Committee Highlights

Engage: The Benefits Committee aims to engage our constituency by conducting assessments and partnering with our committee members across all schools and units at the University to better understand their needs.

Encourage: We want to amplify and advocate for all voices in our administrator community, and encourage all administrators to join us if interested in our work.

Excel: Our Committee has a strong track record of advocating for key University benefits and highlighting the contributions of administrators to the University.

What was your programming like this year? Anything new? Anything traditional?
This year we continued our Benefit Spotlight series offering events on the High Deductible Health Plan + Health Savings Account option from the perspective of NYU employees in partnership with NYU HR, followed up last year’s “Coping with Pandemic Stress” program with “Finding Calm” with Dr. Reji Mathew from NYU Silver/NYU Wellness (March), and will be offering a workshop on updates to the Federal Loan Forgiveness program with Natasha Bean at NYU Financial Education.

What do you want to focus on next year?
Over the next year we will be conducting needs assessments and research on evolving benefits needs as benefit priorities shift and evolve. We will also be working with a university-wide committee to examine the benefits offerings to propose changes and enhancements which will provide lots of opportunities for involvement both within our committee and the greater AMC community to share feedback.

What three words would you use to describe your progress this year?
Evolving, Collaborating, and Advocating.

Is there anything new/cool/surprising you learned this year that you’d like to share?
Our committee includes members from the Washington Square, Brooklyn, Dental, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. campuses which not only gives an interesting perspective but is a great opportunity to network and meet colleagues across the University.

Engage: The Bylaws are entrusted to our committee. As NYU community members, it is our collective responsibility to ensure adherence to web accessibility standards. When contacted by the CMS Training Team, the committee devised a remediation plan. Compliance aside, it behooved our Council to create accessible documentation within an inclusive digital environment extending to our neurodiverse constituents.

Encourage: Committee members actively participated in productive dialogues with Anti-Racism Task Force members in discussing their experiences as committee members and racial barriers, bias, and inequities to participation. Different perspectives and insights were invited when discussing anti-racism within the AMC.

Excel: In accomplishing the aforementioned digitally accessible and branded Bylaws document, the committee joined forces with the Communications Committee in leveraging their design and remediation expertise. Kate Monahan, NYU IT and Communications Committee member, graciously volunteered her time in converting a Word document into a Grackle add-on approved Google Doc on updated AMC Bylaws branding. Kate’s contributions and Bylaws committee member input yielded a long overdue updated and evergreen document for years to come.

What changes have you noticed in your programming in terms of participation?
As referred by Parliamentarian Emeritus Norma Kenigsberg, the Committee recruited and welcomed Henry Pruitt of NYU IT as a new member this year.

As a new leader, what did you bring to the table in your role?
I identify as a detail-oriented, tenacious, collaborator. I’m also a proponent of asynchronous work taking place outside of meetings. Given the type of work required, Bylaws editing and review lends itself to blocks of uninterrupted time and engaging digitally with colleagues through Google Workspace tools. This was implemented in creating a rebranded digitally accessible Bylaws document using Google Docs.

What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
As cliché as it may sound, my piece of advice for new leaders is to go on a meet-and-greet listening roadshow. Take the opportunity to introduce yourself to fellow peer leaders (some of whom may also be in a similar new leadership position) and subject matter experts. It may surprise you how quickly the dialogue can morph into an improvised brainstorming session for inter-committee collaboration and future AMC partnership opportunities.

How has your committee prepared for the future with respect to knowledge sharing/transference/succession planning?
Knowledge transference is pivotal to succession planning. I’m eternally grateful to the Parliamentarian Emeritus for her willingness to have a transition meeting with me when I stepped into this new role. Norma’s Bylaws tenure and historical context for the role informed how I approach Bylaws leadership and when/how to make the tough calls as Parliamentarian.

I’m a note-taker at heart and given my prior Officer role, I’m insistent on having AMC information on the Google Workspace Share Drive. Whether that’s uploading saved emails that contain points of reference about the Bylaws, committee meeting minutes, or drafted amendments to the Bylaws ahead of presentation to the Council at monthly meetings. This will readily facilitate future committee leadership transitions and provide context for annual lookbacks including this very AMC Yearly and hopefully in 50 years’ time the AMC centennial.

