FOCUS EMU Online: Why I Teach or Work at EMU

June 13, 2006 issue

Why I- Dave Costanza

I manage the Academic Affairs divisional budget, which is about $120 million. That's a pretty significant chunk of change. The single largest part of that is the instructional salary portion. To maintain the budget, we track all faculty, lecturer and adjunct lecturer appointments.

We process 5,000 PAFS or personnel action forms a year.

I started here as a student in 1968. Being 17 years old and from Roseville, Mich., I didn't know where Ypsilanti was. But once I found it, I couldn't find my way out of here. In 1968, I was a very typical EMU student. Neither one of my parents graduated from high school. I was the first from my family to go to college.

I didn't do well on my first writing assignment and later found out I was placed in the wrong English section. The instructor in the new section was Karen Travis. She reviewed that first paper and she said she saw potential and said she would work with me. She did work with me and I did much better. There's no better retention effort than a student connecting with a faculty member in their first year.

Then, I got drafted and was away in the Army for three years. I came back and finished up my degree.

From the very first day I was on this campus as an employee, I've been in service-type roles, supporting the University in a number of ways. I started in 1974 as a student programmer. In 1975, I became a full-time employee in what was then Administrative Systems (later University Computing and now ICT) in Welch Hall.

In 1990, I joined David Tammany in the Academic Personnel Office, which is now Academic Human Resources. It's helping people, getting them through the morass of paperwork and processes we have to go through to get people hired and paid. In 1995, I moved over to my budget role.

Since that early time, I've tried to give back what I was given, which was a career. I try to give people good information; render service in a timely manner and always try to be available. Anything I can do to make an employee be effective in their job; that's what I do.