WSAB is simplifying and updating it’s communications and resources to match up with the Dean’s Office’s efforts: a new public-facing website, more specific items on the Weinberg Commons (Sharepoint intranet), and greater use of Microsoft Teams for special interest conversations. Part of WSAB’s streamlining is restructuring our use of the Staff Advisory Board-managed listservs and also providing guidance to more effective non-WSAB fora based on the type of communication.
The above graphic shows our plan. These listservs will remain live until the infrastructure is in place to move to the replacement platforms and/or WSAB launches their Sharepoint landing area in the Commons (we are estimating this to be January 2023). We came to this decision due to many factors, the main one being – more appropriate and effective platforms that allow for a target audience now exist. Listservs are wonderful for ephemeral information that all members of the listserv can find relevant, and for the majority of the WSAB listservs this was not the way they are being used. Our secondary reason is the already low subscriber-bases and activity/engagement, which paired with the Dean’s Office’s push to MS Teams and the Commons, it made sense for our subscription efforts to align moving forward.
As WSAB has been revamping our existing content, we have also had the chance to evaluate our role within the Weinberg community to decide what really falls in our purview – as we look to how we will fill our space on the Commons, we do not want to duplicate efforts or information to avoid confusion on who is the authority over certain pages, folders and information. So where does WSAB fit in? Our mission is and remains to further the staff experience, outside of a staff member’s role – we host events and provide resources to build relationships between colleagues and allow for our members to grow – both personally and professionally. So it’s with this lens that we are implementing what we do and provide. We work with the Dean’s Office, often collaborating with them, but we do not want to take on things that pertain to a staff member’s job duties or functions.
With that in mind, we see WCASCOMMUNITY as a listserv we want to promote, rebranding it as a “Community Bulletin Board” to share ephemeral events or happenings that you want fellow staff members to attend. This was the original intent for this listserv and we hope that it will indeed foster more interactions between colleagues. To join this listserv, instructions can be found here (login with netID required).
We also place a high priority on Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) efforts – we want all staff to have an equitable experience and feel included. Everyone on our WSAB-DEIA listserv is already in our MS Team so this is an easy jump for us to make, with the benefits of having channels for our different types of resources and conversations. You can search for it when in Teams and request to join, or follow us here.
I (Cecile) will admit, we did not anticipate the feedback we received at the November FinAdmin meeting in regards to our WCAS_DEPT-ANNC listserv as it was so contrary to what our data showed. We have taken this feedback to heart, but due to it’s singular use-case — posting advertisements for department classes and events with the express intent for fellow staff to forward it on to their specific listservs — we still do not think this is a service that should be, in the long run, provided by the Staff Advisory Board. We will however keep it live until a more appropriate solution reveals itself. Instructions on how to join can be found here (login with netID required). While WSAB does not think a platform fulfilling this function falls under our purview, what we do feel is within our sphere is addressing the question – “In 2022, what are effective ways for advertising to students, and advertising to faculty (which are not necessarily the same)?” Some suggestions at the meeting were targeted emails (and thank you to the people who wrote to me to tell me you did this!), or as Ann Marshall had suggested, leveraging social media. The discussion at the meeting has made WSAB aware that this is an issue and we would like to have a discussion/brainstorming session in January to address it. In addition, we have already been in talks with the Dean’s Office on possible avenues that can be made within the Commons or in MS Teams.
Finally, our WCAS_STAFF_HELP listserv will also remain live until more MS Teams based on positions (such as the current Primary Admin team), or by role/job functions (i.e. Event Planning), or Community of Practice Team (i.e. Smartsheet, Qualtrics, Caesar) go live to provide the more targeted discussions. We do recommend first searching the existing IT knowledge bases or sending targeted emails before asking the listserv. Instructions on how to join WCAS_STAFF_HELP are here (netID login required).