Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Top of Mind with Tambellini Group
Strategies for Overcoming IT Hiring Challenges
As the Director of Enterprise Software Systems at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania, Mary Beaver is a paragon of success in building and retaining a high-performing IT team. In fact, the CRM system she and her team of MCCC alumni built won Tambellini Group’s 2023 Innovative Technology Team Award.
Listen in as Mary takes us behind the scenes and shares how IT mentoring and student worker programs helped her institution overcome the challenges of finding skilled IT team members.
Welcome to the Tambellini Group's May Top of Mind Podcast. I'm your host, Liz Ferrell. Today we are discussing the skills shortage that many IT departments are facing in higher education. We know there have been so many delays on projects or other challenges created by the lack of a skilled pipeline available to fill new and open roles. And we're also going to be talking about some strategies for overcoming these hiring challenges by building an internal pipeline of qualified talent. Our guest today is Mary Beaver, who serves as the Director of Enterprise Software Systems at Montgomery County Community College in Pennsylvania. I'm so excited to have her here today with us because Mary is one of the higher education technology leaders who is a paragon of success in building and retaining a high performing technology team. She's going to take us behind the scenes of how the IT department at MCCC cultivates and nurtures an internal pipeline from it. Welcome, Mary.
Speaker 2:Hello. I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me, Liz.
Speaker 1:We're so glad to have you today. And, I think our listeners are going to learn a lot from your example of success. But before we dive into that, I first wanted to congratulate you and your team again on winning our 2023 Innovative Technology Team Award.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. It was a huge surprise. I did not know that you know, my boss nominated us, so it was quite a surprise and I'm so proud of the team. It really just gives validation that we made the right decision, you know, to go with the path that we chose. So I'm just so proud of my team cuz it's because of their talent that produced the CRM that we have today.
Speaker 1:Yes. And it was a great story to hear and I'm looking forward to you sharing with more about it with us today. As you know, that's how I first got to know you and, and know the story of MCCC and all about your team and their accomplishments. So, for background, can you tell us a little bit about this project that won the award for you all?
Speaker 2:Sure. So, my team developed a student service CRM. And prior to that, prior to having the CRM support was siloed. We, we did not have a complete picture of the student, you know, issues or student inquiries because everything was being managed through shared email boxes specific, you know, like specific issues would go to specific areas. If you had a registration issue, then it went to a registration email. If there was a payment issue, it went to a payment email. There was no complete issue and it was really hard to provide efficient support, you know, because we couldn't see the complete picture and we were handling it okay before the pandemic because, you know, people were all in-person and if you're working through a shared, you know, email box and you're all in person, you could basically, you know, you could maybe like yell out and say, oh, I'm taking the case of Joni Smith, you know? Right. And someone else is taking like, you know, Bob Brown. But there was really no way within the, you know, email with the shared email box to kind of track who was doing what, the status of the cases. So, you know, once the pandemic hit, then we really needed something because, you know, how are we gonna manage these cases when everybody was at home? So that really, the pandemic kind of kicked it in full gear.
Speaker 1:I'm sure a lot of institutions can relate to that dilemma, having that sort of slap-dash, okay, you take this, I'll take that all being in the same room, it suddenly goes away. So tell us, you get, you get into this situation where it's now become an urgent priority. What was the next step there?
Speaker 2:So, I mean, this is something we've actually been, you know, talking about, you know, um, actually like back in 2015, the, the director in enrollment services, you know, she brought up a CRM because she had one at her institution. So it was talked about. And then in 2018 we really started to focus more on it. And I know like in 2019, my boss and I went out to, you know, San Diego, we went to the Salesforce conference out there to look at their CRM to see, you know, how, how that was being used. But then, you know, like I said, with the pandemic, it really, you know, it spearheaded it and we got the approval to move ahead with the pandemic, you know, leadership said, yeah, go ahead. So, you know, then, then it was the decision, like, okay, we've got the approval, so what are we gonna do? Are we going to build or are we going to buy a system? So that was the next, you know, decision.
Speaker 1:So before we get into that whole decision, let's, let's fast forward a bit. Let's talk about some of the results of okay, some of these efforts. So we know that you built the system yourself, but let's talk about where we are now. What have you seen thus far as the impact from this?
