May, 2013 Update Finance & Administration Finance & Administration Finance & Administration

FIRST SUMMER ON JAY WALK

With the onset of the gardening season, on May 20th, the Facil-ities Department with the help of our students, organized a Planting Party. Students and employees came together to plant tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchinis, peppers, herbs and much more. In its second year, the garden is being expanded with more vegetable beds and a

compost pile has been added for recycling organic waste. At the end of April, the Facilities De-

partment installed a gor-geous arbor leading to the Faculty and Staff Dining Room area. The arbor cre-ates a bucolic feel to an al-ready serene corner of the Jay Walk. A large-scale planting of flowering and ornamental plants, includ-ing honeysuckles, azaleas, hydrangeas, wisterias and hostas, is currently under-way on the Jay Walk and once it’s finished, we should easily be able to snatch a prize from Better Homes and Gardens magazine.

There has been lots of activity on the Jay Walk in the past few weeks.

The warm weather, lawns and landscape attracted flocks of students, staff and faculty to the blooming rooftop. They could be seen studying, lunch-ing, holding classes, and even making grass angels there.

(Jay Walk cont. on page 2)

BRAVO! Employee Recognition Program Update

On May 1st, the Human Re-sources Department organized the College’s annual BRAVO breakfast to honor Spring 2013 winners of the BRAVO! Award. The BRAVO! Employee Recog-nition Program was designed and launched in 2008 by the HR Department to recognize and reward individuals and groups for excellence in service and their contribution to the College. This program pro-vides various means of demon-

strating recognition and high value the College places upon employee contribu-tions and achieve-ments. At the end of a year, the Employee of the Year is cho-sen. So, BRAVO! to the Spring 2013 win-ners, and good luck to the jurors in selecting the employee of the year out of

Page 2 Finance and Administration Update, May 2013

This summer on Jay Walk prom-ises to be quite entertaining and unique.

In early May, the Department of Communication & Theater Arts in collaboration with the Theater & Events Support Services pre-sented a series of Antigone per-formances. The production took

place on the Faculty and Staff Dining side and was well at-tended by the community.

For the next series of events, the Theater & Event Support Services joined forces with the Office of Student Life to bring together this summer’s Twi-light Concert Series with

Movies Under the Stars.

Both events will be held on the Jay Walk.

Tuesday, July 16:

6:30 – 8:00pm – Ralph Irrizarry & Timbalaye (Latin Jazz)

8:30 – 10:30pm – Olympus Has Fallen (American Action-Thriller directed by Antoine Fuqua, starring Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart and Morgan Freeman)

Tuesday, August 13:

6:30 – 8:00pm – Nilson Matta’s Brazilian Voyage (Brazilian Jazz)

8:30 – 10:30pm – 42 (Biographical Sports Drama on the life of Jackie Robinson)

Stay tuned for more details. Don’t forget to bring a blanket and popcorn!

Summer Events on Jay Walk

such an outstanding pool of can-didates.

Page 3 Finance and Administration Update, May 2013

Finance and Administration Spring 2013 BRAVO! Winners

Joshua Redfearn has been with the Theater since 2008. Described by his manager as Problem Solving Aficionado, Masterful Manager and Excep-tional Team Member, Joshua’s talents, skills, knowledge, and dedication saved the day in the Theater more than once. Juggl-ing a heavy load of two highly technical critical positions dur-ing major department transfor-mations, he performed an ex-traordinary job in overwhelm-ing circumstances, ensuring continuous seamless service to the College, community, venues

Sara Cuya, as key staff at the Office of Space Planning and Capital Projects, played a criti-cal role in the opening of the New Building, and currently, in the Haaren Hall/North Hall move project. Her dedication,

professionalism, competence and diligence are highly com-mendable and indispensable. A team builder who delivers courteous and excellent ser-vice to the entire John Jay Community, always respectful

under most stressful circumstances, Sara serves as a role mod-el for her staff and others at the Col-lege. We are very fortunate to have her as part of our office.

