Staff Senate Newsletter • May 21, 2021

 

AHA: At Home Academy

Please join Staff Senate on May 25 at 1 p.m. as R. Mark Miles, senior director of UNT’s Organizational Development & Engagement presents “Feedback: The importance of giving and receiving feedback to impact department culture.” Miles will discuss his experiences and ideas derived from Change the Culture, Change the Game by Roger Connors and Tom Smith. The book is aimed at any organization that is seeking to change their culture in order to get different results.

All employees are invited to attend the Staff Senate’s At Home Academy events. Please sign up in advance and use your UNT email address to register.

 

Microaggressions and Inclusive Language Training

In this session learners will continue with concepts introduced in Bias Awareness and Perceptions to identify microaggressions stemming from our biases, perceptions, and socialization. Learners will be able to differentiate the type of bias (behavioral, environmental, or language based and how they can overlap) and how to describe the intent, impact, and assumptions in microaggressive actions and speech. The learner will leave with tools to identify microaggressions in our language moving from a biased to more precise way to speak with one another. This is a three-hour session split into two parts with a break in between. The next session is on May 27 from 9 a.m. – 12 p.m. and the following session is on June 16 from 12 – 3 p.m. Register on Bridge now! Completion of Bias Awareness and Perceptions required.

UNT Alumni Live! Special Unveiling of New Green Brigade Uniforms

Join the UNT Alumni Association on May 27 at 4 p.m. as they reveal the brand-new Green Brigade uniforms, made possible by a gift from the Westheimer Foundation! Attendees will get an up-close preview of the new look and learn what's next for UNT's renowned marching band. Register for the unveiling now.

President’s EDGE Offers Spanish for Staff (Mod 1) Saludos y Despedidas

The EDGE once again offers four fun 1-hour engaging workshops designed to introduce you to Spanish! The session meets every Thursday from June 3 to June 24 at 2 p.m. and exposes learners to useful phrases, pronunciation, the Spanish alphabet, and numbers. Introductory Spanish for staff creates a solid foundation for future learning and prepares learners for other sessions offered throughout the year.

Register for the sessions on UNT Bridge. Classes will be held in-person and online via Teams. Please contact President’s Edge at coe-edge@unt.edu with any questions!

Staff Senate Spotlight

Rekha Gopalakrishnan

Senior Immigration Advisor, International Affairs

Learn more about Rekha!

 

 

 

Severe Weather Alerts

Severe weather can happen any time, but spring usually brings a rise in awareness of strong storms and tornadoes in the North Texas area. The UNT community can find tips on the Emergency Management and Safety Services website to help with weather readiness. To further help with preparation, especially for those who don’t live near UNT, community members can sign up to receive emailed weather alerts. These alerts give an overview of the weather conditions expected at UNT. Sign up for the weather alert distribution by sending an email to Emergency.Management@unt.edu.

Staff Senate Spotlight

Asa Johnson

Executive Assistant, University Compliance and Ethics

Learn more about Asa!

 

 

DCTA Bus Route Changes

UNT’s bus partner Denton County Transportation Authority (DCTA) is considering changes to its bus service along city routes. The 12 dedicated campus routes that our students use will not be impacted and will continue to operate in their current manner. Proposed changes will impact Routes 3, 7 and others that give our community access to the entirety of Denton for free. For example, this could impact our students’ access to grocery and other stores at Rayzor Ranch. DCTA will move the regular routes to GoZone on-demand routes – meaning students or others in the UNT community would need to reserve a ride much as they would for Lyft or Uber. The target date for implementation is September 7, 2021. You can find out more about how it works, including proposed hours of operation.

Keep It Clean!

UNT Police dispatchers recently cleaned up 31 pounds of trash from the areas around the Sullivant Public Safety Center, and near Mozart Square Hall, Rawlins Hall and Clark Hall.

The dispatchers, who answer emergency calls on campus and work with first responders to get help to our UNT community members, spent the weekends of April 18 and April 25 cleaning up these parts of campus. This helped the grounds look extra beautiful in time for the UNT commencement exercises on April 30 and May 1.

UNT offers an Adopt-a-Block program for any student, faculty or staff group that would like to help keep campus beautiful. With the North Texas wind, it's sometimes easy for trash to blow out of trash cans and onto the grounds so every big of volunteer work helps keep UNT clean!

Staff Success Stories Winner

Congratulations to Claudia Taylor, Director of Regional Programming, who is this month’s Staff Success Stories award winner! We appreciate all you do, Claudia! Check out the UNT Staff Success website to learn more about this amazing UNT staffer!

Do you know of a fellow staff member who embodies the caring, creative and resilient spirit that makes the UNT community so amazing? Nominate your colleague for recognition on the Staff Success website!

 

Join Us at Our Next Meeting!

Meetings are open to all UNT staff members. The next meeting is June 8, 2021, at 3 p.m.

For meeting agendas, minutes and recordings, please visit the Agendas and Minutes page.

Contact Us!

If you have an article, announcement, or suggestion relating to this newsletter, email Staff Senate to have it included.