• Fall 2024/Spring 2025 annual budget and staffing meetings are actively being scheduled. For scheduling information or concerns, please contact amy.deflumere@uconn.edu.
• Deadline for the documents is December 8, 2023.
  • This includes answers to questions and course details within BMS and Courseleaf.
•  Hiring plan deadline has been extended as needed.

• Graduate Students
  • Smart-HR Deadlines
    • Business Center/Grant Management Deadline: Friday, December 8.
    • University Deadline: Friday, December 15.
  • Please note: since 2024 is a leap year, the end date for an academic year appointment will be 5/21/24 (instead of the usual 5/22).
• Adjunct Faculty
  • Smart-HR Deadlines
    • Business Center Deadline: Friday, December 12.
    • University Deadline: Tuesday, December 26. Please plan accordingly with upcoming holidays.

• Core-CT system will be migrated from physical servers to the Oracle cloud as part of an ongoing modernization project.
• Following the update and when access is restored (Monday, November 13 at 7:30 a.m.), employees will need to clear their browser cache to ensure optimal performance.
  • Information on how to clear browser cache can be found on the ITS Knowledge Base website.

• Effective January 1, 2024, the State of Connecticut minimum wage will be increased to $15.69 per hour.
  • The hourly rate for any student whose active payroll record is not at the minimum of the new pay class will be systematically increased in CORE-CT. No action is required by departments unless the department wants to increase the student’s hourly rate more than to the new minimum.
  • Employers are encouraged to review the hourly rates of those student employees whose rates will not be automatically increased to identify any inequities. Any manual increases may be processed in CORE-CT using the Student Payroll Data/Pay Change template (UC_TBH_DC_STUD_DAT.)

• Submitting a pre-approval request in Concur will trigger international insurance.
• Please leave the request amount as $0.00 if no expenses are expected to be incurred and the system will trigger the insurance.
• Level 3 and 4 countries need to get a Global Affairs waiver approved and attached prior to submitting the pre-approval.

• In an effort to streamline the Business Meal Pre-Approval process, the Business Center has launched a new Kuali Build Form to get pre-approval for your business meals.
• Prior to using the Kuali Build form, please review the CLAS Meal Guidance document to determine whether or not a CLAS Pre-Approval is needed for your particular business meal.
• Please reach out to bsc@uconn.edu with any questions regarding the new process.

• As of 11/1/2023, all Form I-9s must be completed on the new version of the form, which can be downloaded from Payroll's I-9 portal.

• When submitting requisitions in Husky Buy, please fill out the “Point of Contact” line under the “General Information” tab.
  • This should be the department that the order is being purchased for (e.g., anthropology) and include the necessary information for the person the item is being purchased for/shipped to.
  • Doing this causes the proper department to populate in the weekly requisition reports rather than the requester’s department which may vary.

• Purchasing is working on transitioning travel card applications to KualiBuild. This will allow reminders to be sent to approvers on a regular basis and to avoid them being lost in the queue. There is still no delegation for this process.
• Travel expense reports that are missing a receipt no longer use the Missing Receipt Affidavit attachment. These need to be done directly in Concur by the traveler; they cannot be done by a delegate. Below are the steps for completing this:

• Please continue using the normal Missing Receipt Affidavit attachment as needed for any Pro-Card transactions.

• Three fields have been added to regular payroll search requests in PageUp in order to help facilitate requested information for centralized review of new and refill positions:
  • Previous incumbent’s name, salary, and date of separation (as applicable).
  • Funding justification.
  • Position justification.
• For more information, email workforce@uconn.edu.

• Reminder to sign up for text message notifications to receive information about schedule changes, cancellations, emergencies, and other information.
• Instructions can be found under the “Get Alerts” section of the UConnALERT page.
• Please review the University's Emergency Closing Policy for details about how these decisions are made, expectations of employees, and other information.

• Join us for an engaging activity and conversation on microaggressions. Learn to identify identity-based microaggressions in the workplace and how to address them from a place of empathy.
• The event will take place on December 6 from 10-11 a.m. in Arjona 105.
• An open mingle with refreshments and snacks will be available from 11 a.m.-noon after the event and right outside the event room.

The AlphaGraphics catalog is available once again in HuskyBuy. Please feel free to resume ordering through the catalog.

• Single Sign-On has been updated into Concur. Use this link to replace any saved links or bookmarks you use to sign into Concur.
• All links created before October 28, 2023 will no longer work and will need to be replaced.
• If you have any questions, please email ITS at techsupport@uconn.edu to create a ticket.