What do you want to focus on next year?
Next year we’d like to focus on the presented recommendations within the Anti-Racism Task Force’s report, following up on outlined courses of action and accountability as authored by the Executive Committee.

What three words would you use to describe your progress this year?

• Vigilant: Last year, the committee dutifully undertook an extensive Bylaws revamp. This year served as a test run to determine workability. We were on the lookout for inadvertently created obstacles not previously foreseen that needed to be addressed.
  
• Swift: When presented with a need to make a change to the Bylaws, the committee sprung into action assessing the grounds for the amendment and authoring proposed verbiage for consideration at the upcoming AMC monthly meeting. Pending an affirmative vote of a two-thirds Council majority, among Representatives or their Alternates who were present and voting at the meeting, the agreed upon text was formally updated in the Bylaws and uploaded to the AMC website.
  
• Compliant: In Summer 2021, AMC was contacted to make a plan remediating all posted PDFs on our website. The Bylaws was flagged as content in need of significant remediation to meet NYU’s digital accessibility standards. Converting to a view-only Google Doc allowed for easier editing and accessibility checking while conforming to Digital Accessibility Benchmarks.

Engage: In partnership with NYU’s Email Direct team, we expanded our communication support by onboarding AMC Committees and Special Initiatives into one of the University’s primary marketing automation platforms, Email Direct. Fellow Communications Committee member, Katie Santo, along with her colleague Debbi Litt, led our onboarding training session with representatives from six Committees and Special Initiatives. This Email Direct subaccount now provides these groups with more autonomy over their email marketing, unique, committee-branded templates, and access to detailed marketing analytics.

We incorporated regular metrics reporting of the AMC website and the AMC Monthly newsletter into our monthly meetings to track online engagement over the course of 2021–2022 and reveal opportunities for improvement across our communication channels. This data will guide our approach to an upcoming audit and refresh of the AMC website.  

Encourage: In an effort to maintain and build on our inclusive committee model, we added elements to our monthly meetings to facilitate collaborative discussion and provide participation and leadership opportunities for Committee members. Committee members are invited to volunteer to serve as meeting scribe and/or facilitator via a sign-up sheet, and Committee meetings are used as an opportunity for ongoing promotion of open Communications lead roles. Additionally, we’ve added a “Sharing is Caring” standing agenda item to discuss campus, industry resources, and learning opportunities at the University and beyond.

Excel: We engaged with the AMC Yearly planning group at the beginning of this year to assess the current project workflow and explore content enhancements for the 2021-2022 issue. The group collectively developed a redesign blueprint to convert the AMC Yearly into a web-based format, making the content more accessible, easier to link to, and more collaborative via shared content management system access. Additionally, the ability to measure more granular engagement metrics will help inform the content strategy for future AMC Yearly reports. 

This year, we also launched an enhanced Communications Request Form to provide Committees, Senior Unit Reps, and Special Initiatives additional channels and transparency for support. The new form offers guidance on turnaround time and asset preparation, as well as options to request assistance with branded template design/review and Email Direct support.

What changes have you noticed in your programming in terms of participation?
While we continued to maintain our core group of engaged committee members, we were also thrilled to welcome a few new (and returning) faces to the Committee this year, thanks in part to AMC’s “Meet The Committees” virtual open house.

Moreover, one of our primary goals as a Committee has been to create a collaborative, inclusive, and creative environment where members feel empowered to contribute and showcase their talents, as well as support each other amid another unusual academic year. Over the past year, Committee members have volunteered to take on new projects, assume leadership roles, and help spearhead initiatives such as the AMC Monthly newsletter, AMC Yearly annual report, and the onboarding of AMC committees and special initiatives onto the Email Direct platform.

As a new leader, what advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
Don’t be afraid to experiment, ask questions, and try new methods of communicating and working with each other. Leadership is also a valuable opportunity to listen and apply lessons learned to the various functions that help teams and committees run smoothly and effectively—from workflows to processes to documentation.

