February CLAS Shared Services Updates

February 20, 2025

Below is a roundup of important announcements and reminders from the Business Center. If you have a question or there is something that you'd like to include in the next roundup, please feel free to reach out to the Business Center via bsc@uconn.edu.

Announcements

Annual Budget and Staffing Plan Meetings

  • Fall 2025/Spring 2026 Annual Budget and Staffing Meetings are currently ongoing, please make sure the following are ready for review:
    • Temp Labor Budget Projection.
    • Teaching Load Clean up including clearly defined administrative releases.
    • Predictable schedule review and alignment.
  • For scheduling information or concerns, please contact Mackenzie Murphy at mackenzie.murphy@uconn.edu.
  • For any data cleanup or questions, please contact bsc@uconn.edu.

Summer 2025 Special Payroll Deadlines

  • Processing Deadlines for Graduate Student Special Payroll appointments for Summer 2025.
    • Due in PageUp by March 15th.
      • Please submit all offers in PageUp by the CLAS deadline: Friday, March 7th.
    • Transactions must be submitted in CORE-CT by April 17th.
      • Please submit all transactions by the CLAS deadline: Thursday, April 10th.
  • Faculty summer payroll appointments (due in CORE-CT on April 17th) are being processed by the CLAS Grant Management and Business Center teams.
    • Please reach out with any questions.

Summer Research Appointments

  • Summer Research Appointments are due in PageUp on March 15th.
  • Please submit all hire requests in PageUp by Friday, March 7th to ensure the CLAS Grant Management has time to review and approve your requests.
  • Summer Research Appointments are due in SmartHR by April 17th.
    • Please submit all transactions in Core-CT by Thursday, April 10th to ensure the CLAS Grant Management has time to review and approve.
  • Please note: Faculty research summer pay can ONLY go against the 12/12ths “bucket/allotment.”
    • Faculty teaching in Winter/May terms goes against the overload “bucket/allotment” ONLY.
    • Faculty teaching for Summer can go under either 12/12ths or overload “bucket/allotment.”

Career Progressions

  • The next round of Career Progressions nominations begins on March 1st.
  • Please reach out to bsc@uconn.edu with any questions on eligibility, format, or submission.

Staples Punchout on HuskyBuy

  • Staples will be a new punchout vendor on HuskyBuy starting on Monday, February 24th.
  • With Staples, you can expect:
    • Free Desktop Delivery.
    • No order minimums.
    • A dedicated customer support team located in Connecticut.

Save the Date: CLAS DEI Training – Unconscious Bias

CLAS Commencement Volunteers

HuskyBuy Requisitions Reminder

  • Please be sure to submit your requisitions with the following naming conventions:
    • DEPT Vendor Last Name Date.
      • The last name should be the person the order is for.
    • The UConn Point of Contact should always be the Department Name for which the order is being purchased.
  • Please review the CLAS Confluence page on Requisitions for more information.

Monthly Meetings

  • Monthly meetings will take place between CLAS Shared Services Management and the following:
    • Procurement will take place on Wednesday, March 5th.
    • Procurement and A/P will take place on Monday, March 10th.
    • Payroll will take place on Friday, March 7th.
  • CLAS Business Center Monthly Topic Overview will be held on Thursday, March 13th.
  • Please reach out to bsc@uconn.edu with ideas for future topics.
  • Please feel free to reach out to bsc@uconn.edu with any areas of concern to be discussed at any of these meetings.

Professional Development Opportunities

  • LinkedIn Learning is now available at no cost to all UConn staff on Storrs campus as an e-learning resource.
    • LinkedIn Learning offers an opportunity to develop professional skills through a digital library of over 6000 courses.
    • Visit the Microsoft App Store and navigate to the LinkedIn Learning application to activate your license.
    • Please reach out to brandon.murray@uconn.edu with any questions.
  • CLAS Shared Services has a lending library with a variety of books on professional development and self-improvement.
  • Academic Impressions offers 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 Lexington Group, Inc is UConn’s Employee Assistance Program (EAP). The Lexington Group provides 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, childcare, 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 The Lexington Group's website. The Lexington Group is available seven days a week, twenty-four hours a day.
  • Please see the schedule for the Graduate School’s Timely Topics webpage.
    • Topics for live upcoming sessions include:
      • Having that Difficult Conversation with your Graduate Advisee – Thursday, March 6th at 11:00 AM.
      • Strength-based Advising for Neurodiverse Graduate Students – Thursday, March 27th at 11:00 AM.
      • Inclusive Career Conversations: Reducing Implicit Bias in our Formal and Informal Conversations – Thursday April 10th at 11:00 AM
    • Register for a session here.

