Dive Summary:
- Four years ago, former social worker Lisa Bagnatori became UC-Berkeley's concierge for new faculty members--an unusual job for a university setting, but one the school insists is important.
- Bagnatori reports to the university's officer of faculty equity and welfare, and the concierge job is Berkeley's way of streamlining service for new faculty hires into a one-stop shop, taking some of the burden off of individual departments as they recruit new hires.
- In the concierge position, Bagnatori's job is to ease newcomers' transition into living in the Bay Area, and Angelica Stacy, associate vice provost for faculty at Berkeley, highlights the concierge's role by saying that people tend to remember how they were welcomed and the help they received when starting a new job.
From the article:
Lisa Bagnatori used to be a social worker in California's Bay Area, helping Holocaust survivors remain in their homes as they aged and their independence declined. But about four years ago she made a career change, moving to a newly created job as a concierge for new faculty members at the University of California at Berkeley (She is called the CALcierge). For a university setting, Bagnatori's job is more than a little unusual. A day's work could involve helping suggest the right day care for a faculty member's child or recommending a pet care facility. The concierge job is Berkeley's way...