We are delighted to announce that Senior Human Resources Administrator in Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, Patricia Cayetano, has been awarded the David Keeling Award for Administrative Excellence.
Since joining the department, she has driven many projects aimed at improving the support systems for LMP faculty, particularly in mentoring and promotions. Those in LMP involved in nominating Patricia highlighted how much she cares, and how she always goes above and beyond what is asked of her, always asking “what can we do better?’.
This drive for improvement and focus on enabling LMP faculty to succeed has resulted in Patricia contributing to significant changes in the department.
Transforming the promotions process in LMP
Patricia is the driving force of our Department Advisory/Promotions Committee (DAC). She supports faculty applying for promotion by helping them pull together their dossiers and not only checking they are complete, but ensuring they showcase the faculty member to the fullest. She ensures evaluation letters are completed and went the extra mile during the COVID pandemic to ensure letters were submitted on time.
She developed the LMP promotion workshops to prepare faculty for senior promotions. Always fully subscribed, these regular workshops describe the criteria for promotion, the promotion process, and what candidates should know when preparing their dossier. She managed to successfully convert these highly interactive workshops online during the pandemic and extended the workshops to prepare faculty for their 3-year review.
One faculty member commented, “I could not have completed this task [applying for promotion] without her support and motivation! She clearly goes above and beyond her job description and I felt that she genuinely cared about me – her dedication to our department and institution is exceptional”.
Ensuring LMP is an inclusive and supportive environment
As one faculty member mentioned, “Patricia seems not only dedicated to upholding the university's guiding principles of inclusion, equity and diversity but she makes them come to life with her actions every day.”
Patricia ensured we were one of the first Temerty Medicine departments to incorporate the completion of unconscious bias modules for search committee members, arranging sessions and videos for faculty.
She leads our faculty mentorship program and has ensured the success of other mentoring programs, such as those in the LMP Graduate Office, by freely sharing her knowledge and experience.
Concerned about new faculty feeling isolated in such a large, geographically diverse department, particularly during the pandemic, Patricia also overhauled our onboarding processes. By developing a new faculty orientation manual and lunch (both digitally during the pandemic) she has promoted collegiality by allowing new faculty to meet their peers, strike up friendships, and to have a support group of people in the same position as they are.
Additionally, she helped form the Senior Promotions Administrators Networking Group and provides service to the Temerty Faculty of Medicine on several committees including the HR subcommittee of Temerty Medicine’s Group of Business Affairs (GBA) and on Medicine’s HR technology roadmap committee. Her contributions on both of these committees led to improvements in HR processes, such as an onboarding and orientation checklist for new Business Managers, and enhancements to HR reporting and documentation through FOCUS and Laserfiche.
Department Chair, Dr. Rita Kandel commented, “Patricia is a remarkable individual, made all the more remarkable because she wants no acknowledgment of her many contributions. LMP staff, as well as faculty and others outside of the department, mention how much they enjoy working with Patricia. We feel fortunate that she is a member of our community.”
