2022 VCA Annual Report - ProS Region

The ProS Region serves professional schools including Berkeley Law; the Haas School of Business; the School of Optometry; the Goldman School of Public Policy; the School of Education; the School of Journalism; the School of Public Health; the School of Social Welfare; UC Berkeley Extension; and Study Abroad & Lifelong Learning.

The ProS Region is under the direction of Ronald E. Dahl, M.D., Professor, Community Health Services, Joint Medical Program, School of Public Health, Regional Associate Dean, ProS Region; and the operational leadership of Julia Arno, Regional Director.

FY21

During FY21, ProS capitalized on the goals they set for themselves and fully regionalized all aspects of the new employee onboarding processes for the schools and departments they serve. As the pandemic continued, working remotely was at the forefront of the region and they continued to provide high quality and timely service to its regional client partners. ProS developed and fully implemented their plan to move their staff to a long-term primary remote workforce. This included new remote work policies, guidelines and monitoring metrics to ensure that client needs continued to be promptly addressed in a primary remote environment. This was very successful and staff and leadership collaborated to ensure the long-term model would work for all. 

On the Research Administration side, ProS worked with their key stakeholders to stage a training event for new faculty on the Research Administration Lifecycle at Berkeley so they could quickly become acclimated on processes for their contracts and grants. All this was accomplished despite budget cuts and COVID challenges continued to meet client needs with a smaller ProS workforce in an environment of increased client workload and level of grant funding.

FY22

In FY22, ProS intends to fully incorporate a new division, Study Abroad & Lifelong Learning into the region, providing their usual catalog of services. The region also, in collaboration with Berkeley’s People & Culture and other BRS partners, plans to form a Hiring Improvement Process Task Force in order to identify opportunities to streamline the staff hiring process and reduce the numerous hand-offs that exist today. 

 ProS will continue their work on integrating the use of additional Repeatable Process Automation (RPA) “bots” into the ProS workflow processes in order to improve efficiency and reduce errors in the transfer of information into the UCPath system. These bots will help to continue reducing staff time involved in processing pay transactions and onboarding activities. In turn, clients will receive quicker service.

Image of Pros Region staff at Warriors game

ProS staff enjoying the Warriors game. 

Image of marquee at Warriors game

Chase Center welcome to Berkeley!