The next Waltham Group Blood Drive will be held on Monday, April 11 and Wednesday, April 13 from 1-6 p.m. The blood drive will be in Sherman Function Hall. Students, faculty, and staff can sign up at the Red Cross site. Any questions can be directed to wg-blooddrive@brandeis.edu.

Brandeis University is committed to promoting a safe environment for the entire community, as well as visitors to campus, and to ensuring that its academic mission is supported by well-qualified faculty and staff. In an effort to enhance our hiring process to meet best-practices, fulfill audit recommendations and to further ensure the safety and protection of our faculty, staff, and students, Brandeis will expand its background check policy. Initially this will include all full-time faculty and full-time staff new hires, along with the staff positions already included in the background check policy, beginning March 1, 2022 with the intent to bring on other groups in the near future. If you have any questions please contact human resources.

Human Resources is pleased to announce the continuation of a flexible schedule option this summer for staff, starting Monday, June 13, and continuing through Friday, August 19.

Managers may adopt flexible hours for staff, where possible. Because our campus offers programs and classes throughout the summer, flex time can be approved by managers only as long as each department’s or unit’s work commitments are fully met, and departments and units are able to provide service five days a week. Whether a staff member may adopt a flex schedule is subject to the approval of that person’s supervisor.

If you have any questions please contact your manager or human resources.

The Office of Admissions will be welcoming admitted students and their families to visit Brandeis this spring on five weekday mornings in March and April. Families who drive to campus will be instructed to park in the Theater Lot. To ease congestion in the Theater Lot, we ask that Brandeis staff members who normally park there to instead park in Lot J (across from University Office Park on Angleside Road), where shuttle service will be provided for those who do not want to walk to campus. Employees may also decide, with manager approval, to work remotely for the day, if their role allows for it.

The "Inside Deis" admitted student events are on March 28, April 4, April 8, April 14, and April 25.

Thank you for your support in helping us bring the next class of Brandeis students to our community.

With tax season well underway, ITS Security wants to remind the community to be aware of tax-related scams. Please note that the IRS does not initiate contact with taxpayers by email, text messages, or social media channels to request personal or financial information. As a reminder, never give out your social security number, credit card, or other personal information to telemarketers or in response to emails or text messages requesting this information. Learn more about tax-related scams on the IRS website.

Additionally, beware of any emails related to your W-2. Brandeis employees can download their electronic W-2 (login required) from Workday. Please report any unsolicited emails claiming to be from the IRS or an IRS-related function to phishing@irs.gov. For more information or questions, contact the ITS Security Office at security@brandeis.edu.

Brandeis Dining, Procurement and University Events are excited to partner on a new Catering Ordering System, starting March 15, to better service our community’s Event Stakeholders needs when planning catered events. This new way of ordering catering will offer greater tools and efficiencies including:

• near instant budget approvals via Coupa’s purchase order system
• real time food order estimates offered through Catertrax
• streamlined invoicing

This optimized workflow will provide the user with greater autonomy when planning events whether they are pick-ups, drop offs or full service events in reserved event spaces.

It will also allow users to connect directly with our Dining provider, eliminating the need to work first through University Events, resulting in both time saved and improved order accuracy.

Please visit University Events web page for more information.

College students seeking lucrative, flexible jobs can become targets of employment scams. Scammers advertise phony job opportunities on college employment websites, and/or students receive emails on their school accounts recruiting them for fictitious positions. A job offer that seems too good to be true could be a scam. Do not engage with any suspicious company websites or email addresses.

Some employment scams targeting college students try to access your bank information. If any job asks for an upfront payment or personal information, do not give it to them. You should never need to pay for employment. This "employment" results in a financial loss for participating students. More information is available on the SFS website.

In a local example, an adversary recently emailed a large number of Brandeis students offering a paid research assistant position within Brandeis’ Economics department. The adversary signed the name of a Brandeis professor and made it look like a legitimate opportunity. Ultimately, the adversary asked students who replied to them to purchase Amazon gift cards and email the barcodes to the scammer to “lock in” the job, with promises of repaying the money after employment begins.

The Course Retention Policy has been updated following faculty feedback so that best practices for saving course materials may be found on a separate site. As a reminder, the policy went into effect in January 2019, and the retention period is six academic terms, as many courses repeat every other year. Courses older than six terms are archived, after which they are recoverable for one additional year.

For more information or questions, please contact help@brandeis.edu.

Last May, Massachusetts enacted a temporary paid sick leave program specific to COVID-related absences. The program, which provides up to 40 hours of additional paid sick leave, was scheduled to expire April 1st, 2022, or earlier if the $100 million funds were exhausted. Reimbursements have now reached $85 million and, as a result, the Commonwealth will be ending the program on March 15, 2022. For additional information visit the human resources covid web page or email human resources.

