In advance of the fall bill coming in early July, new students should access the Nelnet Student Account Portal to set up an account and add authorized parties. Please complete the following steps to ensure account access:

1. Set-up Nelnet account - Students should log in to the Nelnet Student Account Portal to setup their student profile. Refer to the Nelnet - Account Access job aid for detailed instructions.
2. Add parent or authorized parties access -  Refer to the Nelnet - Add Authorized Payers job aid for detailed instructions.  Students should not share their Nelnet log-in credentials with their parents. They must set up parents as Authorized Parties with their own log-in credentials.

Students and authorized parties will receive an e-mail from Nelnet when the e-bill is ready for viewing. The e-bill and any account changes can be viewed through the link in this e-mail.

Faculty, staff, and postdoctoral scholars can now update their Workday profiles to include education information. Users can view and add education information under the Career tab on their Workday profiles. Before changes are published to faculty education profiles, the requested updates will be sent to their Deans’ Offices for approval. Academic affiliates with a courtesy appointment to Brandeis should contact their academic unit for assistance in adding their education information. Instructions to Add Education Information are available on the Workday@Brandeis website.

The Department of Student Engagement (DSE) is seeking dedicated staff and faculty to volunteer as advisors to our undergraduate student clubs and organizations. DSE views the role of advisor as one of mentorship, support, relationship-building, and knowledge-sharing as students transition in and out of their leadership roles. In addition to supporting the needs of the student club or organization, an advisor should serve as an intermediary with other university departments, creating consistent, clear expectations of policies and procedures across organizations. With the help of advisors, we hope to build a more cohesive student experience and develop strong leaders in all of our student organizations.

Any Brandeis staff or faculty member, or graduate student in good standing with the university, can serve as an advisor to a student organization. The general expectations of advisors include:

• Meet with the organization’s executive board at least once a semester and offer other time to meet as needed
• Understand DSE club policies and help hold club members accountable. Training will be provided to advisors on general policies and expectations
• Utilize the Campus Groups platform to support student organization event management, finances, and general club activities
• Maintain communication with DSE staff including an email group and once a month meeting (as fits with the advisor’s schedule)

Club advisors will have the opportunity to form meaningful relationships with students and will be able to make a lasting impact on the Brandeis community by connecting with other faculty and staff members and supporting the role of students in co-curricular activities. Additionally, club advisors will be eligible to be nominated as Advisor of the Year at the annual Prizes and Awards Ceremony.

If you are interested in possibly serving as an advisor to an undergraduate student organization, please take five minutes to complete the Club Advising Interest Form. Please note that completion of the form does not guarantee you an advisor position, it is simply a tool to gauge interest. Thank you for your participation and support.

Brandeis is rich with religious diversity.  This year Muslims will celebrate Ashura on July 28. The day of Ashura holds special significance to Muslims from different denominations and is commemorated in different ways around the world. Many will fast from before dawn until dusk. For more information on this and other holidays, visit the Center for Spiritual Life's Guide to Religious Observances.

Campus Planning & Operations are recognizing and celebrating the hard work and dedication of their employees.

We are inviting you, our campus partners to send personal thank-you messages to any of the Campus Planning & Operations members or their departments.

As a reminder, the organizations included in Campus Planning & Operations are: University Events, Environmental Health and Safety, Facilities Services, Capital Programs, Campus Planning, Energy & Utilities, Sustainability, University Services, and our Business Office staff.

We know this would mean a lot to our employees to hear from campus members and partners. Please email your message to Facilities@brandeis.edu by July 24.

The Department of Facilities Services will be performing its annual electrical shutdown Saturday, August 12, and Sunday, August 13 from 6 a.m. to 8 p.m. each day. This work allows the Department of Facilities to exercise and test equipment that is vital to the electrical infrastructure supporting Brandeis University.

Only the following buildings will be affected:

• Aug 12 - Chiller Plant, Foster Bio, Kosow, Crown Center, & Usdan
  • Aug 12 - The following buildings will have power but NOT AC (due to Usdan being down): Brown, Goldfarb, Schwartz, Swartz Hall, Olin-Sang, Golding, Lown, Mandel, Abraham-Shapiro, Rabb Graduate Center & Lemberg
• Aug 13 - Rosenstiel, Edison Lecks, & Shapiro Science Center

Please contact Facilities Services at 781-736-8500 or visit the Department of Facilities Services website for more information.

Open to all members of the Brandeis community:

• Intro to 3D Printing with Flashforge, 10 - 11:30 a.m., Thursday, June 29

Open to all graduate students:

• Graduate Writers Workspace (Zoom), 1 - 4 p.m., Monday, July 3
• The Write Time Workshop, 10 - 11 a.m., Friday, July 7

You are invited to participate in this year's ISSO Friends Program (previously named the Open Doors Host Program). The ISSO Friends program offers incoming international students the opportunity to pair up and connect with Brandeis continuing students, staff, faculty, alumni, or other Brandeis affiliates to learn more about U.S. culture, the Brandeis community, and the Waltham/Boston area.

Please note, ISSO Friends is not a homestay program. Rather, it is an opportunity to gain insight into another culture and to build friendship with people from around the world.

