University Services and Student Affairs have joined forces in a new venture designed to improve the quality of administrative functions, processes and services supporting UB's tri-fold mission of teaching, research and service.

The resulting vehicle is the Institute for Administrative Quality Improvement (IAQI), a mechanism for bringing together different groups on campus to address quality-improvement issues.

"We wanted to try to get a different look at how we operate," said Dennis Black, vice president for student affairs and a co-director of the institute with Senior Vice President Robert J. Wagner. "We wanted to step back and gather different groups (of people) from different settings to make this a better place."

In explaining what may appear to be an unlikely partnership between University Facilities and Student Affairs, Black noted that the idea for IAQI came about because Wagner's group was working on a project in which it needed assistance from Student Affairs.

The rationale was, "Instead of University Services pursuing its own project with help from Student Affairs, and Student Affairs pursuing its projects with help from University Services, wouldn't it be a novel concept to have both groups working together" from the outset, improving collaboration and bringing better and different thinking to the table? he said.

IAQI officially was established last July, and while it still is in its formative stages, two projects already are in the works: a new employee transition program that will streamline the processing and transitioning of new faculty and staff members to the university, and a student-employment program that will provide one-stop shopping for both students seeking on-campus employment and for campus entities seeking student employees.

The projects were selected from among 15 proposals because they were within the realm of both University Services and Student Affairs-both groups "could get our hands around them" easily-and because it was expected that the projects could make an impact "relatively quickly."

"We didn't want to spend a year forming the institute and then say, 'let's try a project,'" said Black. "We wanted to get something done while we were forming the institute."

Both projects are expected to be completed and the new programs in place by the fall, Black said.

Once that happens, new projects in the areas of administrative function or structure will be solicited, he said.

In addition to the two co-directors, the institute is composed of 11 members, who "provide direction and vision for the Institute," Black said.

The members select projects for IAQI and become part of the project team, which also includes members of units that will be impacted by the project. IAQI, whose budget is provided by contributions from University Services and Student Affairs, will fund the individual projects.

Members of the institute for 2000-01 are Frank Carnevale, interim medical director, Student Health Center; Elias Eldayrie, associate chief information officer; Joanne Fletcher, director of administrative services, University Facilities; Nancy Kielar, assistant vice president and director, CIO administrative operations; Joe Krakowiak, director of university residence halls and apartments; Roger McGill, interim assistant vice president for human resource services; Jim Nadbrzuch, assistant vice president, resource and technology support services, Student Affairs; Barbara Ricotta, associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students; Beth Rogan, director of resource planning, processing and development, Student Affairs; Dan Ryan, director of career planning and placement, and Chris Sauciunac, associate director for instructional technology services, Academic Services.