Tuesday Morning Notes

September 11th, 2001


My shock, sadness and sympathy goes out to all impacted by the Twin Towers attack.

* The operating costs for the College's 800 number service have risen sharply over the last several months. In an effort to curb these costs, we are asking that all users confine their use of this service to University business, and to not leave connections open and unattended. Those locations that are making especially heavy use of the 800 number will be contacted to see if we can't find better solutions. College administration will issue a more thorough statement explaining this situation within the next few days. If you have immediate questions, please contact Robert MacArthur in ECAT, 1-520-621-2489, or robmac@cals.arizona.edu.

* It's awards time in Extension...we need your nomination, ASAP! The Extension Staff Person of the Year Award deadline is September 27, 2001, and the Extension Faculty of the Year Award and the Extensionist of the Year Award deadlines are September 25, 2001. Criteria and guidelines for the Staff and Faculty Awards can be found at: http://cals.arizona.edu/awards/awardsemp.html. Please take this seriously. Each office should have at least one nomination.

* Deadline to order your CALS shirts: September 14, 2001. Please see the great 2001 selection at http://cals.arizona.edu/employees/shirts/shirts.htm or call Glenda Thompson for any questions you might have at 621-7205.

* A new team has been formed under the College Quality Guidance Council. The Business Practices Team is charged with bringing about positive change in the content and manner in which college business processes occur. The immediate task is to develop strategies to implement four recommendations identified by college business officers. Those recommendations are to: 1) Implement orientation and mentoring programs for business officers, 2) Assess CALS Administration and Departmental processes and recommend changes to improve organizational efficiencies, 3) Decentralize document routing, and 4) Improve working relationship with Unit Heads/Faculty. If you have any questions or comments about the Business Practices Team, please contact the Team Leader, Cynthia Flynn. The team is actively seeking participation from interested individuals to assist in the process. If you are interested in working on a subteam, or wish to participate in feedbback forums, please email any of the team members: Orientation Mentoring - Lee Peters petersl@u.arizona.edu, Dan Ruch, druch@cals.arizona.edu; Internal Processes & Decentralization - Margo Santucci, santucci@cals.arizona.edu, Alma Sperr sperr@cals.arizona.edu, Cecily Westphal, cecily@cals.arizona.edu, Lois McRoberts mcroberl@u.arizona.edu, Maggie Quail, mquail@cals.arizona.edu; Working Relations - Cynthia Flynn, cflynn@cals.arizona.edu, Kevin Butler kevinb@u.arizona.edu, Lynn Joens, joens@cals.arizona.edu.

* The Water Resources Research Center is having its Annual State wide Water Conference in Phoenix on November 13. The conference will be held in the Heard Museum from 9 am till 5 pm. The topic of this years water conference is the outcome of the Governor's Water Management Commission. Please put this date on your agenda.

* A guest speaker - Molly Holzschlag - will be giving two presentations to the UA webmasters group in early October. Molly is an instructor, national speaker, and author of various books, including "Special Edition: Using HTML 4.0" and "Web by Design". Both of these presentations are aimed at intermediate or experienced web masters who are familiar with creating web pages. Some basic experience with HTML is useful. Her two presentations are: Tuesday, October 9, 10-noon, CCIT Room 337, focusing on XHTML: Getting Familiar with the New Standard and Thursday, October 11, 10-noon, CCIT Room 337, focusing on CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) Intensive. For details about the talks, see http://cals.arizona.edu/ecat/classes/ which also has a link to the registration form.

* A grant seeking workshop will be held in Tucson October 29-30 for Extension faculty. The registration form and tentative agenda for this workshop are online at http://cals.arizona.edu/extension/employee/registration.htm. Registration deadline is October 5th. Registration cost is $25 payable by IDB to "Extension Programs". For out-of-town faculty, the State Extension office will pay for travel and up to 2 nights stay in a hotel. Please direct questions to Sheila Merrigan at merrigan@cals.arizona.edu or 520-626-6543.




James A. Christenson, Ph.D.
(jimc@cals.arizona.edu)
Associate Dean and Director
Arizona Cooperative Extension
Forbes, Room 301
Tucson, Arizona 85721
520/621-7209
520/621-1314 FAX