Most importantly, have fun! The AMC is an employee resource group that provides wonderful support, plenty of professional development opportunities, and a powerful network made up of talented and hardworking colleagues.  

What do you want to focus on next year?
The website and email data we collected and discussed over the course of this year will help inform an eventual redesign of the AMC website. In spring 2022, Committee members kickstarted a full-scale content audit, which will provide a framework to develop a redesign strategy in the fall.

We also look forward to expanding our engagement with fellow Committees and Special Initiatives and supporting their communication efforts through the use of branded templates and best practices.

What three words would you use to describe your progress this year?
Inform, Enhance, Collaborate

Is there anything new/cool/surprising you learned this year that you’d like to share?
Our amazing UX Design Lead Logan Johnson is a meditation wizard! He guided us on a mindfulness journey and showed us helpful tips and tricks for decompressing and de-stressing at work during his session at this year’s committee retreat.

Any pitch for getting involved with your committee next year?
The AMC Communications Committee is an inclusive, collaborative, and supportive group of talented professionals across NYU. Our aim is for committee members to feel empowered to share, reflect, and bring all ideas to the table. We welcome anyone and everyone who is interested in amplifying the important work of the AMC to explore the Communications Committee’s numerous opportunities to expand your professional development and leadership skills.

We engaged the administrator community this year through our Mentoring Program which had over 60 mentoring pairs. Throughout the year we hosted 9 virtual events, created a pre-recorded orientation video, which was included in the welcome message to all participants. In addition, we issued a monthly mentoring newsletter to further support employees in this virtual environment. The newsletter included discussion points and ideas for their monthly meetings, professional and career development resources, NYU resources, and mentoring quotes from long term NYU mentor participants.

We collaborated with AMC committees and other offices around campus to provide timely, relevant, and curated programming for the administrator community.  

What was your programming like this year? Anything new? Anything traditional?
We ran 9 events this year, focused on supporting the needs of NYU administrators as we continue to adjust to the rigorous demands of an evolving academic landscape amidst COVID. We even tried something new with creating asynchronous content for our Mentoring Program.

• Mentoring Program Kickoff Event
• Best Practices for New Mentors asynchronous panel discussion 
• Ask an Administrator featuring Brenda Mitchell, Tamara Santiago, and Amy Hernandez
• Position Yourself for Success with Monroe France
• Re-Imagining Conversations for Creative Self-Advocacy with Reji Matthew        
• How to Own Your Career Path and Prepare for Promotion Panel
• Career Pathing Event 
• Emotional Intelligence Trainings (2 times) with Talent, Learning, & Organizational Development (TLOD)
• Mentorship Graduation

We created a successful monthly Mentoring Newsletter last year and we continue to meet the professional development needs of our cohort through this vehicle. This year we have added a section devoted to Diversity, Equity and Inclusion to promote programming across the University and support our diverse constituency.

As a new leader, what did you bring to the table in your role?
Carmel Boyle-Lewis was appointed as Vice Chair this year. Carmel: I have been a committee member and very vocal supporter of this committee for many years and was honored to take on the role of Vice Chair. I bring a level of passion and enthusiasm to the committee and to the role. I also infuse my DEI perspective and ideas to support committee endeavors.

What advice would you give someone going into a leadership position for the first time?
Carmel: For those taking on a new leadership role within the AMC, remember that you are not doing this by yourself. You have a whole community, committee, and individual members who share the same purpose and want you to succeed. When you ask for help or advice, you will receive it so don’t be afraid to share your talents with the AMC!

How has your committee prepared for the future with respect to knowledge sharing/transference/succession planning?
Our committee has worked hard to create strategic leadership opportunities for committee members who are interested. This has expanded our committee’s capabilities while also allowing individuals to grow and create opportunities for further leadership growth within the Professional Development committee.

What do you want to focus on next year?
As in previous years, what we have found to be successful for us is to continue to focus on creating programming to support our community’s ever changing professional development needs and growing our Mentorship program.

What three words would you use to describe your progress this year?
Empowerment, Support, Community Engagement

Is there anything new/cool/surprising you learned this year that you’d like to share?
COVID has really taken a toll on everyone and we are just working together to provide opportunities to uplift, support, and empower our community members.

