President’s Monthly Round-Up

This week, I wanted to share a few small information items, and thank you for the feedback you’ve been giving us on the Daily Flyer. Much appreciation to all of you who have taken the time to submit items for our new newsletter!

• This month, the Daily Flyer has had a special focus on sharing the many activities at NOVA that celebrate Black History Month. I hope you are taking note of these events and will make time to attend one or more. And, if you know of other important activities that we should all know about—please submit them to the Flyer.
• The response to the NOVA Reorganization survey was very strong: well, over 300 of you completed the survey! Thank you! As you might imagine, there’s now a great deal of information to sort through as I work with the Administrative Council to assess the recent change in the organizational structure. In addition to your thoughts, there are past organizational charts and all of the work that went into the reorganization. In other words, the assessment will take some time—though not longer than this semester. I will keep you posted.
• Many thanks to all of you who have taken the time to contact your Virginia Senators and Delegates regarding the importance of G3 (Get Skilled, Get a Job, Give Back) to NOVA, our students, and our community. The outlook for some version of G3 to make it across the finish line looks good.
• It appears that NOVA’s Budget Advisory Committee has been dormant for a while. As we begin the budget process for the new year, I am bringing this committee back, and some of you will be receiving requests to serve. The BAC helps promote communication across NOVA about the budget and, importantly, lets our College community share thoughts about priorities that need to go into our short and long term budget planning. This budget cycle, you will see a bit more of VP of Finance and Administration Ina Dimkova and me: we’re working to bring budget information sessions to each campus.
• On a related note, I’ve now had office hours on five of our six campuses. Many of you have dropped by to share your thoughts and to welcome me to NOVA. Thank you! You’ll find me on your campus about once a month, so if we haven’t yet had a chance to meet, I hope you will find time to come by office hours (which are posted in the Daily Flyer). I am very grateful to NOVA’s amazing libraries and library faculty and staff for hosting me for these visits. In this Valentine’s Day month, it’s easy to declare: I love libraries!
• You may know that NOVA has an arrangement with VCCS that provides for a system to place an Assistant Attorney General/System Counsel on-site at our College. NOVA is a big, complex place with many moving pieces and people, so it was surprising to me that we had no similar arrangement with VCCS related to Internal Audit. Now we will: later this spring at my request, VCCS will assign an Internal Auditor to NOVA. Remember that in both cases, these staff report not to NOVA but to VCCS; however, their presence at our College is essential to assure integrity, responsiveness, and compliance with all relevant system, state, and federal rules, regulations, and laws.

That’s my big picture round-up for this week. Look for a similar list about once a month as I continue to work to build stronger communication from my office to yours.

All the best,
Anne