On March 18 and 19 the University community hosted "Great Service Matters," a two–day professional development conference for all University employees. This was an outgrowth of our strategic plan. Not only did the conference support our first strategic goal of student success, but also our fourth goal of exemplary faculty and staff, which speaks of providing support systems and programs that foster a positive work environment for all. Great Service Matters was intended to reflect both our service to students and the fact that we all serve each other in fulfilling the work of the University. One of the aims of this conference was to focus our attention on how we work to support students and how we can continue to make it easier for them to move through the educational process and graduate.

We were honored to have Dr. Neal Raisman at the University leading this conference. He is an internationally–known speaker, researcher and consultant on customer service, retention, enrollment, and morale. We were able to learn from his 36 years of experience as a faculty member, dean, associate provost, president, and chancellor of public, private, and for–profit colleges and universities. His work in customer service began in 1999, when he was hired to figure out why a large multi–campus college was losing students. The answer he found was customer service. According to Dr. Raisman, training in service performance skills improves staff customer service and interaction skills. These skills enhance staff performance and increase morale. In return, the level of service to students improves and directly impacts retention and graduation rates. Dr. Raisman has worked with over 150 colleges in the United States and Europe to research and solve customer service issues.

In addition to Dr. Raisman's sessions and keynote, NEIU employees presented workshops related to customer service including "Leadership for Service Excellence at Northeastern – Effective Employee Relations,"  "We're All Connected – How to Eliminate the Customer Run Around," and  "Too Busy NOT to Balance – Time and Stress Management," to name just a few. The feedback forms reflecting on the workshop sessions were extremely positive, and I appreciate those leading the sessions for their contributions to the conference. 

The conference was a wonderful way for all of us to come together and focus on why we do what we do — for our students! I felt a real sense of community during the conference and have received positive feedback about the experience. We hope to make this conference, or some type of similar experience, an annual event. In addition, we want to foster that sense of community throughout the year. As a first step, we have set up a "Great Service Matters" e-mail address and encourage you to send suggestions, comments and, most importantly, stories of NEIU employees exhibiting great service. We will be publishing "Great Service Stories" monthly in the employee newsletter "Insights." The e-mail address is greatservice@neiu.edu.

Thank you to the entire University community for your hard work and dedication to our students everyday and a special thank you to Dean Murrell Duster and the "Great Service Matters" committee for designing and coordinating our first professional development conference.