Appointments staff member, Marie Leverman, retiring in March
We took the opportunity to ask Marie a few questions before she leaves.
What are some of your favourite memories of your time here?
Working and being involved in the celebrations around the Department, such as the 50th event that is coming up, our annual conferences, the fun staff celebrations and the numerous historic events in DFCM. This year, the 50th Thank you Event recognizes both faculty and staff (current and past) and will be at the Royal Ontario Museum on March 25 – so it’s an extra special way to end my time here.
I enjoyed the promotion workshops and working with faculty in developing their academic promotion. It’s been an honour and a privilege to work with so many incredible faculty and to facilitate their promotion process. When you get to work on dossiers for faculty like Dr. Danielle Martin, Dr. James Orbinski, Dr. Lynn Wilson, Dr. Jane Philpott, Dr. Ross Upshur and Dr Joshua Tepper - well, it's just such an honour to work with people of that calibre. The annual awards ceremony - where faculty and staff are recognized for their promotions - have also always been rewarding and key moments for me.
All the wonderful staff events – our annual summer and holiday celebrations, wedding and baby celebrations, the Blue Jays games, farewell events – and we have had some brilliant events!
What do you consider your big achievements?
For me, I’ve been acknowledged with a number of awards within the department and the University. Those awards took a lot of work – I'm proud of having those accomplishments
Developing and facilitating the promotion workshops as well as the many documents that go along with that. The binders, forms, templates, workshops – the complete promotion process in itself is a huge task each year. I am proud of the process that we have developed at DFCM – I am often asked by other departments, even outside of the UofT, to share my tips and best practices on what I have developed in the promotion process. A lot of work – but worth every single promotion.
I’m also really proud of the staff who I’ve worked with directly, particularly Sarah Letovsky and other staff before her, and to have mentored them along the way. Many of them have received awards – so watching them grow in their own careers and personal life has been remarkable.
I’m very proud to have co-developed and built our communication with our hospital/program site administrators. Our group is called FAST (Faculty Appointment Support Team) and includes all of the hospital/program administrators and we meet regularly. Nobody else in the Faculty of Medicine does this. Through this, we’ve opened a dialogue of support, shared best practices and provided them with documentation and policies around the appointment and promotions process, which is very complex and takes a long time to understand. It’s been a great networking opportunity as well and we always have a very spirited and lively meeting.
I also co-facilitate SPANG – Senior Promotions Administrative Networking Group with two other colleagues from the Department of Surgery and Lab Medicine. We bring senior clinical department administrators together – because everything was so siloed – to share best practices and ideas around senior promotion. We meet once to twice a year to share ideas, we invite key stakeholders in the senior promotion process, we present on various complex matters and share key concepts. It’s been a great project to develop.
I haven’t done all this work alone: I’m part of a big team. What has been so great in this job is that I’ve had the opportunity to be innovative and creative in my role.
What will you miss?
I feel like I’ve had a full and accomplished career. I feel like I’ve made my contributions to the promotions process. I’ve created and initiated great things here. I’m excited to see what the next person implements in this position. I leave with many friendships that will be part of my life forever.
I’ll miss working with faculty on the promotions process and helping them go through their journey. It is very rewarding.
I hope people early in their career take advantage of what UofT has to offer. This is a great organization to work for – one of the top 100 employers. My advice to staff is to look for opportunities, engage with faculty in leadership roles, collaborate with people outside of the DFCM, seek mentorship, apply for awards – your work is an important and valued – be recognized for what you do!
What will you do in your retirement?
Travel - I’ll be going to Italy and New York to start. Having the time to be creative, I love the theatre, I have friends in all parts of the world that I would love to visit. I want to create a book/film club and I have loads of friends ready to join from all over. My niece Nicole is working out west so there will be more trips to visit the beautiful Canadian mountains. I won’t be sitting around at home – I live in a busy, vibrant city so I will stay busy.
Retirement is a BIG word, it’s a huge milestone in a person’s life. This new part of my life is marked with excitement, a lifetime of preparation goes into this decision and it is certainly grounds for celebration!
