New ACT Program earns rave reviews

New ACT Program earns rave reviews
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BY JENNIFER EVANS
Rice News Staff

Almost any department
administrator or coordinator would agree that learning all
the intricacies of Rice University requires time. But thanks
to the new Administrative Career Training (ACT) Program,
the time needed will be considerably less.

After more than
15 months of planning, meetings and focus groups, last week
human resources rolled out the first class of the program
designed to help key administrative staff understand their
responsibilities, understand the administrative offices
at Rice and show them where to get help.

“Rice 101,”
which presented all the basics about the university, from
its history and culture to its mission and its organizational
structure, earned rave reviews for unfolding some of the
mysteries of Rice — even for staff veterans.

“When I
started at Rice 10 years ago I was unable to attend the
orientation, so there was much I did not learn,” said
Seryu Patel, department administrator in chemical engineering.
“This course gave a good overview of Rice. It was a
very informative course; overall I would give it an excellent
rating.”
The program especially is targeted toward individuals who
are new to Rice or new to administrative positions here
and is designed to minimize the learning curve.

It seems to have
done just that for Jim Smolen, senior administrator in the
Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology, who took the
Rice 101 class. “It was a real blessing that this program
is starting just as I am,” said Smolen, who started
at Rice just a couple months ago. “Anything they can
teach me is very welcome; for a newbie, the class was very
useful.”

The program has
created a buzz among university leaders as well. “When
Jana Callan [change manager in human resources and an ACT
class facilitator] came to me with the idea of [this training
program], I was so impressed that I asked to be the speaker
on the Rice 101 segment,” said Mark Scheid, assistant
to the president, who in the first Rice 101 class discussed
the role of staff, facultyand students in the mission of
Rice.

“The department
coordinators and department administrators and other staff
who work in support of academic and administrative departments
are critical to Rice’s success,” said Mary Cronin,
associate vice president for human resources. “We’re
thrilled to kick off a program that recognizes the importance
of what they do, starts them off with the skills needed
to do a good job and provides them information which otherwise
could take years to acquire.”

The curriculum
is divided into four parts:
• Rice 101 (basic administrative information)
• financial skills (an overview of Banner, analytical
skills, payroll, budget, buy/pay and the controller’s
office) and human resource skills (life cycles at Rice,
forms, etc.)
• academic department skills (working with student,
faculty, research funds)
• personal excellence skills (time management, interpersonal
skills and communication skills).

A Training Advisory
Group comprised of school administrators, assistant deans,
division and department administrators and department coordinators
from across the university helped develop the curriculum
and worked to ensure that there are no big holes in the
curriculum.

This fall, the
ACT courses offered will be Rice 101, faculty administration,
increasing interpersonal skills, polishing communication
skills and time management. Each class will be offered twice.
Plans are for the spring courses to include financial skills,
human resources skills and academic department skills.

The current schedule
of ACT courses — and the registration form — is
available online at the ACT Web site, <http://act.rice.edu>.
The latest news and developments in the ACT program also
are available here, and news also is regularly distributed
via the listserv, which can be subscribed to on the “ContACT”
page of the ACT Web site.