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, I mean, we have, you know, improved the student experience because what we have done is we've migrated a lot of those individual email boxes into one. So we're creating, you know, uh, a complete student picture. And we actually started first with the IT department because the, IT had their own case management system. And, you know, we replaced it with the CRM because what better way to, you know, try out a new system that with, you know, with your own folks. Like, let's work at all the bugs in the IT department. So, so once we did that, we were able to get rid of our, you know, our prior case management system and, you know, we were able to now expand it to student services. So we have been able to eliminate multiple, you know, shared email boxes now cases just come into the CRM. So then, you know, just creating that complete student picture so you can go there and you can see all the issues that the student is having. You know, and since then we've basically, we have resolved, I think around 16,000 cases. Wow. Yeah. And like I said, we've expanded it to student services. We are currently working with our president's office and with workforce to fold them into the CRM. But one other thing that we've created from, you know, from the CRM besides creating a more holistic view of the student experience is, you know, data transparency. Because with this CRM, we can do any type of dashboard. So if it's in the CRM, we can report on it. So we can do dashboards based on types of cases, you know, the status of cases. Like if, you know, we can, we can quickly see if, you know, student, student issues are coming in and not being worked on, you know, just based on their status. Right. And, and we can escalate cases if it's a critical issue, we can do, we can create dashboards, you know, even by subject matter. So that alerts us to, you know, like, like potential issues that this student is experiencing. Like for instance, if there's a lot of cases that come in on like FASFA, like, you know, maybe they're having trouble filling out a FASFA, then that's like, you know, that's like a red flag to us. It's a flag to us that say, well, maybe we need to do more outreach about how to, you know, about how to complete a FASFA It's just a way for us to like see, you know, get a clue into what the students are experiencing and maybe, you know, provide more assistance.
Speaker 1:There's so many wonderful results here. And the impact is very clear in, in your explanation of it. So let's talk about this builder-buy approach, because this is something I know a lot of institutions look at and, and building is not necessarily the easiest path to go down. So can you explain sort of the risks and challenges that, that approach involved?
Speaker 2:Well, sure. We did look like, could we buy a system, you know, but then tthe system's out there just didn't really meet all of our needs. So then it was like, okay, you know, you know, we are going to, we're gonna build just because we wanted it to be able to, you know, just adapt to Montgomery. So we were really confident that we could do it because, you know, really because of the team that we have and the talent that we have on the team. We knew it'd be hard. We knew it's a big risk, you know, it's a challenge. It's not like we had a lot of other peers doing this, so, you know, it was a gamble, but we were confident in, you know, the team that we had.
Speaker 1:Yeah. It sounds like you took this leap of faith purely based on the strength of your team. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Which
Speaker 1:Brings us to this internal pipeline that you built. And, and as I was saying to you earlier, this is such an amazing proof point for anyone who is trying to combat these hiring challenges by looking within whether it's their student workers or nternal training and promotion. So given that there's been this wonderful transformation at your institution, tell us a little more about the team that built this and, and how they came to be.
Speaker 2:Well, I have a team of six. Okay. But, but two out of the six were actually, you know, on the CRM team. First is Andrew Rosner. His title is lead software developer. He actually, came to the college in 2008. He started, you know, he was a student and that's when he actually started working in the IT department. He worked in, he worked with our media services. So we have been blessed with his talent since 2008. And then, you know, he graduated in 2013 with a computer networking degree, and he has moved from developer to lead software developer. And, and I get emotional when I talk about my team, because I'm so proud of them. And like, they are, they're so talented and his technical expertise is off the charts. I mean what he has been able to do in-house for our college is just amazing. You know, because of Andrew, we, a lot of times we don't have to outsource just because of his technical expertise. So that's Andrew and he's really part of getting the data, you know, into the CRM from all the other systems we have. So that's like his role. He also does a lot of customizations to the CRM, but you know, he has a partner and it's Marwa Dwidar So her title is CRM system specialist. She is also a graduate of Montgomery County Community College. She's a 2021 graduate. She's also a member of WIST, but Marwa really does the administration of the CRM. You know, she creates the workflows and the cues and y you know, she's working with the end-users on issues that they might, you know, encounter. Because every, you know, every department's going to, you know, use the CRM in a different way. So she needs to make sure that the CRM is adaptable for their needs. So that's, that's the dream team, those two. And for me, you know, they report to me and I make sure that they have what they need to, you know, so that they can be successful. So that's, that's my role with them.
Speaker 1:Well, with that team too. I remember one of the other things you had mentioned was, you know, doing the taking the time to build this, you can't let go of other projects you have going on.
Speaker 2:No. Right.