As an ISSO Friend, you will receive your new student's information over the summer to begin an email exchange before they arrive on campus. There will be a Welcome Gathering and Orientation in early September for Friends and students to formally meet. During the fall semester, the ISSO will reach out with ideas for activities that you and your student can do together. You can meet for coffee or lunch, go to an on-campus event, explore Boston together, invite them over for a holiday celebration, exchange your cultures and languages, or simply check in via email to cheer them on as they settle into their new home at Brandeis. The commitment is for Fall 2023 and contact with your new student after that is optional, although we encourage you to keep in touch.

If you are interested in joining the program, please see our FAQs page and sign up as soon as possible. We match Friends and new students on a first-come, first-served basis. Please contact the ISSO if you have any questions.

Sponsored Programs Accounting (SPA) is pleased to announce a more streamlined and efficient Effort Certification Process in Workday. After reviewing the current process, SPA has introduced several important changes to the process of certifying time and effort for grant-funded projects. These changes include a Pro-Forma Effort Certification report that can be run to review reported effort, auto-generated Payroll Accounting Adjustments created when the effort is changed in Workday, and a new Effort Reporting Work Area to consolidate work in one place.

SPA will host office hours to assist users with these changes on Thursdays at 11 a.m. via Zoom, Thursday, June 15 through Thursday, July 6.

If you have questions regarding the Effort Certification process, please email effortspa@brandeis.edu for assistance.

The Workday Finance Subcommittee, reporting to the parent Workday Advisory Committee, provides oversight and direction for the Workday Financial Module — approving and prioritizing changes stemming from Workday product releases and needs across campus. The subcommittee is led by Finance and Administration representatives, Ken Freda and Cherie Sadeli, and includes representatives from Brandeis schools and departments. Representatives work with the Brandeis community to vet and advance requests to the subcommittee.

The IT Governance Program includes committees, processes, and communications that engage the Brandeis community. For more information about the IT Governance Committees, including the Workday Finance Subcommittee, to sign up for IT Governance WAC communications, or to learn about the requests or your committee representatives, please visit our updated IT Governance website.

Blogs @ Brandeis, powered by WordPress, has been serving the Brandeis community for many years. After a significant upgrade became required for WordPress, the Office of Communications and ITS took the opportunity to reassess blog usage at Brandeis. As a result, the blogs server will be retired in October 2023. If you are an administrator of a blog that is still in use, you will be contacted by the Office of Communications with more information. Please contact cmshelp@brandeis.edu with any questions.

Take a moment to look at your workspace -- is your desk, chair, and other work equipment arranged to prevent injury and promote good posture? Could you use a little help to turn your workspace into an ergonomic workstation? If so, request a WorkSpace Ergonomic Evaluation.

Effective June 1, 2023, the university strongly recommends that all members of the Brandeis community receive the COVID-19 vaccination and recommended boosters in order to safeguard the health of our employees, students, and campus community from COVID-19. The vaccine is no longer required. Faculty and staff are encouraged to read the full policy on the Human Resources website. Questions about this policy can be directed to Occupational Health.

Brandeis University is committed to supporting our staff with comprehensive benefits, programs and services. We recognize that there may be times when a staff member experiences a significant and unexpected personal emergency that creates a financial burden or crisis. To assist in these cases, the University offers an emergency loan program to benefits-eligible staff, with at least 6 months of continuous service. The program is designed to provide an interest-free loan to the staff member to help cover the costs of the emergencies when they take place. Please visit the Health, Wellbeing and Safety Resources website to learn more.

The Technology Help Desk is open to support your technology-related issues at the following times:

• Monday - Thursday, 8 a.m. - 5 p.m.
• Friday, 8 a.m. - 4 p.m.
• Saturday and Sunday, closed
• Monday and Tuesday, July 3-4, 2023: closed Independence Day

The Help Desk staff is committed to providing high-level technology support and service to the Brandeis community this Summer. Our team of technology support specialists is located in the Goldfarb Library, Level 1. Community members can also get support by sending an email to help@brandeis.edu or calling 781-736-4357. For more information, including a detailed support schedule for Summer 2023, please visit the ITS website.

To commemorate the university's 75th anniversary and its ongoing commitment to repairing the world, we are excited to kick off a community service challenge (July 1, 2023 - June 30, 2024). We challenge Brandeis community members to contribute to our 75,000 acts of tikkun olam or repairing the world. These could be: volunteering at a food bank, delivering groceries to the elderly, donating blood, tutoring in your community, mentoring, being a part of a demonstration/protest, lobbying your senators for change, and so much more! To help us to our goal, complete the Global Service Initiative Community Challenge Pledge (available with the launch of the 75th website in July). Note all the volunteer work that you do currently as well as any new service that you pledge to do in the next year.

Please note that this is a great initiative to share with students, colleagues, and other Brandeis connections. There will be a directory of opportunities on the 75th Anniversary website in July for ideas on how to get involved! For more information, please contact Steph Grimes at grimes@brandeis.edu or x64039.

Fitness classes are FREE and run through August 11. Class schedules can be found on the athletics webpage. Registration is required for all group exercise classes. Tuesday and Thursday Yoga classes are for staff only and held in Skyline Commons. Wednesday Cardio/HIIT is open to all and held in Gosman dance studio. If you have any questions, please contact Kat Page.