President Gamble held a spring "Coffee with the President" event for Statewide employees on Tuesday, April 26, in the Board of Regents' conference room in Fairbanks. Anchorage Statewide staff joined in via videoconference from the Bragaw Office Building Room 205. There was an excellent turnout for the event, and plenty of coffee, fresh fruit, cheese and crackers and cookies to go around.

The president updated employees on the legislative session and the state budgeting climate, offered some thoughts regarding the upcoming strategic planning process, and spoke about the need for all university employees to work together for the benefit of students. He thanked employees for their hard work, and he lauded faculty members for coming together to produce the Academic Master Plan.

Special thanks to the OIT crew, University Relations and Public Affairs for working together to make the coffee a success.

Do you take cool photos? We want to highlight the best of our University of Alaska campuses. The Statewide Office of Public Affairs is continually looking for awesome images to use in the main University of Alaska main web site. Take a look at http://www.alaska.edu/. Your photo could be there!

Photo Assignment for May:
For the upcoming month, we are specifically looking for photos of commencements across the UA System and our students out and about studying, playing sports, enjoying campus activities and, of course, graduating! Take a break and get out on campus with your camera. Be creative. Be artistic. Send us the picture and tell us about the activity!�

Upload your photos here: http://www.alaska.edu/alaska/photos/
If we use your photo, we will send you a 2GB University of Alaska jump drive.

Photo must meet the following criteria:

• Photo must be awesome :)
• Photo must be horizontal
• File size may not exceed 5 MB
• Photo must be of JPEG format (.jpg, .jpeg)
• Please provide a caption (max. of 256 characters)

Thank you!

It is spring, and University of Alaska campuses are greening up! Not in the leaf-growing sense (although that is coming soon); they are "going green" in the Earth-friendly way.

Statewide employees can utilize student-run recycling programs to reduce waste and protect resources. In both the Butrovich and the Bragraw buildings, blue paper recycling tubs are available and collected by student groups weekly. Cardboard boxes can be broken down and recycled as well. Do not worry about plastic window envelopes or staples--they can still be recycled. But please do be certain that no food residue is on anything you put into the recycle bin.

All kinds of recycling is now available on the UAF campus. UAF Recycling operates as a partnership between students (Associated Students of the University of Alaska Fairbanks) and the administration (Facilities Services). A transfer station for paper, plastic and glass has been put into place at the Nenana parking lot across from Patty Gym. For information on the items that can be recycled on campus visit the sustainability website or read the FAQs. Thanks for supporting our students' efforts to go green!
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The UAF coal-fired boiler is off-line for maintenance until the end of May. The eight-week period that started April 1 is expected to cost UAF more than $1 million in purchased electricity.

All members of the campus community are asked to identify ways to conserve energy during this time. Butrovich employees can make a difference by “Taking Charge and Powering Down” with some simple actions. Let’s work together to do what we can to conserve energy and to make a difference, not just during these two months, but throughout the year. Download the energy flyer to post in your area as a reminder how you can make a difference.

The rehabilitation of one mile of Geist Road, from Thompson Drive to University Avenue, will include new asphalt and signing, traffic signal upgrades, and new sidewalk curb ramps, drainage and ditches. The project will start in early May with the first traffic impact in mid-May.

Message boards will be posted several days in advance of significant activity. Drivers are strongly encouraged to use alternate routes during construction.

For more information visit the project website.

In recognition of the dedicated and hardworking administrative professionals at the University of Alaska, Statewide Human Resources and Public Affairs sponsored a day of workshops and events on Monday, April 25, 2011.

The day's events kicked off with the showing of "FISH! Philosophy," a video about creating a positive workplace: an environment in which people are truly connected to their work, to their colleagues and to their customers. The humorous video portrays the Pike's Street Market, but the philosophy can be applied anywhere.

Mid-morning, Scott Keyes of Younker-Keyes & Associates presented "Retirement Plan Basics: How saving and preparing for retirement goes hand in hand with daily personal finance." Meanwhile, Anne Sakumoto of HR gave a demonstration of the SkillSoft e-Learning software in the computer training lab. Through SkillSoft, employees have access to a host of online resources including books, practice certification exams, training videos and more. Lab time for exploring the software was provided following the presentation.

The latter part of the morning featured a series of presentations from Cindy Salmon from WIN for Alaska. The sessions began with 15 minutes of light exercises then transitioned into discussions on time management and organization. Rubber resistance bands were distributed and participants were shown a series of upper and lower body strength exercises easily done from a desk chair. Another 15-minute session focused on coping with stress. The sessions wrapped up with chair yoga, another work-friendly exercise option, and concluded with a sampling of healthy snacks.

Skip Via, technology instructor for the UAF School of Education, presented "Professional Uses of Social Media" in the first of two afternoon presentations. He discussed the implications of our digital footprints and digital identity and demonstrated many ways that tools like Facebook, LinkedIn, YouTube, Twitter and other social media tools could be used in professional and educational applications. He also discussed the impact that social media has had on society in general and education in particular.

President Gamble gave the opening remarks to the day's final presentation on leadership. He discussed the qualities of a good leader and the skills that can be developed to create better relations with co-workers. Wendy Tisland of HR continued the session with a discussion on the skills required for developing and utilizing leadership ablity in daily work.

Many thanks to all the presenters, organizers and attendees of the day's events! Special recognition� goes to Izzy Martinez in Public Affairs, who took a great idea and ran with it!

Photos by Monique Musick

The Sitka campus of the University of Alaska Southeast has a newly trained Campus Community Emergency Response Team, or C-CERT. The multi-day training offered by the Statewide Office of Emergency Management trains campus volunteers in first aid, search and rescue, triage, and small fire suppression. Congratulations to UAS-Sitka for creating a C-CERT! Similar efforts across the UA System are creating a more effective and coordinated emergency response program that will benefit students, faculty and staff.

Keep up-to-date on current wellness benefits and be inspired by healthy lifestyle tips through the UA Health Link. This online newsletter provides monthly updates on IHP programs, wellness breaks, current incentive programs and more. If you missed this month's issue, read it HERE.