Speaker 1:And when we're talking about, I think you said there, there are six overall on the total teams.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:So, you know, the, the efforts that they could do in tandem to this obviously had a lot to do with this as well. Can you tell us a little bit about, you know, their stories of how they came to work at MCCC
Speaker 2:Oh, my, the other people on my team. So, I also have Rob Vogel. So he is a senior software developer. He is also a former student from the help desk, you know. He is a graduate of the college and he has been at the college for nine years. When I had a position open in my department, he was actually working the help desk. And I actually, my boss was available. Celeste, our VP, was available for his interview. So I actually pulled him out of the help desk working from the help desk to be interviewed for his, you know, his role. So yes, so I have Robert Vogel. I also have Julio Ashrafzadeh. He is an enterprise application analyst. He also worked at the help desk. That's how I first met Julio, working at the help desk. I hired him actually before he graduated. He was hired in October. I have Kim Liberty. She is an enterprise software analyst. She was actually hired the same day as Marwa. She comes from another another university. She was very familiar with a lot of the systems that we have. And then I have Nina Xu, who was project leader admin systems. She goes back with me. You know, we're a longtime colleague. She been at the college for almost 25 years just working in the IT department.
Speaker 1:So you've got a majority of former students, former student workers here. It's really impressive. And I think that that point alone speaks to the value that a homegrown team can be when they're, they're cultivated and given opportunities to grow. It's very striking how many join in this team as a result of, of those efforts by you and others on, on the IT team. So let's start, let's break down some of these areas. You mentioned the WIST program. And can you explain to our listeners what this is in terms of mentorship?
Speaker 2:Sure.
Speaker 1:Tell what it stands for first of all.
Speaker 2:Okay. WIST stands for Women in Science and Technology Group. So that's what it stands for. In 2017, I had attended an EDUCAUSE panel session. And that panel session consisted of four female vice presidents of information technology. And they were asked the question, what advice do you have for supervisors or managers with respect to fostering the development of women in their careers? And Sharon Pitt, who was then the Vice President of Information Technology at University of Delaware, she talked about a program that they had at their institution that supported women in technology. So I thought, could we do something like that at Montgomery? But, we're different than the University of Delaware because the University of Delaware, that group, their group really focused on females that were already working in IT. Okay. And, um, at Montgomery County Community College, we did not need to do that. Because our department is run by Dr. Celeste Schwartz, who she is the Vice President of Information Technology and Institutional Effectiveness. And Celeste has an amazing story, which again, I'll probably get emotional about, because Celeste was the first woman graduate of our first computer science program. Wow. And yes. And that year, the college hired three students from this graduating class, and she was one of them. So she will be here 53 years in June.
Speaker 1:Amazing.
Speaker 2:And actually, Celeste actually took a chance on me. So I'm forever grateful because I'm an accounting background. So I ended up, you know, she took a chance on me to work in it. So, our department is 50% women, so Yeah. We're definitely not the norm. So when we were talking about this, you know, creating this WIST group, like women were definitely already supported in our department. So we didn't wanna focus on that. We wanted the WIST group to focus on female identifying students. We wanted to, you know, increase the number of female identifying students entering the computer science and STEM fields. Because, you know, we looked at statistics and there was, you know, the national statistics showed a decline in women entering, you know, computer science in college and and the STEM fields.
Speaker 1:A disparity, but
Speaker 2:Yeah. You know,
Speaker 1:Usually, oh, there's a disparity and you see a pipeline that doesn't show it drastically increasing. But I think that's, just even knowing that when you hear it, it's shocking to think it's going in the reverse direction. Right. Especially with so many technical things becoming so much more central to the work that all of us do.
