This has been another Staff Council year where goals were achieved, advocacy was accomplished, successes were realized, and another year I have had the honor to be President of this great team of colleagues and friends, my fellow Staff Councilors, who made any and all accomplishments reached this year possible. It has been an honor to lead Staff Council for a second term as UI Staff Council President. It has been an honor to represent my fellow co-workers and friends. It has been an honor to serve my university and carry forward in our mission for our students, patients, and for our great state of Iowa. It has been an honor to have met so many of you, our UI Staff, to see and share all of the amazing things you all do. And it especially has been an honor to give back to our campus and community which has given me so much and made me who I am today. 

Again this year I would like to conclude in the same way I began many of our Staff Council meetings - with a heartfelt THANK YOU. I extend my gratitude to all of our UI Staff Councilors for their hard work, passion, and dedication this year! I also want to express my appreciation to my co-workers who consistently went above and beyond to maintain our high quality and productivity in Patient Financial Services while I was advocating for our staff and representing our University. I am grateful to my many mentors and UI leadership for their unwavering support and guidance. Finally, I’d like to thank my family for their constant support and encouragement to live by a saying I often reflect on - be good to yourself but be better to others.

This year was another successful year for Staff Council, marked by boundaries being crossed, paths being created, and records being broken. We were active and passionate advocates for all UI staff across our campus. The new UI Health Care Attendance Policy, which was started by myself and fellow Health Care councilors, is a testament to our advocacy and shows what we do in Staff Council can make an impact for the benefit of all of our constituents. This new policy clearly defined expectations for all areas to follow, provided safe guards for employees, and redefined how this was all measured all being beneficial for staff. We forged partnerships across campus, meeting with numerous local college staff councils to share who we are, what we do, and how we can support them. We were active in our community, partnering with Johnson and Washington County United Way and being a part of the UI Campaign Team which helped create the first ever UI UW Campaign Kickoff event at the Old Capitol Museum. We volunteered across our campus and in the community, logging 560 volunteer hours and participating in food drives, parades, welcome events, highway cleanups, book sales, and many other volunteer events. This year, our councilors made our motto of advocacy in action more than just a saying - they made it a way of life.

Last year, we focused on three tenets: CELEBRATE, COMMUNICATE, and COLLABORATE. The success we saw this year still holds true to those tenets so I would like to highlight how UI Staff Council continued to excel in our pursuit of the 3 Cs:

CELEBRATE

• Monthly Staff Spotlights in our Newsletter that saw an open rate of over 35% 
• Monthly Staff Councilor Spotlights in our newsletter highlighting our advocacy
• Received 42 Awards Nominations for our Staff Awards
• Record Staff Appreciation Grants were requested and funded
• Participated in Mary Jo Small, IOWA, and UI Staff Council Award Selection Committees
• Participated in the creation and presentation of the new UI Faculty and Staff Awards Ceremony
• Presented Staff Awards to our honorees at their workplace to honor them in front of their colleagues

COMMUNICATE

• Continued our social media accounts where we shared 35 posts of our activity and messages for staff and doubling our online following
• Updated our website that saw increased visits both locally and abroad
• Sent out monthly invites to attend UI Staff Council meetings that saw increased attendance
• Created Visual Marketing from digital displays to postcards (United Way) to an orientation video
• Maintained our monthly newsletter that saw over 3000 staff each month enjoying
• Visited College Staff Councils to share who and what we are to show support
• Created a partnership with Iowa NOW to highlight guest speakers and share our activities

COLLABORATE

• Was a part of multiple advisory committees across campus addressing topics such as campus safety, campus pathways, and many more
• Sponsored a UI Executive Leadership Academy team to work on recruitment and retention techniques
• Held Monthly visits with Mental and Holistic Wellness to share initiatives and in turn help promote
• Connected with fellow UI Shared Governance to ensure from Staff to Faculty to Students were all being represented and heard
• Met with numerous Iowa City, State, and Federal Legislators by having them visit our monthly meetings to holding legislative forums to attending Hawkeye Caucus Day in Des Moines
• Created a partnership with our local United Way where we volunteered at numerous events and created new firsts from a Hawkeye Kickoff event to promoting staff centric events 
• Made new and valuable relationships with our Iowa Healthcare leadership sharing issues and achieving goals together along the way
• Maintained our indispensable partnership with our UI Human Resources colleagues that saw successes on many levels from Discover Your University to the UI Health Care Attendance Policy

We once again COLLABORATED, CELEBRATED, and COMMUNICATED all across campus and our community. We CONCENTRATED and CAPTIVATED one another, allowing us to COMMISERATE and CELEBRATE another wonderful year on Staff Council!

In closing let me add one more C….CONTINUE. Let’s continue to execute the University’s mission of providing the best education to the state’s newest and brightest future leaders, let’s continue on with our mission of providing top notch patient care to all Iowans, let’s continue to be remember who we are and remember that pride we have in being Hawkeyes, let’s continue to support one another and be there for each other, and let’s continue to face all changes and move forward. We will continue on, as this year has shown, no matter what we face. We face it together, helping one another along the way, and continue the work. I stated last June that I felt blessed, thankful, humbled, thrilled, excited, and honored to be President and I can honestly say that those sentiments still hold true today. I am beyond grateful to have represented you and beyond thankful to my Staff Councilors, and especially our UI Staff Council Executive Committee along with Kellie Digmann, who all went above and beyond to answer any and all challenges and continue to push forward. Lastly I will end with how I started this farewell message with one last thank you. A heartfelt thank you to you, our UI Staff, who make our campus, community, and state the best place to work and live.

James Jorris

UI Staff Council – President/Function Representative

https://staff-council.uiowa.edu/