Finance Division Q4 Update
Almost a month has already passed since the May Board meeting. The major item for our division was approval of our FY23 operating budget. A huge thank you to Katherine Shallenberger, Travis Ables, and all the departmental managers who contributed to the budgeting process. We have a few weeks before we start the next one. Amy Dvorak also participated in the Academic Affairs presentation on the College’s programming around the environment and sustainability.
Please read through the department reports from your Finance Division colleagues for valuable updates and information. I especially wanted to draw your attention to one update for our division: effective June 30, the Paw Print Center located in JR Howard Hall on the CAS campus will be closed indefinitely. Over the past two years, the pandemic has brought forth many changes to our operations. The adoption of Zoom and our experience with hybrid work/instruction has made many of us more comfortable working with online materials. The CAS campus print center saw volume reductions of ⅓ from pre-pandemic levels and the fixed costs associated with running a print center are no longer considered the best use of College resources. The expiration of contractual agreements at the end of FY22 presented a natural opportunity for the College to make this decision. Stay tuned for a detailed campus communication in the next week that will provide information on printing resources and alternatives. I want to take this opportunity to thank Tanya Scott, Ricoh’s print site supervisor. Tanya has been a great partner during her many years serving our campus. We wish her the best in her next endeavor with the Ricoh team.
Thanks to everyone for your hard work. I hope you were able to enjoy the Memorial Day weekend. The College’s recognition of Juneteenth is another opportunity for reflection and rest and is just around the corner (observed on June 20).
Best,
Andrea
Facilities
The departure of students for summer marks the beginning of an intensive summer of facilities maintenance and improvements. We’re pressing forward with the plethora of tasks required to get us ready for the new academic year.
Comings & Goings:
We say goodbye to Bryan Scism, Director of Facilities Operations. He transitioned from a military role when he started at L&C, and after a fast year, has decided to return to the military. We thank him for his service to our country, to our college, and wish him and his family well.
Transportation:
We welcome the summer respite from parking congestion on campus and will be working to prepare for the fall semester which will continue to be impacted due to the Templeton renovation. Templeton Drive will continue to be off limits to unauthorized vehicles.
Our parking lease with St Mark’s has expired and that location is no longer available for overflow parking. We will provide an update prior to the fall semester if this changes.
A new parking lot available to all community members is scheduled to be built this summer on the Graduate campus. Permit contingent, we expect the new parking lot will provide 82 spots in time for the fall semester.
Capital Projects:
Great progress is being made with the Templeton renovation, as evidenced by the large new structure taking shape. The Trail Room will open first, in mid-August, ready to serve food for fall semester. Most student org offices will open at the end of September, and the new entry and building addition will be delivered in December.
The tennis dome will see its last elements of work as the scoreboard gets re-configured and installed on the west interior elevation.
Stewart and Odell renovations have begun with the roof sections being reworked and replaced. The contractor will demobilize to allow us to occupy the building this fall semester, and then begin with the larger building renovation as early as December 2022.
Huston Sports Complex renovation is working through design phases, and is currently targeted to begin May 2023, with a September 2023 completion.
McAfee Mailroom will become the permanent new location for mail services. Adjustments are being made by many to allow for the shift, and final design efforts and permitting are in full swing to allow for completion of the work by fall semester.
ADA projects are underway to include a new accessible dressing room in Fir Acres, concrete paving in the Albany quadrangle, and a number of new door operators to help improve our accessibility on campus.
Corbett House 1st floor will be activated and occupied for instructional programming by the Grad school. Following some minor improvements, and a whole lot of cleaning up, this beautiful building will begin to provide more benefit than ever before.
Grad Commons, the shy acre of land in front of Corbett House, will get a facelift, with new pedestrian pathways, plantings, gathering spaces, and become the southern start of the ‘spine of the college’ as the facilities master plan envisions.
Roofing Projects:
- Flanagan Chapel is well underway with a new tile roofing system following damage from the ice storm last winter. Scaffolding will be up around the building perimeter through the summer and work will be performed as weather allows until August as we try to keep this important asset accessible for most events.
- South Chapel will have a new roof installed, depending on contracting for this summer, adding to the list of work at Grad School.
- Evans Hall will also get a new roof this summer, provided all the important elements fall into place. This project had been targeted for spring 2023, but to better fit programming and a foreseeable summer program next year, every effort is being made to complete this summer. .
- Watzek roof will get renovations to repair leaks and extend life, while managing stormwater more effectively.
Sustainability
The Sustainability Office would like to invite faculty, staff, and students to participate in the Energy Trust of Oregon Energy Challenge for the month of June! Join the LC Team to learn useful energy-saving tips and win prizes! Find out more here.
The Energy Challenge is being run by one of our great undergraduate student workers, Elijah Black, as part of a sustainability-focused internship course provided by the Bates Center for Entrepreneurship and the Sustainability Office. Elijah has been working in our division for some time, learning the trades and honing his building skills. Elijah is the founder of the Tiny House Club and was recently profiled for this project on our homepage and in the Oregonian.
