Our May 2024 NUSAC Member Spotlight is Lisa Jene Collins, Business Administrator, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Environmental Sciences/WCAS
Name: Lisa Jene Collins
Title: Business Administrator
LINKEDIN: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisajenecollins
Unit and School/College: Earth and Planetary Sciences, Environmental Sciences/WCAS
Year Started at Northwestern University: 2013
Year Joined the NUSAC Council: 2021
Why did you join NUSAC? From day one at Northwestern, I had the desire to serve on NUSAC to connect our staff voices and staff experiences in productive ways to our institution’s priorities. I was disappointed not to be able to join in my first year of employment. As an alum of NU, I felt prepared to provide a meaningful voice from the get go. It took me a few years of participating at the School level providing staff input, where I served 6 years on Weinberg’s Staff Advisory Board. I still felt the call to apply to NUSAC and hopefully increase the visibility of the NUSAC staff advocacy and what that meant for staff, contribute to the positive transparency of institutional knowledge shared back to staff especially around policies and procedures and to see how from within NUSAC we could inspire staff to enjoy the institution as much as we highlight the opportunities for enhancement. Diversity of staff voices is important within this advisory board.
What is the most important thing your NU staff colleagues should know about NUSAC? NUSAC is a collaborative body focused on lifting up staff voices so important issues remain heard by our leadership, acknowledging we are at the table. But, I would also want my colleagues to know, NUSAC is just as importantly a group of staff who hold NU’s success as pivotal to creating a solid platform for staff experiences to be enriched.
What issue are you most passionate about related to improving the NU experience for staff? I am most passionate about helping staff “find their happy place at NU”. We are not always content and NU cannot perfectly address all the important concerns highlighted in a given year; but, we can find where we as staff are most excited, most inspired and we can help build pathways for that type of growth for all staff. Right now staffers have to carve out their own path, finding where the resources and opportunities exist. Northwestern is filled with deep resources for networking, mentorship, self-assessment and career growth. We just need to do a better job at integrating this into the framework of staff employment. Like the PEX requirement, having career development benchmarks and assessments built into the staff experience, which encourage exploration or enhancement would be a great achievement.
What do you most enjoy about your work at Northwestern? I love problem solving and finding a solution that is repeatable, sharable and stands the test of time. Northwestern is filled with so many opportunities to create new processes and streamline business workflow, especially now supporting more effectively and completely the partial remote environment. Collaborating with other units and central services brings such rich conversations and outcomes. I would like to see more collaborative sharing in NU’s business work spaces at every level. Best ideas come from these cross-pollinated spaces.
What is a little-known fun fact about you? I played the flute in the marching band at Loyola Academy High School and the legacy of the band director’s training came from a prior band director of NU’s marching band. I decided to go to NU for my undergrad because of that experience – Excellence, always with a capital “E”. In a world where people are encouraged to give “C” work and receive 100% credit for excellence, I always looked for places where “A+” was the bottom and you only strove to achieve higher from there!