MICHELLE MARIE TRUDEAU

STRENGTHS

A self-motivated team leader with a positive attitude, analytical skills, and program development experience.

HISTORY

University of Washington, College of Forest Resources

Manager, Student Services, 1999-present

u I manage the Office of Student Services in the College of Forest Resources, supervising two professional and one classified staff. I am directly involved with students through some advising, but my primary purpose is to work cooperatively with the dean, faculty, and administration to ensure quality, well-implemented academic programs and excellent student services. Feedback from students, staff and faculty about the changes I employed and policies I have developed has been extremely positive.

u My office developed and is implemented a Student Services Plan with ten key academic program steps; it starts by targeting students for recruitment and ends with monitoring where they go after graduation. Some of the things this involves are SAT searches, recruitment events, developing internal databases, coordinating orientations, revising curricula, and conducting student exit surveys. The faculty and staff feel that this plan provides direction to the office as well as the College.

u As the main developer of College policies and procedures relating to student issues, I clarified and simplified many of the existing policies, especially those concerning graduate student enrollment. Some previous policies were not only unclear; they also did not follow the Graduate School Memoranda.

u One of my main duties is to monitor curricula and serve on the Academic Planning Committee. I implemented several curricular and course revisions with the faculty, and am in the process of working with them to solve our major problems—one of which is that our undergraduate time to degree. We have already started to address this problem by streamlining the course petition process.

u I also oversee student recruitment and retention activities at the College. Our enrolled undergraduate majors have been dropping for the past several years, so I took the initiative to conduct some analysis to find out possible reasons. One of the things that I did was conduct a peer school survey, which demonstrated that almost all forestry programs around the nation are having enrollment difficulties. I also found that we had large recruitment efforts that were not sustained, so those students that were brought in graduated in large groups. So, to battle these trends, I implemented new recruitment activities and events, including a quarterly “ice cream social”. In addition, to improve our image, my office created permanent displays highlighting our majors and undergraduate research projects.

u I am responsible for the College student diversity efforts, which included participating in the STEM and GEAR UP programs this year. I was able to get our College to provide many internship opportunities for STEM and several courses for GEAR UP. I also served on the management team for STEM and I am now serving on the advisory committee for GEAR UP. I also do active recruiting around the state—for example, I recently visited the Yakama Nation’s Higher Education Board, and they were very interested in recruiting students to our programs.

u I am the main point of contact for other academic institutions that want to work with the College. Currently, I am working with three local community colleges to develop new articulation agreements and better course transfers. I analyze the course descriptions to see where they may fit in our College, and work with the Community College faculty advisers when they revise their curricula or courses.

u Other parts of my position include: reflecting student opinion to faculty and administration; providing various statistical reports and analysis to administration; organizing Orientation; Career Fair and Commencement; responding to student problems and complaints; serving on several committees--including Scholarship, Operations and Strategic Planning; acting as a liaison and developing programs with other colleges and departments; and preparing budget requests for the Student Services Office.

University of Washington, Department of Physiology & Biophysics

Graduate Program Coordinator, 1995-1998, Counseling Services Coordinator (promoted), 1998-1999

u I managed and monitored the graduate program, including all recruitment and admissions processes. This included advising applicants, requirements and program content, and coordinating interview visits. The feedback from the applicants was very positive, stating that the visits were very well organized, enjoyable and informative.

u I promoted the Physiology and Biophysics program by creating and designing brochures, application forms, statistics and web pages. Applicants reported that my program had the best brochure and the friendliest forms.

u I was the point of contact for students in the program, assisting them with problems, and serving as a student advocate. I monitored student progress by designing and maintaining an MS Access database. The students stated that I created a very positive atmosphere in which they felt comfortable and able to get things accomplished.

u I coordinated all departmental course offerings and registration. This involved maintaining the quarterly time schedule and general catalog. I also assisted with course preparation, including budgeting. I found new ways in which to manage the courses more efficiently, including creating websites and databases.

University of Washington, Harborview Injury Prevention & Research Center

Secretary Senior, 1994-1995

u Provided administrative support for the Co-Director, which varied from creating a filing system to preparing governmental grant packages. I found new ways of organizing the office so that we could work more efficiently.

u I went beyond my job duties to instruct other employees on computer software usage. When I left the position, I wrote a computer manual for the department on how to use Excel, Word, Windows and other office software.

Nintendo of America

Planning Coordinator, 1993-1994

u Analyzed various data in detail. Created detailed charts and graphs in Excel and other software for executive level management as well as external agencies. Composed correspondence and presentation materials. I found new ways of inputting data electronically into the AS/400 that saved many hours of data entry for our department.

Help Desk Representative (permanently hired to Planning Coordinator), 1993

u Troubleshot, referred, and prioritized calls for computer assistance. Created a very positive, helpful environment.

OTHER EMPLOYMENT

Egghead Discount Software (Secretary Senior), Tack Shack, Inc. (Manager), The Bon Marche (Clerk)

VOLUNTEER WORK and AWARDS

u Snohomish County 4-H Horse Program, 1979-1991. Club Reporter, Club President and County Ambassador.

u Special Olympics, 1999

u College of Forest Resources Staff Recognition Award, June 2000.

EDUCATION

u Will complete my Masters of Education, Educational Leadership & Policy Studies, University of Washington in 2001.

u Bachelor of Arts, Anthropology, University of Washington

u Bachelor of Arts, Sociology, University of Washington

u UW Computer courses in Student Database, OIS, Computer Graphics, Web Design and Web Graphics.

SPECIAL SKILLS

u Outstanding computer software skills, especially Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Access, Publisher, Outlook, and Internet Explorer. Also skilled in HTML, Adobe PageMaker, Windows FTP, and many other applications.

References available upon request