Any pitch for getting involved with your committee next year? If you are interested in working to create opportunities for professional development for NYU administrators and staff, take on a new leadership role, or just meet new people from across the University, come join the Professional Development committee.

Engage - we engage with the NYU Administrator community through a variety of events, as follows:

• AMC 50th Anniversary Celebration (AMC Day) - June 8: A team of dedicated committee members collaborated to create a daylong celebration of the historic anniversary of the Council. The program aimed to reflect the spirit of the Council’s activities, including engagement with senior leaders, memories with long-haulers and retirees, fun and games, family and friends, wellness breaks….and finally a dance party!
• Administrator Art Show: gallery all summer, reception June 16 - this event was engaging, encouraging and excellent in every sense! Launching a virtual gallery and hosting a virtual reception were two separate labors of love, with the bulk of the effort contributed by Stephen Kaldon. We traded in the gallery walls, the park view, the champagne and hugs, but what remained and shown more brightly than ever, were the works of art and the artists. This event was a triumph.
• Retirees Gathering - June 8: this year we held this annual gathering during AMC Day, thereby including the retirees in the day’s festivities. The retirees were able to connect with one another, engage with the AMC, and celebrate the milestone anniversary. Once again, recorded musical performances by students helped to set a celebratory tone.
• Welcome New Reps - September 24: newly elected Reps and Alts introduced themselves and were welcomed to the AMC by the Executive Committee.
  
• Meet the Committees - September 24: This event consisted of breakout rooms where each committee had representatives available to chat with anyone interested in learning more about the work being done. Newly elected reps were guided there directly after their welcome, and all AMC constituents were invited.
  
• Fireside Chat with President Hamilton - March 22: this annual event is exciting and important each year. Whether in-person or virtually, we are happy to be able to offer the opportunity to have questions asked and answered, and to be addressed as administrators in a focused setting.
  
• May AMC Meeting - May 10: this meeting is a special opportunity for AMC constituents to reflect on the year’s achievements.
• Pilates Party - Ongoing: this ongoing series is run by Sarah Awad, an IT administrator and AMC alternate representative, who leads administrators through an invigorating workout monthly. Sarah brings expert training and experience in Pilates, along with her upbeat personality, on-theme outfits and an inspiring song list. New in 2021-2022 is the collaboration with MindfulNYU.
• Zoom Cafe - Ongoing: this regular meet-up of colleagues was the brainchild of Nick Reed who created a structured environment for folks to enjoy virtual camaraderie.

What was your programming like this year? Anything new? Anything traditional?

• AMC Day - we pulled it off!
• A new partnership with MindfulNYU for the monthly Pilates Party series
• Committee Survey matching members with their interests and skills, helping to plan involvement for each upcoming event

What changes have you noticed in your programming in terms of participation?

• Focus on standing events due to virtual setting
• Not hosting Emerging Professionals events, waiting until they can resume in-person
• Additional interest in committee participation

How has your committee prepared for the future with respect to knowledge sharing/transference/succession planning?
All of our documents and planning tools are saved in the committee Google Drive.

What do you want to focus on next year?
Resumption of in-person programming for standing events and Emerging Professionals events (in accordance with CDC and University guidelines)

What three words would you use to describe your progress this year?

• Adaptive - focusing on making virtual events interesting and engaging
• Perseverance - maintaining the momentum in a virtual setting
  
• Partnerships - nurturing existing partnerships (Work/Life, fellow AMC committees) and building new ones (ie, MindfulNYU, Anti-Racism Task Force)

Is there anything new/cool/surprising you learned this year that you’d like to share?
Jamboard is a great tool for virtual brainstorming!

Any pitch for getting involved with your committee next year?
There are many ways to get involved with the Special Events Committee. Maybe a specific event (for example, the Administrator’s Art Show) is of interest to you… feel free to help out with that! Or maybe you bring a specific set of skills to the table (for example, flyer design, Zoom support, or planning and logistics)...feel free to join the team and assist in those ways. Many hands makes light work, we hope you will join us!