Upcoming Library workshops

• Cleaning Messy Data with OpenRefine, noon - 1 p.m., Wednesday, March 16

Faculty Workshops - Open to all members of the teaching community!

• LATTE Office Hours, weekly 10 a.m., Fridays
• Using the Jamboard software for Teaching, weekly at 10 a.m., on Thursdays
• Teaching with Archives, 1 - 1:30 p.m., Wednesday, Mar. 9

Human Resources is kicking off the following spring workshops to provide staff with key knowledge and tools. Managers, Staff and Faculty can register for any or all of the following workshops.

Half-day Virtual Workshops Presented by Skill Path from 9 a.m. – noon on the following dates:

• Tuesday 3/22 – Project Management

Managing at Brandeis Nuts and Bolts Series (presented via Zoom):

• Thursday 3/10 – Intro to Leaves Policy, 10 – 11 a.m.
• Thursday 3/24 – Performance Reviews: Coaching and Counseling, 1 – 2 p.m.
• Tuesday 4/5 – Legal Considerations of the Supervisor, 10 – 11 a.m.

To register or for more detailed information please visit the Human Resources Training and Professional Development web page.

Brandeis is excited to be hosting our first ever three minute dissertation competition (3MT).

The Brandeis 3MT competition is a university-sponsored speaking competition designed to showcase graduate student research in three-minute talks to a general audience. This is an opportunity for graduate students engaged in original research to develop communication and presentation skills while sharing their work with faculty, staff, and students across Brandeis University.

Please register to attend the final round on April 7, 7-9 p.m. The winner goes on to the next levels of competition.

Students can now sign up for one of our one-on-one financial literacy sessions on Tuesdays and Thursdays! We hope that students will take advantage of this great opportunity to ask questions about budgeting, managing debt, understanding your paycheck, W-2’s etc. Please click here to book a 20-minute appointment today!

The Workday Team is pleased to announce Workday Wednesdays, a 60-minute session held on Wednesdays from noon - 1 p.m., that provides faculty, staff, and students (topic dependent) an opportunity to meet with members to learn more about a given topic, task or process in Workday. Upcoming sessions topics include Managing Programs of Study, Managing the Student Employment Process, Entering Grades, and Using Class Rosters and Enrollment Reports. Visit the Workday@Brandeis website for session dates, corresponding topics, and Zoom link (registration not required). To submit a suggestion or request a specific topic, please reach out using the suggestion box. For more information or questions about using Workday, please contact help@brandeis.edu.

Brandeis faculty, staff, and students should continue to direct all tech-related inquiries to the Help Desk by submitting a help request, sending an email to help@brandeis.edu, or calling 781-736-4357. The team has resumed their regular schedule of Mon-Fri, 8 a.m. - 7 p.m. and Sat-Sun, 1 pm. - 5 p.m. with in-person support available by appointment only. Visit the ITS website to view the complete Help Desk schedule for the Spring semester including exceptions. A knowledgeable team of technology support specialists are ready to help you and will continue to adhere to university and health guidelines to ensure the safety of both the team and the community.

March holds numerous holidays celebrated by people at Brandeis. Find more information on these and other holidays in this Guide of the Center for Spiritual Life.

March 17: Purim (Judaism) commemorates the survival of the Jews of Persia in the 5th century BCE following a plot that would have annihilated the population. Jews celebrate Purim by reading from the Book of Esther, giving tzedakah or charity, exchanging gifts, and attending festive meals. To learn about Hillel celebrations this year look at Hillel’s Calendar.

March 19: Holi (Hinduism) is a major festival and celebrates the onset of spring, along with good harvests and the fertility of the land. This festival is known best for the way people throw brightly colored powder and water over each other to celebrate the advent of spring. Holi is a day that celebrates love, commemorating the intimate loving relationship between the Divine Couple, Radha and Krishna. On this day people get to unite together forgetting all resentments and all types of bad feelings towards each other.

Welcome new undergraduate students to campus as a Navigating Health and Safety Instructor! Instructors teach sections of Navigating Health and Safety, a six-week module required for all new/incoming undergraduate students addressing mental health, substance use, sexual health, consent, bystander intervention and campus resources.

This position is designed for current Brandeis employees. It provides the opportunity to connect with new students and have fun doing it! Most instructors will teach in person, although there may be some opportunities to teach remotely.

The 50-minute classes are held once per week, either during business hours or in the evening depending on your availability and your supervisor’s approval. In the classroom, instructors lead discussions and facilitate engaging group activities. There is no lecturing!

The compensation is $960 per semester, or $1,072 per semester for staff who have worked at Brandeis for 6 or more years. Apply on Workday, and direct any questions to hawp@brandeis.edu.