Speaker 2:Right. And, and then we looked like, we looked at our own trends. You know, we look, we ran numbers of, you know, enrollment in programs and our college was following the same trend. So, you know, WIST was created in the fall of 2019, really based on a passion for increasing the number of females entering the computer science and technology fields. So our mission is to be a resource to them and to encourage retention and completion in the STEM fields. And and how do you do that? Well, and we're definitely not a replacement for advisors. We're not. R ight. We're just another area of support. And we work very closely with the advising team. Like they know about us. So t hey're, they will often meet with a student and then, you know, refer them to us for more support. I mean, you know, when we were b e prior to the pandemic, we did in-person meet a nd greets with them, you know, but then we, we also, some people just prefer one-on-one meetings. So we would have a cup of coffee with them and, you know, in the cafeteria. But, you know, we would, we would tell them our stories, you know, how we, you know, came to be, you know, how we ended up in it. But then we were able, because, you know, I had the support of my VP. Celeste completely supported this department, so she encouraged everyone in an IT to support this initiative. So, there have been examples where a student needed tutoring a nd network classes and, you know, my male counterparts offered to tutor. We've been able to offer tutoring opportunities. The department has been open to providing job shadowing opportunities. Some of the WIST students have actually worked at the help desk. You know, we were working with p rogram coordinators just telling them how important it is for them to that to incorporate internships in t he curriculum. So, I mean, it's just, we're just there for them. We listen. We just kind of listen to what they need, you know, what they want, what they wanted to hear. Like, the one meeting they wanted to hear, you know, they wanted to hear maybe a speaker on like job opportunities. So we organized a talk between the director of IT security at Montgomery County Community College. And my mentor, who was the director of IT security at Princeton, they held a Zoom meeting and they talked about careers in cybersecurity. That's what the students were interested in. They wanted to hear about, you know, careers in that field. So it's just kind of listening to them, you know, and asking, you know, sometimes they just need help in like their major choice or they just wanna hear about like, what, what we do on a daily basis. So
Speaker 1:It's impressive. There are a couple of things that strike me about this. First of all, this isn't a program that's set up to be an internal recruiting tool.
Speaker 2:No. No. No. It's not. It's not.
Speaker 1:It's d one. But it
Speaker 2:Has been. But it has been, it's resulted in that it has resulted in that which is, which is probably, I think when I retire, that will be my greatest accomplishment.
Speaker 1:Well, and I want to talk a little bit more about that because you've got a really cool story to share there. I guess the other thing though that I'm hearing too is the importance of the collaboration with the academic side.
Speaker 2:Yes. Yes. And before we even did this, like, like I said, I came back with this idea and then you, you know, you come back, there was this idea and you go, okay, like how do we get this even off the ground? You know? So, like I said, we talked, I went and I talked to my vice president and she was completely supportive. You know, I got, I reached out to my, you know, my female, some of my female colleagues, and they were on board. And Celeste, she had a great, she had a great suggestion. We have an amazing faculty member who teaches, she's a female faculty member who teaches the CIS classes. Okay. And she said, reach out to her to see if she would be interested. So, and she was on board. So, you know, before we did anything, we, we went around and we let people know what we wanted to do. Like we talked to the deans, we talked to, you know, academic, you know, academic affairs. We talked to enrollment services advisors. Cause we didn't wanna step on anyone's toes. We didn't want to be a replacement for anyone, but we wanted to let them know that we were out there and everybody was very supportive of us doing this, you know, and they show up. And when we have, you know, when we have meetings, you know, the advisors will also join. So, and they'll, you know, sometimes like, you know, people from career services will come to our meetings just to talk about what they have to offer. So other departments on campus kind of, you know, you know, support well they, you know, join our groups.
Speaker 1:I think one of the coolest things about this WIST program, even though it wasn't designed as a recruiting tool, is this, some of the stories of how this award-winning team you had who built this CRM system from the ground up became part of your team because of it. Can you tell us a little bit about that?
Speaker 2:Sure. So like I said, you know, we were kind of asked for a CRM back in 2015, and it took on, you know, we became more serious about it in 2018. And then, you know, then with, you know, the pandemic, we were like, okay, you know, we got the approval to go, but we needed to fill the role of the CRM system specialist position. And we had just failed this second search.