• UConn has partnered with Academic Impressions to offer professional development resources for higher education professionals. Resources include hundreds of hours of trainings in topics such as academic leadership, advancement, diversity, equity, and inclusion, faculty success, leadership development, compliance, and more.
• The Office of Human Resources has partnered with The Lexington Group, Inc as the new Employee Assistance Program (EAP). The Lexington Group will provide confidential face-to-face counseling, or in certain circumstances video counseling, to assist employees in identifying and resolving personal problems no matter how unique and diverse they appear.  Examples include family and marital conflicts, stress, substance abuse, depression, and other emotional issues. The Lexington Group also assists with referrals for eldercare support, child care, as well as legal and financial guidance through our Life Care program
  • Employees may call The Lexington Group for immediate and confidential assistance at 1-800-676-HELP (4357) or access their website. The Lexington Group is available seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
• Please see the attached Fall 2023 schedule for the Graduate School’s Timely Topics Series.
  • Topics for live upcoming sessions include:
    • Thursday, November 16 at 11 a.m. - SCOTUS Decision on Race in Admissions and Impacts on Graduate Admissions.
    • Thursday, November 30 at 11 a.m. - Updating Your Catalog Copy and Using the GPAR System.
    • Register for a session.

• Beyond Bias in Workplace Training will be available until December 31, 2023 on WebEx. This prerecorded training session aims to raise awareness about biases and equip participants with strategies to go beyond biases in the workplace. Through interactive discussions, real-life examples, and self-reflection exercises, participants will gain insights and tools to foster a more inclusive and equitable work environment.
  • Access this training.
  • Password: 706514Rec082342

• PageUp Regular Payroll: Sign up for the training.
  • November 20, 2023 from 9 a.m.-noon
  • January 9, 2024 from 9 a.m.-noon
• PageUp Special Payroll: Sign up for the training.
  • November 21, 2023 from 9-11 a.m.
  • January 10, 2024 from 9-11 a.m.

• GMS submitted 48 proposals in September, totaling approximately $38.3 million.
• 11 awards were made to CLAS faculty in September, totaling approximately $3.5 million.
• Grant Management is excited to announce a new Proposal Intake Form for CLAS faculty. We are strongly encouraging all faculty to submit this form to allow the GMS team to assist with the proposal preparation and timely submission to Sponsored Program Services and the funding sponsor. This will also assist Grant Management to assign proposals to team members based on current workload, planned out of office or other work-related assigned tasks/projects. This means that faculty may not be assigned to the usual Grant Management team member for your department. The entire Grant Management team is well versed with all grant sponsors and work collaboratively with each other to transfer sponsor specific knowledge to each other. When faculty submit the intake form, Allison Goldsnider will review the request and reply to the faculty member with their assigned Grant Management team member. This form will also allow the GMS team to prepare internal documentation (IPR and budget) to start the grant preparation. Faculty can also access the Proposal Intake Form via the CLAS GMS website.

• Change to Email Addresses
  • ITS has historically used a firstname.lastname@uconn.edu format when we issue an official UConn email address. When two or more individuals have the same name, we add middle initials and numbers to make the address unique, but the non-standard email addresses are becoming a source of confusion and mistakes (i.e., emails sent to incorrect recipients). All student addresses are owned in perpetuity, and this inevitably means problems increase steadily over time.  A NetID is always unique and is also perpetual
  • Even with the new email format, you will still be able to see recipients' display names. You will also be able to search for email addresses by name.
  • Starting in January 2024, the format for all new addresses will be NetID@uconn.edu
    • New students (graduate students starting after January 1 and undergraduates starting in the summer or Fall 2024 semester): Your email address will be their NetID followed by @uconn.edu (e.g., abc12345@uconn.edu)
    • Current students: You will keep your published UConn email address. Any other aliases that you may have created will be dropped.
    • Graduating students: You will keep your published UConn email address. Any other aliases that you may have created will be dropped.
    • Current faculty and staff: You will keep your published UConn email address and aliases.
    • New faculty and staff (starting after January 1): Your email address will be their NetID followed by @uconn.edu (e.g., abc12345@uconn.edu). You may request to create or modify your email alias by sending a request to techsupport@uconn.edu.

• CLAS Facilities is working to streamline key request work orders. In order to prevent delays in this process, please be sure to include:
  • Approval documentation from the dean, department head, or director.
  • Name and NetID of the person the key will be assigned to.
  • KFS number for the work order.
• For more information, please review the Locksmith Services: Key Policies and Procedure.