NOMINATION PACKAGE. Supervisor & Director: Nav Bassi

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2 PRESIDENT S DISTINGUISHED SERVICE AWARDS Nominee Information: Name of Nominee(s) Department or Unit: NOMINATION PACKAGE David Street University Systems Nominee(s) Work Number: Nominees(s) Nominees Supervisor and/ Director Name: Nominees VP Name: dstreet@uvic.ca Supervisor & Director: Nav Bassi Gayle Gorrill NOMINEE(S) SIGNATURE: Indicating agreement to be nominated and have name published with the list of nominees. For group nominations please use group consent form located on the website. Should the Nominee be a recipient of an award, this nomination package may be used as a sample on the HR Website for the following year s nomination process. For publishing consent please check boxes below: Nominee: Yes No Nominator (including providers of support letters): Yes No Nominator Information: Nominator Name(s): Nav Bassi Department or Unit: University Systems Nominator(s) Work Number: Nominator(s) navbassi@uvic.ca PURPOSE: To celebrate outstanding contributions of university employees to the betterment of the university and its community. These awards do not replace Long Service Awards. This is an exemplary award. ELIGIBILITY: All employees are eligible for the awards with particular attention being given to contribution of staff. WHO CAN NOMINATE: Any UVic employee or recognized student organization can nominate an individual or team for these awards. SUBMISSION DEADLINE: Monday, November 7, P age

3 Award for Excellence in Leadership Nominee s Name: Q1 What has this individual done or accomplished that demonstrates excellence in leadership (either formal or informal): involving people, programs, projects and/or events, that represents an outstanding contribution or improvement to the learning and working environment, or improving quality of life on campus and/or in the community by ensuring that sustainability is an integral part of campus culture, thereby helping make the university community better for everyone. As the Manager of the Service Centre, David is responsible for managing two teams, the Computer Help Desk and the Desktop Support Services team. He has nineteen (19) PEA staff members reporting directly to him. David s team provides front-line Tier 1 and Tier 2 technology support to all faculty, staff, and students at the university of Victoria. What sets David apart as a leader is his willingness to take responsibility when no one else does. Over the past year alone, David has shown leadership by extending himself well beyond the expectations of his position in order to help provide a better learning and working environment at UVic: 1) David takes responsibility. The most recent example of David s leadership qualities is the Payment Card Industry (PCI) standards implementation project. This is a very important project involving stakeholders from various service areas. David discovered that one of his clients, University Food Services, was experiencing challenges with the project. He also discovered that no one was in a position to help due to the sheer workload of the project and is looming deadlines. He took it upon himself to coordinate the project, wrote the project charter, and volunteered to be the project manager of the project ensure that UFS could continue to accept credit cards, be PCI compliant, and ensure students, faculty, and staff would not be impacted. 2) David s team encounters problems first. These may be technical issues or process issues in other units. Regardless of the cause, David takes it upon himself to follow up and do whatever is necessary to minimize impact on campus clients. If a new version of software is released, David will ensure his team tests its compatibility with existing systems and has appropriate advice and guidance available for faculty, staff, and students. 3) David is proactive. Under his leadership, the Computer Help Desk has expanded into multiple locations, including a Satellite Help Desk in the Mearns Centre, designed to bring service to students. David has ensured the Service Centre has a presence at Week of Welcome activities, and has maintained a Help Desk presence at residence move-in weekend. David does not hesitate to reach out to colleagues on campus in an effort to provide a cooperative client service experience. His latest idea, which I have no doubt he will pursue with as much tenacity and leadership as the others, is to place a Help Desk presence in the Campus Services building. 4) David is Systems conscience. Technical staff are often been faulted for focusing on technology and forgetting the people who rely on technology. David, along with his direct report Marcus Greenshields, has been responsible for the Change Approval Board (CAB) within Systems. CAB is responsible for reviewing all changes with the potential to impact faculty, staff, or students. I have personally witnessed David taking the difficult position of bad guy by denying a change he felt hadn t been adequately tested or was scheduled at a time where students, faculty, or staff could be negatively impacted. However, he does this in a constructive manner, and is always willing to help others improve their change processes to minimize impact on our clients. 2 P age

