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2018 Personnel Conference Session Descriptions
Presentation Title Description Presenter

Pre-Retirement Planning

 Evaluate your retirement plan and take the steps needed to prepare successfully to meet your retirement goals. Assess your retirement cash flow needs and take an in-depth look at the resources you will have available, including your American University retirement savings and government sponsored benefits like Social Security and Medicare.

AHealthyU
Trauma-Informed Students Services for Frontline Staff The SAVE (Support and Advocacy for Victim Empowerment) Team at American University, made up of representatives from Title IX, OASIS, Residence Life, and University Police, commonly offers training sessions to professional and paraprofessional staff related to resources, processes, and how to be trauma-informed when interacting with students in crisis. AU SAVE Team
Planning and Executing Successful Small-Team Retreats This session will equip you with ideas for planning, organizing, and executing successful small-team retreats. From teambuilding to assessment and reflection to goal-setting, you will be presented with practical and creative tools and solutions to set your team up for an impactful year. Juliann Winn and Ashley Rozendaal 
Improving Your Everyday Life Through Mindfulness and Meditation Have you heard the buzzwords “mindfulness” and “meditation” lately? These practices can help us in both professional and personal arenas of our lives. There are many styles of meditation and we will explore several types in increments of 60 seconds. You can find a style you enjoy during our session to carry into your life to reap the benefits of meditation in short periods of time. We will also explore the practice of mindfulness with the help of chocolate!

Charlene Ploetz
Why Join a Professional Association? In this session, you will hear from some of your AU colleagues who have volunteered their time to various Higher Education Professional Associations. Each presenter will share their insights on how these experiences benefited them both personally and professionally. The session will also discuss how to start getting involved in an organization beyond conference attendance, since it can seem intimidating at first! Lauren Wagoner, Daniel DeHollander, Justin 
Williams, Richard Duncan, and Ashley Wallace 
Tax Reform - Key Changes On December 22, 2017, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017 was signed into law. Learn how the changes will impact YOUR taxes. During the workshop session we will cover: changes to the income tax rate brackets, standard deduction, personal exemptions and itemized deductions. We will also address changes that will impact families, including: 529 plan rule changes, changes to the child tax credit, and changes to healthcare-related tax items.  AHealthyU

Leadership Scaffolding: Creation and Implementation of SI Senior Leader Cohort 

 With a growing cohort of Supplemental Instruction (SI) Leaders, the program saw a need to create a scaffolded leadership structure to promote greater efficiency within the program. This past semester, the SI program implemented the SI Senior Leader cohort, which consisted of 7 SI Leaders who demonstrated excellence in their SI Leader role and the capacity for leading their peers. These Senior Leaders had the opportunity to develop leadership skills by mentoring a small group of new and returning SI Leaders in their course area, as well as learn about the coordination of the SI program, and gain skills in program administration. This session will talk about the process of implementing this scaffolded peer education structure, from development and implementation to evaluation. This session will also cover training and development of the new cohort, as well as the results from data collected to evaluate the effectiveness of the program addition. 

Rebecca Desantis
Get Organized, Go Paperless, and Collaborate Like Never Before Using OneNote   During this session you will see how the Student-Athlete Support Program utilizes Microsoft OneNote to get organized, generate ideas, manage projects, and collaborate. This session will provide attendees an overview of OneNote, strategies for implementing individually and as a team, and techniques for getting organized. Participants are welcome to bring a laptop with OneNote installed to the session to follow along. 

Ashley Rozendaal, Spencer Bonahoom, and Erin Saunders
For Work and Leisure- AU Library is for Staff, Too!  AU Library provides resources and services for every member of the university community, staff included! This session will provide an overview of what the library has to offer on-site and online, plus demonstrations of how to access resources and services to support and enrich you in your professional and personal life. Learn how to access news, software training, language learning resources, movies, music, consumer ratings, travel books, Ancestry Library, plus research help and more! Attendees are encouraged to bring a laptop. 

Carol Ido and Kathryn Ray

The Power of Choice

Dawn McAvoy, a Certified 7 Habits Facilitator and Coach, will have a conversion with you through the lens of Stephen Covey, whose teachings are timeless. We will talk about how to generate and act upon “possibility thinking” through the power of choice and 3rd alternatives. Come join the conversation! 

Dawn McAvoy

Bystanders Who Can Help: CPR Training for AU and Beyond

 In this hands-on session, participants will learn basic CPR techniques, AU Emergency Preparedness procedures, and University Police response protocols that could save someone's life in an emergency. As members of both the AU and DMV communities, these skills are useful in any environment. This course is not a certification course. 

AU Police
Motivating Social Purpose for Generation 'Z'- Co-curricular approaches to coaching and advising for campus fit and positive social adjustment AU staff are the frontline face for campus involvement and positive social adjustment for 1st and 2nd year students. As the first staff that students engage with, our staff become the community involvement advisors and campus fit coaches for students looking for connection and community in their new home. Student Activities welcomes you into the discussion of how to motivate students to find their meaning and social purpose at American University. Calvin Haney of Student Activities will walk staff through a conceptual framework that can improve your personal approach to student coaching and development for new students at AU. 

Calvin Haney
2018 Personnel Conference Keynote Luncheon Bios
Speaker Biography
Dr. Traci Callandrillo, Interim Assistant Vice President of Campus Life Traci Callandrillo is the Interim Assistant Vice President of Campus Life and Dean of Students. She was the Executive Director of the Counseling Center prior to taking on her current role and is a licensed psychologist in the District of Columbia. Traci has worked at AU since 2007 and prior to coming to AU worked at the University of Texas at Austin and Georgia Southern University. Traci was a founding member of the Higher Education Mental Health Alliance (HEMHA) and a former executive board member of the Society of Counseling Psychology. In her free time, Traci enjoys hanging out with her family and friends, gardening, and live music. 
Amanda Chue, Ph.D. Psychology Candidate Amanda graduated from Cornell University in 2010 with a B.S. in Human Development. She is currently a rising 6th year in the Clinical Psychology doctoral program at American University. Her master's thesis explores the effects of sleep on stress recovery processes. More generally, Amanda is interested in researching the contextual factors that influence everyday stress, coping and emotions, including sleep. Amanda has also had clinical experience treating insomnia and sleep disorders and will begin her pre-doctoral psychology internship program at the VA Boston in August 2018.
Joanna Platt, Life and Relationship Coach Joanna Platt is a life and relationship coach for high achievers who need space to feel their feelings, permission to put themselves first, and guidance on how to do it. Until last month when she left AU to pursue coaching full time, Joanna was the Associate Director of Annual Giving Marketing in the Office of Development and Alumni Relations. 
Through intuitive, deep coaching conversations that feel like heart-to-hearts, she helps you quiet your inner critic and bring your best self to the surface, so you can connect and contribute in both your work and home life. 
When she’s not coaching, Joanna loves trying new breweries with her husband Mike, reading multiple books at one time, and working in coffee shops in DC.