The inside scoop on the people and projects that support UNLV

In this issue:

• Business Affairs All-Staff Meeting Recap
• Women’s History Month
• Establishing Trust: Casey Wyman
• Employee Profile: Gina Gamble
• Spotlight on Service
• Upgrading Your Digital Literacy
• New Hires
• Promotions
• Anniversaries
• Dates to Remember

Department Highlight Correction: Nonresident Alien Tax

Compliance Office

Debbie Honrath, left, and Linda Nishball-Lee, right.

An oversight about the size of the Nonresident Alien Tax Compliance Office team was published in the February 23 edition of the Business Affairs Bulletin. The Nonresident Alien Tax Compliance Office consists of Debbie Honrath and Linda Nishball-Lee.

Thank you ladies for all you do!

Business Affairs All-Staff Meeting Recap

Hello colleagues,

Thank you to those who attended the Business Affairs all-staff meeting on March 4. It was great being together in person and engaging with everyone throughout the event. Below is a recap of the meeting organized by topic.

Rebel Recovery

In light of the tragic events on Dec. 6, safety and security have become the university’s top priority on the road to recovery. With months of planning and preparation, President Whitfield, in collaboration with university leaders, launched the campuswide Rebel Recovery Program, which focuses on the university’s safety, security, and well-being.

Committee on Campus Security and Safety

An important component of Rebel Recovery is the Committee on Campus Security and Safety. Composed of several faculty, staff, students, and administrators, including Business Affairs' Musa Pam, associate vice president of Facilities Management, and Heather Ortiz, director of communication, the committee meets twice a month to discuss recommendations to enhance safety and security on campus. A preliminary report will be shared with the president sometime in May. To more effectively review and provide recommendations, sub-committees that focus on the following areas have been formed: 

• Infrastructure improvements
• Training and protocols for security
• Safety-related communications
• Future of Beam Hall

Email updates about Rebel Recovery and the committee’s progress are sent regularly from President Whitfield. Email the committee if you have comments, suggestions, or ideas to present.

Campus Well-Being

Tenaya Morningstar, special assistant to the vice president for Human Resources & Chief People Officer, joined us to talk about YOU@UNLV, a web-based wellness application for UNLV faculty and staff. 

YOU@UNLV allows you to personalize your experience and select topics that are most important to you. You can also take self-assessments, utilize goal-setting and skill-building tools, and find resources on everything from mental health to financial wellness. 

Business Affairs Accomplishments

I have enjoyed learning about the diverse roles the members of our division play daily and have highlighted some of our most recent successes. Thank you for all that you do!

Strategic Plan Goals

The Business Affairs strategic plan is a forward-looking roadmap that includes measurable goals and objectives that align with UNLV’s Top Tier 2.0 vision and mission. It provides the framework for how Business Affairs teams will prioritize their time, efforts, and resources from 2023-2028. 

The plan identifies four aspirational goals: 

• Operational: Business Affairs will continually improve the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of its services and processes.
• Capacity Building: Business Affairs will advance as an innovative, agile, and proactive division that supports UNLV’s mission.
• Staffing: Business Affairs will promote the elevation and growth of its employees to increase engagement, recruitment, and retention.
• Unit Leadership: Business Affairs will cultivate an inclusive work environment that provides clarity, transparency, and alignment with UNLV’s mission.

We used interactive Mentimeter polls to obtain feedback about how well our current goals align with the university’s mission and the work we do. We will use the feedback to understand how we can adjust our goals to better meet the needs of the campus community. 

Culture and Service Standards Update

Shi-Lynn Campbell from the Business Affairs communication team led us into a culture and service standards update.

2023 Business Affairs Customer Service Survey Results

Shi-Lynn provided an overview of the results from the 2023 Business Affairs customer service survey, which highlighted the following:

• Approximately 500 people responded, a slight decrease from 2022 (550 responses). 
• The average customer service rating increased from 3.33 in 2022 to 3.35 in 2023 (on a scale of 1 through 4).
• Respondents provided more than 1,100 comments. Speak with your supervisor if you have any questions about your department’s specific results. 

CARE 

The Business Affairs CARE culture and service standards are designed to advance UNLV’s Top Tier 2.0 initiatives through support, service, and infrastructure excellence. To ensure its success, the program is led by ambassadors from throughout Business Affairs. 

A special thank you to our lead CARE ambassadors:

• Chelsea Meggerson
• Jan Lasagna
• Michael Bailey

A special thank you to our CARE ambassadors:

• Brian Townsend
• Chelsea Herrington
• Chris Chavez
• Colin Tewey
• Darren Paulson
• Dave Coleman
• Don Johnson
• Gabriela Nunez Rios
• Hugo Calderon Cortes
• James Fisher

• James Kearny
• John Myers
• Kaytie Hackett
• Maisara Abebe
• Racquel Rodriguez
• Rebecca Paulson
• Ricardo Vigil
• Steven Joseph
• Tara Pike
• Toni Arcadipane

To support these individuals in their roles, we have:

• Launched a new training module in REBELearn specifically for ambassadors
• Launched CARE Corner, a quarterly newsletter-style resource with activities and conversation starters 

The lead CARE ambassadors hosted an interactive activity focused on the “A” in CARE to acknowledge the various Business Affairs departments and learn more about what they do. 

