Inside Furman March, 2002

Around Campus

MARKETING AND PUBLIC RELATIONS
After being located in the basement of the library for more than two years, our department is looking forward to moving to the airy, if somewhat isolated, confines of a remodeled Montague Village.

Workers are currently reconfiguring and renovating three wings of the former apartment complex to meet our needs before our 16-member staff relocates in late May or early June. Several members of our group are looking forward to having their own offices again after having to share quarters and work in confined cubicles for the last two and a half years.

At Montague we'll have a break room, lobby, conference room, student workstations and, most importantly, windows. We'll also have curbside parking. (Aren't you jealous?) The trek to the main part of campus might take some time, but we're working to secure a few golf carts and, in keeping with the university's sustainability efforts, a few bikes for transportation.

Although we'll be out there by ourselves for a while, current plans call for Computing and Information Services, Public Safety and Administrative Services eventually to move to Montague. A timetable for those relocations has not been determined.

In other news of note, the department recently received a number of awards from the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education District 3 and the Admissions Marketing Group for the Furman magazine, admissions viewbook, Web site, and overall public relations program.

Our office is also involved in developing two new Web-related projects. John Roberts is helping to write and edit a regular "News @ FU" electronic newsletter that will be distributed monthly during the school year to Furman friends and alumni. Roberts, Web Development Director Ryan Fisher and Aynoka Bender are also working on a university "Intranet" site that will be accessible to faculty, staff and students. This new site, to debut this summer, will help consolidate internal communications.
-- John Roberts

LIBRARY
The groundbreaking ceremony for the Duke Library expansion and renovation will take place on Thursday, May 16, at 2:30 p.m. Please come join us for the celebration! Construction on the new wing is scheduled to begin June 3. Since the first phase of construction will require closing off the rear section of the building in preparation for demolition, the library will be relocating the government documents collection, the reference collection, and the reference office between now and June. Whenever possible, the library expects to maintain normal hours during the construction period, although some collections may be temporarily unavailable during moves.

Beginning in June, the library Web page will include a "noise forecast" with information about when and where conditions will be most and least conducive to studying in the library. Details about the building project, including drawings and floor plans, are available at http://library.furman.edu/building

The library thanks members of the Furman community for their support of the Santas for Sirrine program. Through this project over $4,000 was raised to improve the collection at the Sirrine Elementary School Media Center. Betty Kelly and Nancy Sloan supervise the program. Contributions are still welcome! For more information, go to http://library.furman.edu/sirrine

Drew Kearns is joining the library staff as music library assistant for spring term while Laurel Whisler, music librarian, is on leave. Drew has a Ph.D. in musicology from the University of Illinois and is currently in the Master of Library and Information Science program at the University of South Carolina.
-- John Payne

FINANCIAL SERVICES
January brought its usual whirlwind of activity. In addition to our normal workload, 2700 W-2 tax forms, 275 1099-Misc forms and 2700 student account statements had to be prepared and mailed prior to January 31. Then in early February, another 2700 forms for the student reservation deposits for next school year were prepared and mailed. There was a whole lot of stuffing going on in our office! But with everyone pitching in, we were able to get it all done to meet our deadlines.

We are currently evaluating our retention schedule and reorganizing our filing system. The retention schedule will determine how long we need to keep documentation, so that older files can be destroyed. We currently have storage areas in McAlister Auditorium and in Facilities Services. Files in these areas will be consolidated and moved to another location.

To keep up with ever changing financial issues, Sandra Phillips recently attended the meeting of the state chapter of the American Payroll Association in Columbia. She and Jean Cobb are also planning to attend a seminar in April on "Essentials of Payroll Management." Also in April, Janie Burton will attend a national bursar/treasurer's conference to learn more about e-commerce and collection issues. Ken Bridwell and Amy Blackwell will attend the national Datatel user group to be held in Washington, D.C., later this month.

A new version of Datatel will be implemented later this year. This will involve program changes that will require testing in all areas to insure a smooth transition.
-- Sandra Silvers