The University of Kansas

April classified employee of the month: Lesa Marbut

Started at KU: Marbut began working at KU in July 1991, first as receptionist, then as graduate secretary for the Department of Sociology.
Current title: On July 11, 1999, she joined the staff of the newly established Freshman-Sophomore Advising Center as a secretary II, and she now serves the office as an administrative specialist.
What that means: Marbut manages the FSAC reception area and coordinates the advising schedules for the center’s 25-plus faculty and staff advisers. She collects, organizes and continuously updates information about academic schools, majors, programs and career opportunities so students and advisers can make informed decisions. Marbut and the student employees are on the front line of the advising efforts for 7,000 students each semester.
Notable: During the FSAC’s first three years, the staff has grown from two to 25 and the number of students served has tripled. Marbut was one of the first classified staff members in FSAC, so she has had to create many processes and procedures “from scratch.” She also adapted the advising scheduling process to the Outlook electronic calendar. She is highly organized and has excellent rapport with students, staff, faculty and parents.
Most recent feat(s): The glass doors within the FSAC office needed to be covered to ensure privacy in individual advising sessions. Marbut painted the doors with different versions of the Jayhawk, adding both color and history to the office décor. She writes a daily e-mail that keeps the entire office informed. Marbut also recently established a newsletter for parents of freshmen.

April unclassified employee of the month: Jonathan Glauner

Started at KU: Glauner began work at KU in February 1996 as a student employee.
Current title: In August 1996, he became a full-time classified computer operator I. In 1998 he became a member of the unclassified staff as a research assistant; since then, he has been promoted twice. He is now a programmer III in Computing Services.
What that means: A colleague calls Glauner the “guru” of the Student Administration PeopleSoft Project, where he is doing the programming to convert the Student Records Information System to PeopleSoft.
Notable: Glauner has great technical knowledge of various computer systems and how they interact with one another. He is generous in sharing his knowledge with others, taking the time to be sure they understand. When the project hits a roadblock, he looks at it from a different angle. After pondering a data load process that was taking a frustrating 12 hours to complete, he found a way to do it in 20 minutes. Early in the project Glauner wrote a program that would have cost KU more than $70,000 to purchase. Team members were jubilant, and the PeopleSoft consultant who works with KU was amazed.
Most recent feat(s): Recently Glauner cranked up the PeopleSoft enrollment engine and ran through the historical records for 900,000 enrollments with an error rate of only 5 percent. Eventually, more than 6 million enrollment records will be transferred to the new system. He already has processed 15 percent of those records with a 95 percent accuracy level. He is sought after by consulting firms, other institutions and even other teams at KU.