Speaker 1:Can you tell us what you mean by a failed search?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So when we hire someone at the college, we actually have a committee that is, you know, we have a committee of people that they're on the search committee and they, you know, they go through the resumes that are submitted. They decide on, you know, who's gonna come in for an interview. And, you know, and based on those interviews, they decide to either move the, you know, candidate forward or, you k now, or not. And you know, there, so there was two searches. So, and there was no candidate moved forward. So we had t wo. So if you don't move a candidate forward, you basically failed search. So we had two failed searches. And, you know, people with the skills that we need for this role t hey're very popular. There's lots of opportunity for them out there. So, and, you know, s o it's, it's challenging trying to get people, you know, there w as, it was challenging trying to get, you know, someone for this role. So Marwa was graduating in May of 2021, but Marwa was one of the first participants of the WIST program. So, like I said, it started back in fall of 2019. And then we were doing a lot of, you know, meet in-person, meet and greets. If you have food, it's always, you know, having food at an event is always very popular. So we would have lunches. And so Marwa would attend. She attended our in-person meet and greets, and Dr. Celeste Schwartz would also attend. So, Celeste and Marwa knew each other, you know, just from the meet and greets. And it was graduation, it was the evening ceremony. So Marwa graduated May of 2021, and Marwa was on stage. And she got her diploma and, you know, from our president. And she walked past Dr. Celeste Schwartz. And, you know, they kind of exchanged, you know, eye contact. And after Marwa, you know, you know, walked off the stage and after this, you know, festivities were done, she said to herself, I'm gonna do this. She said, I'm going to walk up to Dr. Celeste Schwartz. So she walked up to Dr. Celeste Schwartz, she took her hand and she said, I want to work in your department. Wow. So that was Thursday night of graduation. And the day after is always our first summer. Friday. We have summer Fridays at the college. So I remember I was getting my car washed and my cell phone rings, and it's Celeste and she's calling me. And if your cell phone rings on a summer, Friday, from your VP, you're picking it up, you know, so no matter where you are. So I picked up my, I picked up my phone and she said, Marwa came up to me after the graduation ceremony and said, I wanna work in your department. So I actually had, you know, two positions. So, you know, you know, Celeste's like, give me the information, like, you know, let me, like, you know, I wanna see Marwa's grades and, and she's a, you know, a terrific student. So I told Marwa, I said, we have two positions open. And she was interested in the CRM system specialist position. She graduated in May. And she was hired August 16th or 17th of same year, 2021. And we had gone live with this CRM system that she was responsible for June of 2022. So nine months after she graduated.
Speaker 1:It's such a nice karmic payback there from the, the time and effort put into waste and having these failed searches. And then it's almost like this person falls in your lap. But as we know, there was so much work that you've put into this program and others at the institution have as well.
Speaker 2:I mean, and you know, Marwa didn't have, you know, any, you know, really background in the CRM. She had to go for training. We provided her with what training she needed. She was able to obtain two certificates based on, you know, her training. And, she didn't have, this was a brand new position. She didn't have like, notes from the predecessor. You know, she had to forge her own way in this path. And she's doing amazing. Like, she didn't have, you know, anything to fall back on. Like, oh, let me see how the person before me did it. You know, this is all brand new and she's foraging ahead. But, you know, she was able, you know, before we went live with the CRM, within a first few months, she was able to obtain various, you know, Microsoft certificates. So I'm very proud of her. And I have another person from WIST. I have another person. It's Taylor Bellegue. She was actually the very, very, very first person we talked to through WIST. We did a virtual meeting with her. She is now, she is a permanent part-time business intelligence analyst. She works on our reporting team. But she was a student at the college. Like I said, she was the very first person that we talked to as part of WIST. And through WIST, she got a job at the help desk and from the help desk. And, you know, she's working at the help desk, like you just get exposed to so many things. And this position opened up and she was hired. She's a permanent part-time position. And she just named, I'm going to be like a proud mama here. She was just named a transfer pathway honoree of the 2022 all Pennsylvania academic team. Wow. Which means she's transferring to Westchester on a scholarship, which covers her tuition. So she will end up getting her four-year degree in Westchester.
Speaker 1:And also having some, I mean, business analysts, when we look at roles that a lot of places need and are having trouble filling that, that seems to be one of the top ones there. Right. So let's talk a bit about the IT student workers. I, there's obviously great results from this, the wisdom and the mentorship efforts and everything. But you mentioned also a lot of these people working at the help desk. You've touched on a bit like how many student workers that you all have there. And you had mentioned to me that your help desk is staffed completely by students.
Speaker 2:Yes. So our tier one help desk team is all student workers. They are supervised by an administrator, but it's all student workers.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:So there are currently in our IT department, there are 14 graduates, soon-to-be 16 graduates of Montgomery that are working in our IT department. In our IT department, I don't have the exact number, but it's like 36 people. So 16 out of that 36 are Montgomery graduates. And of those 16, nine worked in the IT department while a student.
Speaker 1:That's amazing. Yeah. That's got to be one of the highest percentages out there, I would think.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Sorry, go ahead.
Speaker 2:No, some of the, and some of the alumni working in IT now are the executive director of Information Technology security and the director of enterprise infrastructure services. So they have gone up the ladder from the help desk.
Speaker 1:There seems to be two there. In some of the anecdotes that you've told, there's a willingness to train
Speaker 2:Yes, yes.
