominate today – if you have any questions, please contact Carla Ferreira Rodrigues.

Employee spotlight 

The Employee spotlight celebrates the arrival of our new staff by profiling responses they share through a fun and informal survey that will help us get to know them better. Be sure to review these profiles and use these fun facts and tidbits to find commonalities, embrace differences and spark a conversation! Last week we welcomed one new member to Advancement:

Jessica Carn in the position of Executive Director, Development, Faculty of Health Sciences. Learn more about Jessica and what her favourite family tradition is.

Today's current Advancement staff feature is, Caitlin Adair, in the position of Associate Director, Partner Communications & Events, Advancement Communications, Marketing and Donor Relations.

Jobs with Advancement

We need your recruitment help. Know great talent that would be a good addition to our team? If so, please promote the vacancies below with your networks and let’s find some amazing new team members.

Applications (including a cover letter and résumé) must be submitted through CareerQ. For additional information on this posting, please reach out to either Carla Ferreira Rodrigues or the hiring manager for the position you are interested in.

Apply for available positions