Headlines

2004 SFS Retreat
by Diane Cooley

On Thursday, September 9, 2004, Student Fiscal Services (SFS) closed the office and gathered for the day at Washington Park Arboretum. We charted our accomplishments over the past year and recognized people for their individual participation on teams. Wow, we’ve done a lot! All of us have been involved in at least one team or project that has improved our processes and customer service.

After admiring our successes we broke into groups to talk about recognition – how we like to be recognized and better ways to give recognition. Then we moved on to information to help us plan for the coming year. We heard reports on Strategy Mapping, the Knowledge Worker Initiative and the Dashboard.

An extended lunch break gave us the opportunity to walk around the Arboretum, watch a video or play a game. Re-energized, we were ready to hear a report from the Outreach Unit on all their activities this summer. Every person in SFS contributed to the success of our Outreach programs and each staff member was presented with a candy bar in recognition of the help provided.

The next report was on our annual Spring Survey. The feedback from our customers will help as we form a team to look at customer service, especially the online services. The final report was from the Cross Collaboration team. This team was formed as a result of our retreat last year. Their goal was to look at ways to improve communication within SFS.

Armed (and perhaps a little overwhelmed) with all this information, we broke into small groups to flesh out the recommendations and ideas for improvement. We closed with a report from each group and a call for volunteers to serve on new task teams. These teams will be forming soon and should begin work after we get past one of our busiest times of the year – the start of Autumn Quarter and the arrival of new students.