Hello everyone,

Happy Wednesday. I hope your week is going well. I don’t know about you but I’m a bit sick of the rain. Looking forward to a bit more sunshine soon I hope.

January Enrollment Tracking Update 

Vice President of Enrollment Management and Student Success Dr. Chrissy Holliday and her team have committed to sharing monthly enrollment tracker reports so that we can stay up to date with our progress toward enrollment targets. The detailed report can be found here. This monthly report from the Enrollment Target Progress team focuses on enrollment progress compared to targets for Fall 2024. As part of this approach, newly developed Institutional Research and Reporting (IRAR) dashboards allow the team to track not only year-to-date (YTD) progress in new student enrollment, but progress to funnel targets that are tied to ultimate enrollment targets The target set for Fall 2024 is a total enrollment of 7550. This matches closely with our recently reduced target by the CSU System from 7603 to 7375. 

Stephanie Vick Departure and Interim Plan for Academic Personnel Services and Beyond

Long-time Academic Personnel Services (APS) employee, Stephanie Vick, left the University earlier this month for a position leading faculty labor relations at UC Santa Cruz. Stephanie's knowledge and willingness to assist faculty will be very much missed but I am pleased to announce that Megan Siems, current budget analyst in the College of Arts Humanities and Social Sciences (CAHSS), will move into the Interim APS and Labor Relations Manager position starting February 18th, 2024. Brec Ronis, current ASC for Art + Film is taking on the interim budget analyst position for the next several months. Serena Maybee-Balzter, current ASA for Art + Film is stepping into the ASC role for Art + Film to fill in for Brec. Hiring an emergency ASA to step in for Serena. Thanks to everyone for their willingness to be flexible in supporting the success of APS and CAHSS. 

Well Done to Film Professor Sarah Lasley!

Her short film “Welcome to the Enclave” is currently being featured at Slamdance and receiving multiple positive reviews. Slamdance is a 30 years running film festival that foregrounds innovative, emerging filmmakers. It happens simultaneously to Sundance but for films with a smaller budget and less industry support. The festival has a proven track record for discovering emerging talent and receives over 13,000 submissions annually. The week-long festival is a chance to connect with other filmmakers and see ground-breaking films before they get picked up for distribution. It also takes place in the gorgeous mountain ski town of Park City, Utah. 

Professor Sarah Lasley is there with her actor and co-writer on the project, Brenna Palughi. They were interviewed by the Bay Area's top podcast Bitch Talk on Sunday and No Film School, the world’s most popular filmmaking website, with over a million visitors every month. The film screened Monday in the Experimental Shorts block to great response. 

Her background is in video art and installation, and she is honored and humbled to screen alongside other award-winning films at an Oscar-qualifying film festival. 

Office of Research & Sponsored Programs Winter 2024 Bulletin

The Office of Research publishes two newsletters during the academic year; a fall and spring edition. These newsletters are used to highlight new awards, share what improvements our office is currently working on, update our researchers on any important changes that may affect their projects, and keep the campus community up to date with relevant grant news. Click here to read the Newsletter/Bulletin.

In addition, we publish two shorter bulletins at the conclusion of the summer and winter breaks. Included in these bulletins is a recap of important updates our Principal Investigators (PI's) may have missed during their time away from campus. For the convenience of our PIs, we've archived our past issues, available here.

I hope you have a wonderful rest of your week.

Jenn Capps

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