4 David has also shown leadership by extending himself well beyond the expectations of his position in order to help provide a better learning and working to support the university s research mission beyond the UVic campus: 1) The Centre on Aging at the University of Victoria is a multidisciplinary research centre with a mandate to promote and conduct basic and applied research throughout the lifespan. When they began to suffer IT failures at their remote site in Ladner, BC, David took responsibility for assessing the situation and looking for a solution. While all of his predecessors had simply considered the remote location as out of scope, David personally lead a team of technical staff on trips to the mainland to upgrade their IT infrastructure. David s leadership brought together a team of experts from across Systems and provided the Centre on Aging Ladner site with a reliable and secure IT infrastructure that has enabled them to focus on their research mission. 2) The Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging (CLSA) is the largest study of aging ever undertaken in Canada. When CLSA was being created at the Gorge Road Hospital site, David took it upon himself to investigate what, if anything, was being done to provide technical support to the site. When he discovered that technical support had been overlooked, he took responsibility for meeting with the researchers and developing a plan for ensuring the CLSA site would be ready to collect data. He lead a team of full-time permanent and part-time student staff from the Computer Help Desk to set up the specialized data collection medical equipment and in doing so exposed our student staff with interest in medical technology to the latest medical instrumentation. David s efforts allowed CLSA to begin collecting data on time and for our student staff to obtain a valuable learning experience. 3) The Law Centre provides advice, assistance and representation to clients who cannot afford a lawyer. Located in downtown Victoria, they had struggled with IT support until David offered to extend on-campus desktop support services to the Law Centre. When David first learned about the upcoming move of the Law Centre, he immediately contacted Faculty administration in order to offer to help plan the move and recommend a series of improvements that could be done at the same time in order to improve their experience. Q2 How have these accomplishments and contributions benefited the university community or advanced one or more of the goals of the university as outlined in the UVic Strategic Plan? David Street s accomplishments and contributions have advanced the goals of the University as outlined in the UVic Strategic Plan in the following ways: Objective 15: To support the student experience by building a comprehensive and integrated student service environment focused on anticipating and meeting the needs of our diverse student body. The Help Desk is the only IT support unit on campus that provides services to all students. The Help Desk student staff themselves represent our diverse student body. David and Marcus have implemented a number of services that anticipate and meet the needs of our diverse student body. Objective 17: To increase opportunities for experiential learning and community engagement at UVic. David ensures that we only recruits Co-op students at the Help Desk. For projects where he feels 3 P age

5 students can both be of assistance and benefit from the learning experience, such as the CLSA Gorge Road Hospital site, he ensures Co-op students have an opportunity to take part in service delivery. Marcus creates unique project opportunities for his staff and exposes them to opportunities they could not obtain in a typical Co-op position. Objective 23: To develop a library and an information commons that support our research culture and serve the developing information needs of students and researchers. The Help Desk has a presence in the Mearns Centre in the form of a Satellite Help Desk. David was responsible for the successful operationalization of the Satellite Help Desk and integrating its services with the main Help Desk. This directly advances Objective 23d, strengthening the collaboration between the Library and University Systems (Computing and Systems Services). David is also always looking for other opportunities to strengthen this collaboration. Objective 25: To develop the support services necessary for meeting our goals in teaching and research. David and his direct report Marcus Greenshields recently took ownership of the Change Approval Board (CAB) process. This is a formal change management process that ensures all changes to services and systems we provide in support of teaching and research are done in a manner which maximizes success and minimizes negative client impact. I have personally witnessed David taking the difficult position of bad guy by denying a change he felt hadn t been adequately tested or was scheduled at a time where students, faculty, or staff could be negatively impacted. However, he does this in a constructive manner, and is always willing to help others improve their change processes to minimize impact on our clients. He supports Objective 25b by reviewing the effectiveness of support services on a regular basis to ensure that best practices are adopted. Q3 What attributes and qualities did this person display in the course of these achievements? e.g. resourcefulness commitment to high standards responsiveness and service to students, faculty and/or staff dedication high level of integrity inspiration to students, faculty and staff community service (both on & off campus) Resourcefulness I stated that David steps up when others will not. This is not because others do not want to, but because they do not see a path to success. David is highly resourceful, and is always looking for ways to achieve what others state cannot be done. His colleagues were skeptical at our ability to improve the IT environment at the COAG Ladner site, and support it remotely, without sufficient funding for equipment. David communicated with COAG administration and was able to reach a compromise on equipment they could afford, and also helped COAG switch internet service providers so that remote support was possible. Commitment to high standards Anyone who has ever had an interaction with David knows about his commitment to high standards. David attended the Help Desk International (HDI) conference and learned about performance metrics. He 4 P age