Zenobia Petersen has been instrumental in ensuring that DoIT is able to fulfill its respon-sibilities to the students and faculty for effective teaching and learning with technology in the classroom. As the CTS su-pervisor, Zenobia manages a team of 7 college assistants who provide immediate technical support for all of John Jay’s classrooms and student com-

puter labs with over 270,000 visits per year. Zenobia also manages well over 1200 comput-ers, printers, and peripherals across campus. As a result of her efforts, John Jay has repeatedly scored very high on

CUNY student satisfaction sur-

vey, ranking #2 in all CUNY for student satisfaction with computing resources. This de-spite ever increasing demand for technologies with little or no ad-ditional staff resources. For her exemplary service to the College and her professionalism and continued commitment to cus-tomer service Zenobia undoubt-edly deserves the Bravo Award.

Reiemile Rodri-guez has worked for six years as Custodial Assistant in Facilities Man-agement. Depend-able, efficient, and unfailingly punctu-al, she demon-

strates detailed attention to her responsibilities and has a willingness to take on a heavy daily work load. She maintains the heavily used 59th St Atri-um and Conference Center neat and tidy in addition to the upkeep of all the plants in the New Building- this is a re-

markable amount of work for one person. She projects a warm, cheerful attitude to our faculty, staff and students and goes be-yond the call of duty whenever needed. She loves people, works hard, and always tries to lift the spirits of those around her. She represents the best of John Jay.

and clients. The genius behind a curtain, Joshua is a most de-serving winner of the BRAVO Recognition Award.

Who doesn’t know Nancy Marshall? Nancy is capable of being in several places at

the same time, wearing many hats, and juggling numerous projects. During her 14-year ten-ure here, she held several posi-tions within Finance and Admin-istration, most recently serving as Director of Film, TV and Com-mercial Services. Under her lead-ership, the film and commercial rental revenue surpassed all oth-er CUNY colleges making John Jay #1. Nancy’s loyalty, dedica-tion, and stellar job performance earned her this honorable award. Thank you, BRAVO winners, we are lucky to have you!

CUNYfirst Campus Solutions is being deployed in phases or "waves". John Jay (along with Baruch, City College, Graduate Center and Hunter) is in Wave 4 for which Campus Solutions is expected to go live in March 2014, preceded by extensive testing beginning November 2013. Right now, the College’s CUNYfirst team is in the Con-ference Room Pilots phase till October 2013.

For more information on CUNYfirst, its features, John Jay’s campus team and more, please visit our website at www.jjay.cuny.edu/cunyfirst or CUNY’s website

There’s probably hardly anyone in the College who hasn’t heard of CUNYfirst. CUNYfirst is a Fully Integrated Resources and Services Tool that has been im-plemented in phases and will change the way we do business. Many people on campus have been involved in various aspects of implementing and now work-ing in CUNYfirst. Business Of-fice and Human Resources are already using CUNYfirst daily for their routine processes and transactions. CUNYfirst Pro-

curement is expected to be launched in July at which point the process of purchasing will become fully automated, integrat-

ed and standardized. Employ-ees involved in purchasing will undergo training before using the system. More information will be released by the Business Office as the launch date ap-proaches.

Following soon after is the Campus Solutions module for students which will replace eSIMS and provide students with many services such as reg-istration, tuition and fees, and course searching with one sign on.

Page 4 Finance and Administration Update, May 2013

CUNYfirst Procurement is coming in July

BRAVO! Summer Employee Institute 2013

As we announced earlier, this year our annual Bravo Institute will be focused on employee/manager relations and will be called “How Are We Managing?” The variety of workshops includes such top-ics as Managing Your Boss, Attitude is Everything, Business Writing, Dealing with the Elephant in the Room, Manag-ing Multiple Priorities, From Conflict to Collaboration, Cross-cultural Communi-cation to name a few. Keynote speakers, food, athletics, music, raffle, and, of course, the Employee of the Year Award will, as always, make this day special for everyone. Look for an invite in your email soon, and don’t forget to register!

will be available for pick up in the Public Safety Office, Room L2.61.00. A Quick Guide to the tempo-rary office and department lo-cations in North Hall has been developed, and will be available soon electronically on the New Building website, as well as in Haaren Hall Atrium, Haaren Hall 10th Ave. entrance, and in the North Hall Lobby.