Trainings

  • Annual Compliance Training will be available in your Learning@Work portal and must be completed by May 23rd, 2025.
    • Topics will include:
      • The Code of Conduct.
      • The University's Guide to the State Code of Ethics.
      • Key Reminders: Privacy, Reporting Obligations Under Title IX, and Export Control Regulations.
    • Trainings are available as an online, self-paced course in Learning@Work or in live sessions through WebEx
      Live, instructor-led sessions are available at the following times:
  •  Concur Open Labs: Register here.
    • Travel Services will be holding bi-weekly Open Labs at 3 Discovery Drive in the Bid Room.
    • Please come prepared with receipts and supporting documents saved to your laptop or in Concur.
      • The next sessions will be held on Wednesdays, February 26th and March 12th.
      • Half-hour slots are available between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM.
    • Visit the Travel Services website for more information.
  • HuskyBuy Open Labs: Register here.
    • Please come prepared with your laptop, questions, and any quotes or supporting documents you may have questions about.
    • Labs will be available biweekly, with the next few sessions on Wednesdays, February 19th 22nd, and March 5th.
      • Half-hour slots are available between 10:00 AM and 12:00 PM.
    •  Please reach out to huskybuysupport@uconn.edu with any questions.
  • Form I-9 Training
    • Please sign up for HireRight training on Learning@Work.
      • March 3rd from 9:00 AM to 10:30 AM.
    • HireRight access is not granted without an employee having attended training.
  •  PageUp Regular Payroll:
    • March 3rd from 9:00 AM to 11:30 AM.
  •  PageUp Special Payroll:
    • March 4th from 9:00 AM to 11:00 AM.

CLAS Shared Services Grant Management

  • For the month of December, CLAS faculty submitted 38 grant applications with a total requested amount of $28.8M.
  • For the month of December, CLAS faculty were awarded 13 new awards with a total funded amount of $6.7M.
  • GMS Postaward team will be contacting faculty regarding summer salary paid on grants by 2/21.
  • If a faculty member has any questions or concerns regarding recent executive orders and their grant funding, please instruct them to email research@uconn.edu.
    • GMS Team is proceeding as business as usual until otherwise instructed by OVPR or the federal funding agency and we are actively submitting grants.
  • Shout-out! Kayla Burgess and Savannah Rivera co-authored “Research Administration in a New World: Onboarding in a Hybrid or Remote Environment” in National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) magazine.

CLAS Shared Services Information Technology

  • Important update regarding the university's storage limits from Eric Soares:
    • Microsoft is implementing new quotas on pooled storage (email, OneDrive, and SharePoint). Under our current licensing, UConn’s total storage allocation will be 965TB, but we are currently using 1.35PB. Microsoft has temporarily extended our storage to 1.5PB until July 2026, but a long-term solution will be necessary.
    • At present, email takes up the least storage, followed by SharePoint, while OneDrive is the largest and fastest-growing component. ITS is actively analyzing this issue and considering potential strategies and solutions. They will be looking for feedback from impacted groups to better understand needs across the university.
    • As a first step in understanding the impact, I have requested additional data from ITS, including details on storage usage patterns, a list of CLAS users with the highest storage consumption, and a report on SharePoint sites owned by CLAS users.
    • Your insights are valuable in understanding how these changes may impact faculty and staff, as well as the overall operations of your departments. I will provide updates and request feedback as I learn more, but I believe it is important to keep communication open and transparent. I will continue to share updates as more information becomes available and as ITS develops strategies to address this change.

Welcome

  • Kaylin Courtney, Grants and Contracts Assistant, GMS.
  • Steven Melgar, Laboratory Technician 1, BIOL.
  • Wendy St.Dennis, Administrative Program Support 1, SLHS.
  • Eliza Nokomis, Educational Program Assistant 1, HDFS.