[Business Affairs]

	UTSA Business Affairs Employee of the Quarter Recipients

2008 - 2009 4th Quarter Recipient

Business Affairs is proud to recognize Diana Valle, Business Policy Writer and Website Coordinator, Office of Financial Affairs, as the 4th quarter recipient of the Celebrating Excellence Award for FY 2009.

Diana has been involved in many projects of importance to UTSA. The most notable of these include: redesign of the Financial Affairs' website; creation and maintenance of the University Strategic Resource Council website; editing and coordination of the SACS Accreditation Report for financial, administrative, security and facilities related standards; development of the Cost Containment website and process; preparation of concise training materials including PowerPoint presentations, training manuals, and quick reference guides; Review of central DEFINE security setup; Design of new forms and use of “fill and print” technology, development of a web forms repository, and the conversion of forms from public folders to the web; and Writing/rewriting of numerous financial policies, including Red Flag Rules and Cash Handling Policies.

In all cases, Diana has taken her assignment and made it so much better than you’d have ever imagined or expected. The improvements made in the Financial Affairs website are all the result of her initiative. When she sees something “broken”, she digs right in and fixes it. Recently, when asked by one of the Financial Affairs’ management team to attend her staff meeting to review the Administrative Guidelines process, Diana realized that the staff needed a template and instructions. She developed a template and led a very productive discussion with the staff so they could better see what sort of information needed to be included in the guidelines. Her interaction with the group and simplification of what seemed to be a difficult task was very helpful and motivating.

Diana is very much a team player—and her success has made her very busy. She has put together PowerPoint presentations for other staff; she has developed process maps; she was instrumental in coordinating with many different departments and individuals within Business Affairs to meet the deadlines for several sections of the SACS accreditation report, including organization of hundreds of attachments and or website links. This is no small task as the portion assigned to Business Affairs was significant. She coordinated with all units within Business Affairs (Facilities, Administration, Financial Affairs and University Police) to assure our portion of the report was compliant with the SACS standards, comprehensive, professional and well written.

What Diana created for the Cost Containment website, and the subsequent management of it is a special contribution to the university in addition to her many other projects and priorities. She built the website and also maintains and coordinates responses to university stakeholders who submit cost savings suggestions.

Diana’s organizational skills are also excellent; she tracks her projects in a way that allows us to re-evaluate priorities so that she can manage and meet expectations of the management team. Diana understands the concept of revision control and is careful to assure that any changes to already approved or posted documents obtain re-approval by the appropriate individuals.

Diana truly deserves to be recognized for her creative thinking, initiative and team spirit. We are so happy to have her on our team!