As we wrote previously, the College is undertaking a major renovation project in Haaren Hall. The so-called Backfill Plan includes renovation of over 50,000 sq.ft. of existing space in Haaren Hall including the Basement, 2nd, 3rd, 4th 5th and 6th floors, alterations for new offices, specialized classroom space, creation of a rare book collection space for the Library, a newly designed roof play area for the Chil-dren’s Center and a complete new HVAC system. To com-plete this project most of the departments in those areas and all the classrooms will need to be temporarily moved to North Hall until the con-struction is completed. The tentative start date for this work is June 20, 2013. The work will be performed floor by floor including the mechan-ical work on each floor. The construction is expected to be completed in Summer-Fall 2014. The moves to North Hall begin on May 29th. Com-

puter labs, faculty teaching sum-mer sessions, administrative staff and Departmental Chairs will move first followed by other academic departments according to the schedule. All summer clas-ses will be moved from Haaren Hall and conducted in North Hall. Classrooms on the 1st and 3rd floors of North Hall will be operational for the Summer Ses-sion. The staff and faculty offices will be fully functional in North Hall starting June 10th.

Temporary walls will be installed during construction and access to construction areas will not be possible.

Keys for Haaren Hall will not be collected. New keys will be dis-tributed in North Hall for staff and faculty as follows:

From June 3, 2013 through June 7, 2013, on weekdays from 8:00 AM to 4:30 PM to staff and faculty from: Com-puter Labs, summer teaching faculty, Marketing and Devel-opment, Graduate Studies and Audio Visual.

From June 10, 2013 through June 14, 2013, the rest of the departments, staff and faculty will be able to pick up their keys for North Hall offices.

ID cards will be re-quired in order to receive keys. Dur-ing off-hours keys

Page 5 Finance and Administration Update, May 2013

Haaren Backfill Update and Temporary Use of North Hall

More information on the Back-fill project is available on the New Building website. Please check it periodically for news, schedule and updates.

If you have any questions, please contact Ynes Leon, Di-rector of Space Planning and Capital Projects at Ext. 8013.

MISCELLANEOUS UPDATES

More Awards for New Building In March, the College received another two awards for its design and architecture. On March 8, we received a top Honor Award from AIANY, the prestigious awards program that recognizes outstanding architectural design and honors the architects, clients and consultants who work together to achieve design excellence. Out of more than 400 entries, 42 awards were conferred in four categories: architecture, interi-ors, unbuilt projects and urban design. John Jay received top honors. The jury described the New Building as “a people building” and “a fabric building- a connector in the city”. Read more here

On March 18, SCUP's Excellence Awards Pro-gram jury selected the John Jay College of Crimi-nal Justice Expansion Project as an Honor Award Recipient 2013 for Excellence in Architec-ture. Read more here In April, Laboratory Design Newsletter has cho-sen the article about John Jay’s New Building, the new home of our Science program, and interview with Lawrence Kobilinsky as a “feature article” in their April 2013 issue.

Keep them coming, we’ve got enough wall space!

Public Safety Day was held on April 11th. Top-ics included Emergency Preparedness, Personal Safety Tips, Sexual Harassment Awareness, and Active Shooter Awareness. The sessions were at-tended by faculty, staff and students, and even entire classes with professors who underlined the importance of such an event. We would like to see increased participation next time it is held.

Shades in Moot Court/9th floor finally ar-rived and are installed. Now there’s no need to bring sunglasses for your next meeting there.

OFA Annual Customer Satisfaction Sur-vey has ended in early May. This year we had a record high participation rate of over 400 peo-ple. We thank everyone who participated and provided feedback regarding our services. The results will be analyzed and made public some-time in mid-summer along with the name of the winner of the prize.

Memorial Hall: the installation of the gran-ite pedestal is scheduled for July, and the cere-mony to unveil the 9/11 memorial will take place in the beginning of the Fall semester.

Haaren Hall Freight Elevator moderni-zation: all work has been completed, and the elevator should be operational for the move to North Hall on May 29th.

Page 6 Finance and Administration Update, May 2013

Published by

Robert Pignatello, Senior Vice President, Office of Finance and Administration

Alena Ryjov, Office of the Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration

If you have questions about the newsletter, please email us at aryjov@jjay.cuny.edu