Tuesday, March 4, 2008

Smart Women, Smart Use of Time?

Today I took time off of work to attend a State of Illinois-sponsored conference titled, Smart Women, Smart Money. The registation promised sessions on balancing career and family, starting/growing your own business, women breaking the corporate glass ceiling and getting into senior management, and more. Well, I got there and the event program had completely different topics. The first 30-minute session was a woman from a private for-profit insurance company who told us how to save HER company money (choose generic drugs, know which prompt care clinic to go to before an accident happens, other common sense stuff, but not exactly on-topic and oh-so-biased). After that there were two breakout sessions and I attended one that was about fattening your finances through the internet. We were told how to see if a site was "secure", remember to switch passwords ...and not much else. I decided that this was not a "smart" way to use my time, and time is money! So I left and spent some of the day on my own, thinking about our investments and taking some long-due action to increase our savings and decrease savings. Smarter use of time!!

Monday, March 3, 2008

Faculty and Staff Campaign Begins

We just launched our 3rd annual Faculty and Staff Campaign at UIS. Over 40 volunteers across campus will be talking to their colleagues about the importance of employee giving at UIS, and will encourage their colleagues to make a gift. Our theme is "Oh, the places we'll go" but overall, every year, we try to remind everyone it's about: Your Interest. Your Choice. Some employees give to their own department, but many do not---and it's all okay. What matters is that you give to what matters most (at that moment) to you. We'll have fun this month, I know.