Speaker 1:And promote from within. And that's something I don't think we can, we can lose here. Right. In terms of the importance of when you're building that internal pipeline, it's not just going from the students to the full-time or even the part-time hires, but it also speaks to the fact that people know they have a place to grow. And that there's belief in their ability to learn new skills and apply those.
Speaker 2:Yes.
Speaker 1:You had mentioned to me, you know, with this help desk being mostly staffed by students, there was a quote that you had said that really stuck with me, and that was that the fastest way to cultivate someone and bring them up to speed is assign them to work at the help desk. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Speaker 2:Yes, because if you are a tier one staff working at our help desk, you are gonna get exposed to everything, every technical issue that a student, faculty or staff member could experience, you know, they're gonna deal with IT first, and they are expected to resolve as many issues as they can. You know, so they troubleshoot, they reference knowledge-based articles. Uh, they work with their supervisor and at times they will also reach out to others in the department, but they, you know, they are tasked with, you know, resolving it right at tier one and, you know, not escalating it, you know, so they deal with faculty classroom issues, they deal with student login issues. You know, if, if any, you know, if any student, faculty or staff are having trouble with any of our systems, you know, they have to troubleshoot that we have a whole process for electronic forms. You know, they get questions about that. So, you know, they're gonna see everything. Anything that our IT department supports, you know, they may have to troubleshoot. But on the flip side, what I really like is that we, meaning the IT staff members, we get to observe them in action. You know, we can see how they work amongst the team, the customer service they provide, how they handle stressful situations, you know, how they problem solve. So it goes both ways. You know, they get exposed to, you know, everything that, you know, could fall under it. And, we get to see them.
Speaker 1:Yeah. They get this 360 degree view. So one of the things that you had also said to me was how the student experience is always top of mind for these students, and because they've lived it. And I'm interested in hearing a little more about how that empathy and understanding informed the work that they did on building the CRM for improving the student experience and how that was informed by their own experience.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, improving the student experience is really the backbone of the CRM project. That's why we are doing it because we want to provide a holistic view of the student. And that is a driving factor behind how we're expanding the CRM to other departments decisions. Decisions on how we are moving forward are always made with the student's interests. First, just, you know, you know, we're currently working with, you know, enrollment services, um, to, to migrate more of their mailboxes. And again, we are doing it with, well, what is the best interest for the student? That's always, that's always the guiding factor.
Speaker 1:So you've provided some very compelling proof points in terms of the benefits that institutions can reap from having strong mentorship programs and cultivating student workers in terms of benefiting the institution for full-time hires. And I know that you had talked about, for instance, you had first had the idea for WS from Sharon Pitts program at University of Delaware, but you had to adapt the program to be reflective of what would work at your institution. So we know all schools are unique. We know that they've all got to do their own thing. It makes sense in the context of how they operate and the resources they have available. But I'm wondering if you have any sort of general advice when it comes to either mentorship programs, developing those, or using student workers as as possible, hires full-time that you would provide for our listeners out there?
Speaker 2:Well, with regarding the mentorship program, some things I would suggest is, you know, you know, if you have an idea, you know, try to get buy-in with your colleagues and then maybe research, like, you know, contact other institutions with similar programs. I remember when, you know, we were still trying to form this, I attended sessions at conference, at conferences regarding supporting women in tech. I would always go to every session that had that topic. But then if you're really interested in it, like get the buy-in from your leadership, you know, get the buy, you know, talk. We talked to our president, we talked to our VPs, we talked to our deans, and then we made ourselves known across campus. And then, you know, we, you know, we reached out to the students and we, you know, sent surveys and we, you know, put polls. We, you know, we did a, a survey on the, on the student portal to see if they would be interested in this group and, you know, you know, what kind of services they wanted for us. And then we just kind of followed through and we offered, you know, the events that they wanted. Uh, regarding the help desk, what I would suggest is, uh, reach out to faculty members because they're a great source of, you know, students that could possibly, you know, work within your department. But then, you know, you know, take a chance, you know, look for people with potential and train, you know, and give them the training that they need and take a chance on someone.
Speaker 1:It's easy to say often, but hard to do. But you've definitely proven that when you do that it can be an amazing result for your institution. Mary, I've learned so much from our discussion today. Thank you again for taking the time to join us and share your insights.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Liz. I appreciate the opportunity.
Speaker 1:And that concludes this month's Tambellini Group Top of Mind podcast. Thank you for listening. And don't forget to check out our other podcast, blogs and resources at thetambellinigroup.com.