Employee Recognition

We acknowledged all of our 2023 monthly employee appreciation award recipients and announced our 2023 employees of the year.

Congratulations Armando and John for being named the Business Affairs 2023 Employees of the Year!

Finally, thank you to the all-staff meeting planning team – Alex Nikolich, Nohealani Benicarlo, Heather Ortiz, Rasheda Abdullah Hairston, Shi-Lynn Campbell, and Chanelle Hayes – for coordinating all aspects of the event. A special thank you to Musa Pam and Tenaya Morningstar for their insightful presentations and the CARE lead ambassadors for their participation in this event.

I look forward to the road ahead of us.

Sincerely,

Women's History Month

In 1987, the National Women’s History Project successfully petitioned Congress to pass Pub. L. 100-9, expanding Women’s History Week, which started each year on March 7 beginning in 1981, to Women’s History Month (WHM). Business Affairs is proud to celebrate and honor the women who have fought and continue to fight for racial, political, economic, and gender equality every day.

Each year, March 8 is recognized as International Women’s Day, a time to focus on recognizing women's social, economic, cultural, and political impacts on the world. This year’s theme, aimed at tackling economic disempowerment, is “Invest in Women: Accelerate Progress.”



UNLV has a rich women-centered history. Did you know that 58% of all UNLV alumni are women? UNLV Libraries maintains a curated database of women-focused resources, photographs, and more for the campus and local communities to learn from and enjoy. The university will also host events throughout WHM, like the Thriving Authentically Conversation Series at 5 p.m. on Wednesday, March 20.

Establishing Trust: Casey Wyman

Casey Wyman is Business Affairs’ new VP and chief financial officer. Drawing from his 24-year military career knowledge, he is building trust and casting a new vision for a robust division that touches every aspect of UNLV life. From leading national military projects to ensuring the safety of Air Force bases during the COVID-19 pandemic, Casey’s executive experience and passion for developing leaders are lighting a new path for Business Affairs. 

Learn more about him and some of his plans for Business Affairs in this UNLV Today article!

Employee Profile: Gina Gamble

Gina Gamble is a real estate guru who had more than 17 years of property management experience before she began her career at UNLV. Born in Salt Lake City, Gina moved to the Las Vegas Valley when she was three years old and considers Nevada home. After graduating from Basic High School in Boulder City, Gina attended UNLV where she earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology. While some psych majors may have sought a career as a psychologist after graduating, Gina relocated to Florida and began a career in real estate.

After accomplishing many milestones in property management, development, and sales, Gina changed her “location, location, location” back to Las Vegas when a position became available in the real estate department here at UNLV. She has been back at her alma mater for about two years as a property manager, overseeing property sales, building leases, and usage agreements for a wide selection of buildings and spaces. After a new leasing agreement is secured, Gina helps ready the spaces for occupants by negotiating agreements and collaborating with Planning and Construction (P&C) to decorate and furnish the new holdings. Gina enjoys working with her colleagues and customers to find the property solutions that fit them. She also works on a myriad of building needs from long-term projects like the school of medicine to temporary agreements, such as leasing spaces for early voting during the Clark County elections. What she loves most about her job is the fast-paced atmosphere. “There’s always something new going on. You just have to be flexible,” Gina says. 

In her spare time, she loves spending time with her two rescue fur babies - a Siberian Husky and gray wolf mix named Felan (Celtic for wolf) and Olive, a deaf and mostly blind Siberian Husky. On any given weekend, you can find her taking her dogs out on hikes in places like Red Rock and Lee Canyons where they have plenty of real estate to roam and be free.

Spotlight on Service

In October 2023, we distributed our annual Business Affairs customer service survey. Many of our campus colleagues replied to the survey with notes of praise for our hard-working teams. See below for some highlights for our Real Estate team. 

“The Real Estate team has been very helpful and prompt with their responses.”

“The Real Estate office is great, they keep their various projects moving forward and are highly collaborative.”

“I corresponded a few times with this team during the year. They are very responsive and help me to resolve my concerns during those interactions.”

Upgrading Your Digital Literacy

Google Workspace has added a new Google Docs feature called markups. This update gives more flexibility when providing feedback in a document by allowing users to utilize a stylus or finger to add handwritten annotations when using an Android device. 

To learn more about markups in Google Docs, visit the Google Workspace Blog.

New Hires

• Alex Schulz, Facilities Management
• Kerry Tate, Facilities Management
• Michele Washington, Risk Management & Safety
• Rebecca Tudtud, Facilities Management

Promotions

• Lori Church, Financial Services
• Nathanael Mayberry, Facilities Management
• Samuel Powers, Facilities Management

Anniversaries

Congratulations to the Business Affairs employees celebrating work anniversaries in March! Years of service have been determined using the UNLV hire date - the first employment date without any breaks in service here at UNLV regardless of job type or full-time status.

If you notice an error in your listing, contact Heather Ortiz.

Dates to Remember

• March 8: International Women’s Day
• March 10: Daylight Saving Time Begins
• March 11-17: Spring Break
• March 17: St. Patrick's Day