Summer: A Busy Time for Employees
Work doesn't slow down much after students leave campus
When it comes to dealing with student needs, Linda Moiseenko stay busy. As assistant director for Housing Assignments and Community Housing at Duke, she and her staff manage processes and resources for on-campus housing assignments for undergraduate and graduate students.
But that doesn't mean she or the members of her staff get to relax once students leave campus every May.
"Nothing really ever slows down until around December, and even then, there are still things to do," said Moiseenko, who works to identify housing needs and fill hundreds of requests between June and August. "For us, summer is just as busy as any time during the regular academic year."
Not surprisingly, that's the case with many Duke community members across campus. After the academic year ends in May, faculty and staff are busy with the end of their fiscal year or gearing up for when students return. Even though classes won't start until Aug. 26, there's still plenty being done around campus.
For Lisa Frazier , her job kicks into high-gear in June, about a month after students have packed up and left campus. Along with her colleagues in Financial Services, she needs to "close the books," which includes making sure departmental spending is in line with their budget for the fiscal year, which ended June 30.
"That means making a lot of phone calls and sending emails to stay on top of everything that's going on," said Frazier, director of Accounting Systems Administration. "There are about 150 business managers and financial analysts across the university and health system we coordinate with. Once year-end is over, Duke's external audit begins. This is definitely our busiest time - we don't really take vacations until the winter."
One of the business managers Frazier may contact is Theresa Shouse, from the Department of Sociology. Shouse said there's no time to waste between the end of one academic year and the next.
"As soon as graduation happens, you get your budget, review everything to make sure it's correct, prepare to close out the fiscal year and get started right away on planning for the fall," Shouse said.
Though some may spend summer off-campus, faculty are always on.
Keith Hurka-Owen , Director of the Office of Research Support (ORS) , noted that his office never sees a difference in work load, even at a time when faculty members are typically busy with research. In fact, over the past three years, Hurka-Owen said the ORS has received an average of 61 more research proposals in summer months compared to the late fall and winter.
"If anything, our work picks up," said Hurka-Owen, whose office assists grant managers and faculty with applying for grants or awards to help fund research at Duke. "It may be easy to sometimes forget that in addition to teaching classes and grading, faculty are also here to perform research. The summer gives them a little more time to write and submit research proposals."
While there's plenty to keep faculty and staff busy, Dan Singer is thankful that even though his "to do" list stays long, he still gets to enjoy the laid back nature of summer on a university campus. Much of his summer work as an IT analyst with the Department of Computer Science includes preparing for the next academic year by backing up data and creating a new database system for his department.
"I enjoy the quieter summer, but people inside Duke know that for staff, work continues year round," he said. "People outside of Duke may wonder if we have the summer off or something, but they're quickly corrected on that."