Jean Edgar has been a staff member at The University of Memphisfor 15 years, and she can barely remember the ever-changingpurchasing policies.
"Things change all the time and I need to be reminded of the newprocedures and new stuff going on with human resources, accountingand purchasing," said Edgar, a financial services associate.
Edgar, along with a small group of campus managers, supervisorsand department chairs, are taking a "refresher" course on U of Mprocedures about which they may not know or have forgotten.
They are attending Leadership Resources Training, a four-sessiontraining program sponsored by the Professional Development andTraining department and designed to highlight a wide range ofresources available on campus, as well as an overview of variouspolicies and procedures.
These sessions are running for a four-week period on Mondaysonly. The first session was held Oct. 6 and will continue Oct. 13,Oct. 27 and Nov.3, ending with a leadership certification. Thesessions are an all day event continuing from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30p.m. The program is free.
Brenda Morris, the interim manager of Professional Developmentand Training, is facilitating the leadership sessions.
"It is for staff and faculty members and is broken into 30 to 45minute intervals for different departments to present what theirdepartments have to offer," Morris said. "Sometimes we have 10people and sometimes we have 20, but we still have it."
James Nabors, the U of M associate director of purchasing, wasone of the presenters at the Leadership Resources Training program.Nabors reviewed purchasing procedures with the attendants.
"We reviewed the operations of purchasing and rehashed policyprocedures, you know, what you can do and what you can't do,"Nabors said. "We just wanted to refresh them on some of theprocedures."
The audience was made up of mostly office assistants andsupervisors, Nabors said. These type of reviewer sessions should beoffered every six months, especially when it comes to purchasing,Nabors said.
Abbe Anderson, an administrative associate for the Center forCommunity Health, was also in attendance for the Oct. 6 trainingsession.
"They let us know who to contact and gave us a general overviewof The University and what each one of them do here," Andersonsaid.
The Center for Community Health is located off campus, yet theseminars covered resources for off-campus facilities associatedwith The U of M, Anderson said.
Much like Anderson, Edgar looks forward to the next programbecause of the benefits gained.
"It was very informative," Edgar said, "I know some things thatI didn't remember before."
Interested staff members should register online athttp://bf.memphis.edu/hr/profdev/regsister.php or contact KeshaHamlin at 678-4407.
