AACII Meeting Notes
Thursday, April 12, 2018

2pm – 3pm: VPF Training 2020 Initiative Office of the Vice President of Finance
Pamela Schickling Buckley, Karon McCollin and Jessica Fujimori

The Practice and Process Improvement team in VPF was created a year ago to drive forward impactful
initiatives and improve the VPF communications experience.

Their main foci are: Training
Buy-­‐to-­‐Pay (an end to end analysis beyond Coupa to be done) Revised JVs (to be kicked off soon)
Payroll

An initiative to modernize and improve training was kicked off in fall 2017. School of Engineering
and School of Science have seen the presentation. They sought feedback from RACC as well.

Here is what they’ve heard so far about current training:

There’s not enough. Some classes not offered often enough. Materials sometimes outdated.
No dedicated resource.
Off-­‐the-­‐shelf training (i.e., Lynda.com) is nice but people want it customized to MIT.
How to get information to administrators who are very busy. Is it online vs coming to a class?
Based on what they’ve heard, actions being considered are listed on slide 5 of the presentation.

Have done an inventory of existing and needed training -­‐ see slide 6.

Fundamentals of Financial Management is one of their most popular courses. Not only for new staff
but current staff return to repeat it. Always people on the waiting list. Created an online version
to be available soon.

Getting feedback: To hold a variety of feedback channels such as focus groups, online training
reviews, in-­‐person feedback sessions. Signups for the focus groups to be emailed soon. In the
meantime, here is the signup link:

VPF Training 2020 -­‐ Volunteer Sign-­‐up Sheet.

Questions for AACII
1. What are your overall impressions. What works well, needs improvement.
Mary Ellen -­‐ Do new employees get a list of what training they need? Connect it to onboarding.
Robin -­‐ Take the VPF trainings for new employees and add into it some things from HR, VPR,
OSP, etc. Should be part of their onboarding. HR orientations are now held at Atlas Service
Center. When new staff go to HR orientation or to get MIT ID, they could pick up a training
guide or review a training page in the kiosks.
VPF: They are trying to bundle some trainings together by role. (Admin Asst, A/O, F/O, etc.)
Have talked to HR and Jane White in Learning Center to let them know what they’re doing and
see what resources are available. Haven’t yet talked about offering specifically to new
employees.
Richard -­‐ Offering training more often will be helpful so don’t have to wait months until class is
offered again; online can help here. Use AACII as a warehouse of best practices. FAQs are a
great way to grow knowledge. So are user groups and wikis.
Mike -­‐ training roadshows. VPF group comes out to a DLC or community & rep from each VPF
area lists what they do and leaves time for questions.
2. Key roles listed on slide 7. Are there any roles missing?
Richard -­‐ Program Managers, Executive Directors.
VPF: Are there strategies for reaching faculty and research staff and getting them to take the
training?
Mike -­‐ create the case where’s there’s a benefit to them and they are more likely to attend.
Primary issue is eDACCA certification. Sourcing also important especially for equipment or other
expensive purchases.
Robin -­‐ you might have more luck with incoming faculty.
3. Focus Groups, in-­‐person and online trainings.
Please sign up if any of you are interested in helping with the training initiative.
VPF Training 2020 -­‐ Volunteer Sign-­‐up Sheet.

In particular, they are actively reviewing the Fundamentals of Financial Management online
course and need folks from the DLCs to review. They want feedback from any level of staff that
handles or is interested in financial issues, whether Admin Assistants, A/Os, etc.

3pm – 3:45 pm: Nominations and A/O Breakfast Nominations
The composition of AACii is designed to be two thirds Academic /Research and one third
Administration. Of the 15 members (besides the ex-­‐officio members) we need to replace four:

Chris Durham (Administration) Lynn Hinds (Academic/Research)
Peter Brenton (Academic/Research -­‐ becomes chair)
Pia Handsom (Academic/Research -­‐ moves into Richard Brewer’s ex-­‐officio role)

Chris and Lynn say that Glen Shor and Ron Hazeltine (respectively) are preparing nominations to
replace them. Robin will talk to Eamon Kearns to see if he wants to remain on next year, or to find
a replacement from IS&T.

Our next meeting is the nominations meeting (May 10 in the Maclaurin Room, 10-­‐300). Sue hopes to
have the nominations out to all members a few days ahead so you can review them.

A/O Breakfast

Folks in central units don’t fully understand the role of the A/O. What can we do about that?

Richard: The original idea of the Breakfast was to create networking opportunities for folks from
DLCs and folks from central units. How can you do it in a way where people will show up and it will
be meaningful. To complement the annual breakfast or even replace it.

Several people mentioned that informal networking and mixers might be more effective and more
desired than formal panels.

Robin: Are there opportunities to create events that aren’t as heavy a lift as the A/O Breakfast or
the AO-­‐FO meetings that Robin organizes? She would be happy to spend time brainstorming about it
with some AACII folks.

Mary Ellen: There are aspects of the A/O role that aren’t as well known. Space is one of them.
Ideas that came up for new formats:

Something like speed dating tables. Set up tables with an expert at each and people change
tables after about 10 minutes. Day in the life of an A/O.
Go to DLCs and ask for 2 topics you want to talk about and 3 you want to know about. Match them up.

Robin would like input on the AO/FO meetings and topics people would like. How to get that
feedback? What did the breakfast survey respondents say?

Maybe get feedback at SoE meetings or other similar DLC groupings. Mix it up. Anantha spoke at the
last SoE A/O meeting and they enjoyed hearing about research and what he’s doing for students.

Role of our events is to create community -­‐ however we do it. Good topics are where MIT as a
research institution is changing and therefore our administration of the institution needs to
change too.

We should probably continue this discussion at the May 24 AACii meeting.