Financial Planning & Analysis
The 2022-2023 budget was approved by the Board of Trustees In May. The budget calls for steady enrollment in all three schools, building on the successes from 2021-2022. The fiscal year starts on June 1. For many departments, Summer may be a great time to refamiliarize yourself with departmental budgets and the Colleague Self Service budget queries that can be accessed through WebAdvisor. Here is a link to instructions, but don’t hesitate to reach out if you need further assistance!
Business Office & Student Accounts
Comings & Goings:
Steve Kirkwood retired from the Business Office in early May after 14 years with Lewis & Clark. Interviews are now underway for the accountant position.
Business Office:
The Business Office completed interim audit fieldwork during the first week of May, and is preparing for closeout of FY22 in June. The team is working with faculty and staff to finalize purchasing, pcard approvals, and cost allocations to ensure FY22’s financial activity is appropriately recorded and reported. Pcard approvals must be completed by June 6, and invoices, check requests, journal entries, and other FY22 transactions must be submitted to Accounting by June 10 in order to be applied to the FY22 budget prior to its closing. The auditor’s will conduct final fieldwork during the second and fourth weeks of July to provide assurance that the College’s financial statements are presented appropriately.
Student & Departmental Account Services:
Student Accounts completed the final disbursement of the $4.18M in federal emergency funds awarded to the College to provide pandemic relief to students.
Student Accounts and IT have completed the final configuration and testing for the transition of student payments to Nelnet’s Campus Commerce platform. Support for the College’s previous payment platform, TMS, concluded in May. The transition for student billing, student payment plans, student refunds, and the remaining payment forms to Nelnet are live as of June 1, with ongoing updates to improve the presentation of student account details being deployed over the next few months as enhancements are rolled out by the vendor.
Information Technology
Comings and Goings:
Julio Appling left Lewis & Clark on April 1 to join Oregon Health Science University’s Unified Communications team as a trainer. Reference checks are underway for the finalist for the Educational Technologist Specialist position.
Enterprise Applications:
The Enterprise Applications team continues to lead storage mitigation efforts as part of our comprehensive plan for storage reduction in Google to prepare for the end of unlimited storage in Google starting in July of 2022. We completed our “Spring Cleaning Campaign” on June 1st. We are working individually with the top storage users and departments to identify alternative digital storage solutions and we are planning to implement new storage tools provided by Google.
Enterprise Applications continues to support the implementation of Slate Advancement as a replacement for Raiser’s Edge. We are happy to report that Slate Advancement has accepted its first gifts. We have led five training sessions on Slate Advancement for IA staff and the new software is live effective June 1st.
Finally, Enterprise Applications continues to build out IT Governance bodies and processes. Between April and May, the IT Governance Council, the Application Administrators Group, and the Institutional Data Standards Council (IDSC) convened to discuss technology related issues and decisions that need to be made institutionally.
Educational Technology:
Educational Technology collaborated with Institutional Operations, Watzek Library, the Symbolic and Quantitative Resource Center (SQRC), and the College of Arts & Sciences Registrar to establish checkout, reservation, and security procedures for two new mobile labs to replace the closed Dubach Computer Labs. The JR Howard Mobile classroom lab is available for instructional use in JR Howard Hall and the new Watzek Mobile Lab allows students to check out laptops to use specialized software previously only available in computer labs. Student access to specialized video editing hardware and software was expanded by converting the Resource Lab to an open access space.
The final quarter of the year is busy with support for curricular projects and events. Highlights include video production support for required Teacher Education student portfolio submissions and graphics and specialty printing support for the Natural History Club’s 4th Annual Moss Appreciation Week. The Resource Lab produced over 180 academic posters for the Festival of Scholars, departmental, and other student poster session events.
Finally, the team kicked off the summer with a return to campus for our annual faculty development event, the Faculty Technology Institute, May 16-20. The Institute featured over 55 sessions and had a special focus on accessibility. Popular sessions included afternoon keynotes, sessions in the accessibility track, and Google Drive Spring Cleaning drop-ins. The team continues to be available to consult with faculty and other community members who need specialized assistance migrating content from Google Drive.
Information Systems:
The Information Systems team concludes its work with Student and Departmental Account Services as we transition payment processing from Tuition Management Systems to Nelnet Campus Commerce. Information Systems has also been highly involved in efforts to implement new Colleague self service functionality, and continues this work into the summer in support of Student Planning features that will offer improvements in advising, registration and curriculum planning.
Infrastructure Operations:
WiFi Infrastructure Refresh - now complete! Infrastructure Operations installed more than 840 wireless access points, one for each residence hall room, and installed wireless access points inside each classroom at Law, GSEC, and CAS. We are now running on a modern Wifi network, our previous one was 15 years old! The next step in modernization is our fiber replacement project which is underway. We had 6 vendors on campus to provide a walkthrough in hopes they bid on the project. Once we have the estimates, we plan on selecting a vendor and immediately starting our replacement project. Disruption should be minimal as we learned our existing conduit is in good shape and this won’t require a lot of digging or trenching.
AOps has begun planning in preparation for dual retirements in Fall 2022. We will communicate any changes in advance of the fall.
