Employee Spotlight: Mark Matias

Where are you from? What is your background?
Originally born in Toronto, ON to Philippine Immigrant parents but raised in Calgary, AB. In terms of my educational background, I possess a diploma in Business Administration (Marketing) from SAIT, a Bachelor of Management (BMgt) in Human Resource Management & Labour Relations from the University of Lethbridge Calgary Campus (where my studies also saw me spend an exchange semester abroad at Kansai Gaidai University in Japan), and I am currently pursuing a second bachelors' degree, specifically a Bachelor of Health Sciences (BHSc) in Public Health also from uLethbridge in Calgary, which I anticipate completing by April 2021. Only two more semesters to go!

When did you join the uLethbridge team and what do you do here?
I first joined the university’s Calgary Campus office back in May 2013 as an Administrative Support, which I continue to hold today. I actually ended up being recommended to apply for the position by the then Campus Manager, Dana Corbin, as I interviewed her for my final MGT 4090 project during my last semester of study in my first BMgt degree! As an Admin Support, my role encompasses a lot of multiple duties where I wear a lot of “hats” throughout the day. My main include but aren’t limited to: reception, answering prospect inquiries (especially those pertaining to the Calgary Campus’ own offered undergraduate and graduate-level programs), financial administration, supply ordering, events management, policy and procedure guidance, and faculty and academic advising support, among others. The Admin Support role in Calgary basically serves as a sort of onsite amalgamation of around 17 different university departments all in one (e.g. Registrar’s Office, Cash Office, Scholarships & Student Finance, Recruitment & Enrollment Services, etc.) so we’re expected to know a lot in order to keep the campus operating smoothly like a well-oiled machine!

What is the best part of your job?
I personally think that the best part of my job is the incredible networking potential that I’m granted due to the nature of my role. Everyday, I liaise with individuals across multiple departments and faculties (in both Lethbridge and Calgary) in my day-to-day duties so being able to develop rapport with other administrative professionals within the same organization, and sometimes for the very first time, really puts into perspective just how diverse all of our respective areas and backgrounds are and yet we all work together in our own unique ways to support the greater university community.

How has your job changed since the COVID-19 pandemic began earlier this year?
In a pandemic-less world, much of my job entails helming the Calgary Campus’ reception area alongside a second Admin Support where the two of us share a few common duties such as: answering phone calls, greeting and assisting walk-ins, mailing and copying services, and booking rooms across Bow Valley College for events and classes. However, since Alberta’s public state of health emergency which was declared by the provincial government back in late-March due to the COVID-19 pandemic, much of the tasks that I used to do exclusively in-person had to be shelved until further notice. Nowadays, I’m basically a professional email answerer, haha.

How has your role at the Calgary Campus expanded (or changed) since you began?
Since starting my Admin Support role over 7 years ago, much of my role has since taken on bits of pieces of other tasks that were normally reserved for other positions. Some notable examples include: classroom technology support for instructors, financing-related duties, (graduate) program recruiting and Calgary representation at university Open House events, and more recently Moodle content administration – just to name a few. While it can sometimes become a little overwhelming to juggle so many responsibilities all at once, especially when a handful of them have overlapping deadlines (sometimes within the same week or even the same day), I do my best to try and stay on top of things by keeping my priorities organized through a combination of my notebook, calendar reminders, and good old fashioned memory commitment. I like to think that I become a little bit more skillful everyday at balancing my constantly changing workload, which often reflects the cycles of the semesters throughout a given year.