Official Employee Announcements

To: University of Illinois Faculty, Staff and Students
From: Michele Thompson, Secretary of the Board of Trustees,
on behalf of Trustee Pamela B. Strobel
Re: Campus Forums for Presidential Search

The Search Committee to Assist in the Selection of a President will conduct a Campus Forum at each campus of the University to receive comments and suggestions from members of the University community concerning the search for a new president of the University.

Trustee Pamela B. Strobel, chair of the search committee, stated that these are intended to be “listening sessions” for the members of the search committee that will help the committee develop a set of criteria, experiences and qualifications that a new president of the University of Illinois should possess. These criteria will then be used to measure the qualifications and characteristics of potential candidates.

The first forum will be held at the Chicago campus on December 2, 2009, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. in Rooms A, B, C, first floor of the Student Services Building, 1200 West Harrison Street (Racine Avenue and Harrison Streets).

The second forum will be at the Urbana campus on December 3, 2009, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m. in the Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 South Gregory Street, Urbana (between Illinois and Oregon Streets).

The third forum is scheduled for the Springfield campus on December 8, 2009, 3:00 – 5:00 p.m., in the auditorium in Brookens Library.

Individuals wishing to speak to the representatives of the search committee will be asked to sign in before the forum begins. Comments may also be sent to the search committee at: presidentsearch@uillinois.edu.

To: The Campus Community
From: UIS Police Department
Date: Thursday, November 19, 2009
Subject: LLCC Aggravated Assault

On Tues. 11/17/09 at approx. 7:00 p.m. a female student was walking toward her vehicle on the LLCC campus, where she was approached from behind by a suspect described as a black male in his mid-twenties wearing a black hoodie pullover.  The suspect grabbed her around the shoulders, pulling her up against him and started fondling her.  She was able to open a small pocket knife attached to her keychain and to push the suspect away.  She pointed the knife at him.  The suspect got scared and left.  The suspect smelled of alcohol & marijuana.  She reported the incident to the Lincoln Land Police Department on Wed. 11/18/09 after talking with her parents. 

This information is being sent to you as a reminder that all of our parking lots have Emergency Code Blues which automatically call the police dispatcher on campus telling them where you are.  We also offer a walking police escort service when you call 217-206-6690.

Better to be safe; be aware of your surroundings.  If you see unusual activity on campus, please don’t hesitate to call UIS Police 217-206-6690.  If you haven’t already done so, please add UIS Police Dept into you cell phone directory or speed dial now.

Don Mitchell
Chief
UIS Police Department
Phone: 217/206-6690
E-Mail:  dmitc1@uis.edu
Web site:   http://www.uis.edu/police/

To: The Campus Community
From: Information Technology Services
Date: Wednesday, November 18, 2009
Subject: Changes to email Distribution Lists

Changes are being made to the three primary email distribution lists, UIS Campus Announcements, UIS Employee – Official Information, and UIS Student – Official Information.  The changes will bring more information to students (they currently do not receive UIS Campus Announcements), bring greater urgency to truly important and critical announcements, and reduce the number of incoming mailbox messages.

UIS Campus Announcements
The UIS Portal (https://my.uis.edu) has become the new place to read UIS Campus Announcements for all students and employees.  They are already there!  Log into the UIS Portal (https://my.uis.edu) and see for yourself.  Messages sent to UIS Campus Announcements will appear in both the portal and individual mailboxes until January 4th, 2010, but after that date UIS Campus Announcements will no longer appear in your email inbox.

UIS Campus Announcements are also available through an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) feed.  Subscribing to the feed (http://uisapp.uis.edu/announcements/campus.rss ) will allow you to continue to receive UIS Campus Announcements in Outlook, or you can read them in a web browser (IE or Firefox, for example) or in any number of standard RSS readers.

There is no change in the way that messages are sent to UIS Campus Announcements.

UIS Employee – Official Information DL and UIS Student – Official Information DL
Changes will be made so that anyone receiving a message from either UIS Employee – Official Information or UIS Student – Official Information can be confident that the message is of significant importance to warrant use of the official lists.  These messages will still be sent to individual mailboxes.  In addition, you may choose to add these messages to your individual view in the UIS Portal.

More information about UIS distribution lists is available is available on the ITS web site: http://www.uis.edu/its/about/policies.html#lists

To: The Campus Community
From: Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Date: Tuesday, November 10, 2009
Subject: Handling Third Party Inquiries and the Admissions Reform Policy


Sometimes persons other than applicants or their parents/guardians, coaches, or appropriate academic personnel will inquire about the status of someone's application for admission, or they will provide unsolicited letters of recommendation, or they will encourage the university to admit these students. UIS defines this as a "third party" request.

UIS defines a "third party" as anyone, internal or external to the university, who does not have a direct role in the academic programs or the admissions of students to the university.

If there is any question about whether an inquiry regarding an applicant is a "third-party inquiry" or a legitimate, appropriate communication, the inquiry first should be directed to the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs (VCSA), who will determine who should respond. If an immediate response is warranted, the Vice Chancellor may request that the Associate Chancellor for Constituent Relations speak directly with the third party if he is not available.
 
If you receive a third party inquiry please contact the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs at 217.206.6581, or via email at tbarn4@uis.edu. A log will be kept of all third party inquiries. This log is made public if there is a FOA request.

For a complete process on handling third party request please see the Admissions Reform policy link at the bottom of the Admissions Office website at http://www.uis.edu/admissions/


Thank you,

Tim Barnett, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs

To: The Campus Community
From: Chancellor Richard D. Ringeisen
Date: Tuesday, November 3, 2009
Subject: Budget Crisis

Colleagues:

I want to follow up on the note sent late yesterday afternoon by Presidents White and Ikenberry to all university employees. They specifically mentioned the necessity of setting aside 6% of our state funds this year (FY2010), as a contingency plan in the wake of a weakening state budget situation.  Let me repeat what the presidents said.  We are doing this to be prepared for probable rescission, based on our analysis of the state budget situation.

For UIS, setting aside 6% would be well over $1 million. However, the University Administration has not yet indicated to the campuses what our exact set-aside will be. We await additional word on that. “Set-aside” does not mean a permanent budget cut. It does mean not spending everything we have budgeted this year.

I want to let you know that the UIS administration had anticipated a serious budget problem, and so we had placed some of our own funds in reserve. We also had set aside other funds until the budget situation this year became clearer. That puts us in a stronger position at UIS now that we’re looking at a university wide set-aside.

We must consider how we can best serve our students and safeguard our academic enterprise in ongoing difficult budgetary times. That means we must be more selective about which positions we will fill when they become vacant, and we will consider organizational or structural changes that should make us more efficient in the long run.

In the weeks to come, when we get more direction from UA, we will have more conversations at the division, college and unit level about our budget situation not only for this year, but also looking ahead to next year.

I am confident that by working together and keeping our focus on our top priorities, we will get through this budget crisis together and continue to build one of the top five small public liberal arts universities in the nation. We will emerge in a strong position, serving our students with high energy and high quality. Thank you for your attention to our students and our top priorities.