Julia Gillespie

As DFO, it’s basically my job to make operations run as smoothly as possible. My day-to-day runs the gamut, but at its core, I’m organizing information, creating processes that are reasonable and straightforward, and assisting our staff with supporting students. 

My biggest objective is to make information as accessible and easy to digest as possible. When we see university- or SoE-level policies, I’m thinking through how those affect our institute and how we can use the systems that are in place to best benefit our students. I’ve always loved puzzles – and the challenges in my job are like figuring out how to put the pieces together. There are always constraints that might prevent you from getting things done exactly like you’d want – limited resources, time, policies – but I like being creative and figuring out how to accomplish things while still meeting all of the parameters I’m given. 

COVID really put that to the test – I was involved in planning our commencement. I only had a peripheral understanding of what was involved pre-pandemic and now it had to turn into a remote event. Together with my ICME colleagues, we pulled it off. But it was interesting to morph graduation to a Zoom meeting – trying to learn the intricacies of the platform, ensuring the event was secure, pumping in music and sound effects like clapping. I never thought I’d become a live event producer! But pulling things off well is exhilarating. 

That’s been the case over this past pandemic year. Our ICME team has not canceled events or given up. They’ve tirelessly reinvented the wheel, from admit weekend to orientation to our career matching events. They’ve learned and created new technical processes and procedures when it wasn’t required of them. I’ve been really proud of how our team has stuck together.