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Marcia
Bromberg will retire from her position as vice president for Finance and
Administration in July, but she’ll always have her footprint here on the
campus.
Bromberg came to Wesleyan in 2001 to oversee all financial and
administrative areas of the university including accounting, budget,
financial planning, investments, Human Resources and benefits, legal affairs
and risk management. She’s also the watchdog to all auxiliary services and
campus facilities.
“I’m
interested in all these areas, and I’ve had experience in all of them, but
never all at once until Wesleyan,” she says.
Before
coming to Wesleyan, Bromberg held positions at Brown University, Tulane
University and the University of Wisconsin. She also worked as vice
president for Finance and Administration for The Nellie Mae Education
Foundation in Massachusetts.
Her
initial responsibility at Wesleyan was to create a more open and
understandable set of processes and documents so those who look at the
budget and have to use it to make decisions can understand it better. A year
later, she refurbished the entire annual budget, financial statement and
long-range planning materials. The documents needed extensive rewriting.
“Marcia
brought a great deal of energy and transparency to her department. Even I
could understand the documents,” says Barbara-Jan Wilson, vice president for
University Relations. “The Campaign and the University benefited greatly
from materials and presentations that were easy to understand. Our alumni
and donors were particularly appreciative!”
She
also developed a new administrative staff evaluation and compensation system
that rewards employees for their accomplishments. The system makes
connections between employees’ personal goals and goals of the university.
“When
employees set goals, they’re helping the university obtain its goals,”
Bromberg says. “So this way, employees’ bonuses are based on goal
attainment.”
In
between developing systems for the administration and staff, Bromberg
focused on student issues, such as housing. For the past 15 years, Wesleyan
officials have discussed ways to bring all students onto the campus,
fulfilling the University’s goal of being an undergraduate residential
campus.
“The
Fauver Field Residence Complex solved the problem,” Bromberg says.
By next
September, Wesleyan will be able to house all but 20 students on campus.
The new
housing will be environmentally friendly, built to Leadership in Energy and
Environmental Design (LEED) standards. Additional undergraduate housing,
small units being built to complement the wood-frame houses used by
upper-class students, are both environmentally and budget-friendly, relying
on clean, low-cost geothermal heating and cooling.
As part
of Bromberg’s energy conservation initiatives, Bromberg worked with faculty,
staff and the Environmental Organizer’s Network (EON) to diligently look for
ways to push the use of renewable energy. During her tenure, Wesleyan has
purchased and implemented clean-energy electric vehicles, held its first
Environmental Awareness Day in March, and planned recycling activities
around campus. Most recently, Wesleyan has agreed to support Middletown’s
efforts to become a Clean Energy Community by agree to purchase 1 gigawatt
hour of electricity from renewable energy sources or “green energy.” This
purchase will allow the city to receive a free photovoltaic cell to promote
new energy sources.
“These
are all things the students and staff have pushed for,” Bromberg says. “We
have many environmentally-aware people on this campus who want to reduce
energy usage. The faculty and staff at Wesleyan recycle like crazy.”
Bromberg also hired a director of auxiliary services, and redeveloped the
university’s bookstore to provide the faculty and students with
significantly improved services to meet their academic needs. She also
developed the Master Planning Executive Committee and the campus’s master
plan to insure a consistent look throughout campus.
“I’m so
pleased that I got to be part of Wesleyan’s development,” she says. “This
university has gone through a strategic planning period and emerged as one
of the best liberal arts colleges in the country.”
Bromberg sat on several other committees including the Space Committee,
Compensation Task Force, Financial Aid Committee, Enrollment Group, the
Compensation and Benefits Faculty Committee, Wesleyan Landmarks Advisory
Board, the Dining Advisory Committee and the Fauver Field Residences Project
Team. She’s also on four board committees with administrative staff
including the Finance Committee, Audit Committee, Facilities Working Group
and Real Estate Working Group.
"Marcia
Bromberg has a service orientation at her core," says Justin Harmon,
director of University Communications. "She works in partnership with her
administrative colleagues to serve the needs of faculty and students and the
interests of the university as a whole. She is resourceful and proactive,
and she has innovated across the broad range of her responsibilities."
Gil
Skillman, associate professor of economics and tutor for the College of
Social Studies was on the search committee that interviewed and ultimately
recommended hiring Bromberg.
“Her
role, in retrospect, was to bring a fresh perspective to financial
management at a time, particularly with its capital campaign and new
facilities plan, that Wesleyan really needed it,” Skillman says. “I
certainly got a sense that Wesleyan grew on her and that she was genuinely
committed to seeing Wesleyan's new endeavors succeed. I felt she brought
energy and imagination to the position.”
Bromberg will leave Wesleyan in July 1, on her four-year anniversary here.
She’s already planning her retirement with a lower-48 state car trip with
her husband, Bill Nelson, “the loud guy at Wesleyan’s athletic games.”
“We’re
going to hike as many high points in every state that we can. Well, not in
the West. We know our limits,” says Bromberg, who has already hiked the
6,288-high Mount Washington in New Hampshire and the 1,952-foot high “Tim's
Hill" in Wisconsin.
Along
the way she may visit with her children, Tam, 31, in Chicago and Sarah, 25,
in New York.
After
her cross-country trek, the Miami, Fla. native plans on moving back to
Ashville, N.C., where she already has a residence. There, she aspires to
learn the fiddle, garden and start a Web page.
“I’ll
be away, but I will always keep in touch with my friends at Wesleyan,” she
says. “I tend to stay in touch with people.”
Looking
back, Bromberg says her biggest accomplishment was not a new building or
committee. It’s was her ability to build a team out of a department.
“When I
got here, I asked how often everyone in the department met, and they said,
‘never,’” she says. “Since then I tried to hold meetings at least every
other week, and one-on-one. Now everyone has bonded and they support each
other and their projects. I’m proud to leave behind a team, and I hope they
continue to be a team when I am gone."
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