6 implemented client feedback surveys for both Help Desk and Desktop Support Services so he could measure the standard of service being provided. He reviews trouble tickets regularly, and doesn t hesitate to meet with clients to ensure they are receiving a high standard of service. David has been instrumental in ensuring that warranty work performed by our PC service provider is being done accurately and in a timely manner by collecting performance data from his team, and he has been a catalyst for changing our service provider based on the data collected. Responsiveness and service to students, faculty and/or staff David is well aware of the needs of students, faculty, and staff and he sets an example for his staff to follow in terms of responding quickly to questions, queries, and concerns. His proactive efforts, such as ensuring system changes are done to minimize negative impact and setting up Help Desk locations at key welcome events, help to ensure the quickest possible response to client needs. Dedication David is one of those few people who maintains push- alerts on his smartphone. During a conversation with him, his phone will buzz several times; on his way to the next meeting he will be reading and responding to urgent items. David regularly comes in early and leaves late this is the only way he can possibly extend himself as far as he does. He takes a level of ownership that provides extreme comfort to anyone who asks him to do anything. High level of integrity Research projects handle sensitive data, many of the services we provide require chargebacks to departments, and sensitive matters involving students and staff often involve IT. David shows a very high level integrity in everything he does, from the open and transparent manner in which he runs hiring competitions to the way he keeps his supervisor appraised of all of his activities. He is so trusted by his clients that he never has any difficulty justifying any charges he may apply to their budgets. Inspiration to students, faculty and staff When a member of his staff his a new child, David collects money for a gift and spends his time to select, purchase, and deliver it himself. With a fairly young team, David has done this many times! When one of his staff members was interested in going back to school to take a course, but was concerned about the time commitment and cost, David not only offered to share the cost, but also registered in the course himself and went back to school. I cannot think of a more poignant example of inspiration or leading by example. Community service (both on & off campus) Over the past 13 years David has been involved with Scouts Canada holding the positions of Section Leader in Beavers, Cubs and Scouts, and Group Commissioner and Fundraising Coordinator on his local group executive. He has also volunteered at many regional Scouting events over the years. 5 P age

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10 Office of the Executive Director, Student Services Division of Student Affairs University Centre Building Room B202 PO Box 3025 STN CSC Victoria British Columbia V8W 3P2 Canada Tel , Fax Web 26 October, 2012 To: President s Distinguished Service Awards Committee Re: Nomination of David Street (University Systems) President s Award for Excellence in Leadership Dear President Turpin & Members of the Evaluation Committee, I am pleased to offer my full support for David s nomination and provide you with the following comments on his commitment to excellence in leadership at UVic. David in many ways is considered an honorary member of my leadership team. David has developed this reputation as a result of his unique approach to people, challenges, and willingness to go above and beyond without hesitation. To begin, David has been instrumental at converting a number of complex, aging, and problematic enterprise systems across my units to new, advanced solutions. In all situations, this required David to learn our units and their goals, work with leaders and staff who do not necessarily have the expertise to oversee substantial technology projects, challenge leaders to focus on complex business process reviews, and ensure that all involved, including external vendors and stakeholders, were engaged in and satisfied with processes and outcomes. David prided himself on respecting the structures and intricacies of each reporting unit while being able to integrate the requirements of University Systems in order to be successful. In less than a year, David has provided tireless leadership for the conversion of Health Services over to a provincially directed electronic medical record system, the restructuring of support for University Food Services card platform and point of sale system, and an urgent refresh of technology and related supports for Academic Advising. In all cases, David discovered far more complexities, requirements, and challenges after engaging in these projects. This never changed David s attitude or commitment towards achieving success. David is fully committed to supporting student success through his work. David has an intrinsic talent for mastering how his area of the University can support the delivery of technology to improve services for students and the professional staff that directly serve students in my area. David frequently refers to the student experience and student success when determining solutions. David works hard to support professional staff with the implementation of technology innovations and ideas. David has been proactive at working with leaders across my team at introducing desk top support programs that at times may have pushed his resources beyond limits however David and his team always arrived with the attitude of making the situation work with the resources available. Recently, David and his team responded to Counselling Services, discovering failing equipment and problematic software, which would have significantly impacted the operation. David and his team worked outside of normal hours, beyond the working arrangement with Systems, and with a focus on making longer-term improvements in addition to what simply needed to be fixed. David subsequently returned with

11 Page 2 a number of recommendations and a new support model that will significantly improve Counselling s technology platform. David s success derives from representing University Systems as a partner with my team and their respective operations. David s leadership is respected, valued, and I believe warrants the appropriate celebration and recognition at this time. Yours sincerely, Joel Lynn, MA Executive Director, Student Services

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