Dear CHASS Faculty and Staff: 

CHASS has entered into a formal HR Partnership Agreement with UCR’s Central Human Resources Division, integrating College HR services and staffing into Central HR. This partnership has been several years in the making and follows the important collaborative work to elevate staff and staffing that began with the UC Riverside Human Resources Structural and Operational Assessment, completed by Deloitte in 2021–22, and has since taken concrete form in Avanti. 

Within our new model, CHASS is served by the new CHASS HR Service Team — a dedicated, embedded People Services team that partners with our College alongside a shared Employee Experience Hub and specialized Centers of Expertise. Over the coming months, your familiar HR professionals will transition into this structure, where they will continue to draw on their HR expertise and their deep knowledge of CHASS. 

This is an important change, and it is a deliberate one. Rather than a reduction in support, this is a redeployment of the College’s existing HR talent into a stronger, more resilient service model — one designed to support both immediate needs and long-range strategic planning while remaining mindful of current and future costs. We are a diverse community of scholars, artists, and educators, and moving forward, we are building an HR portfolio that is equitable, compliant, and scalable to our needs and aspirations.

What This Means for You and Your Work 

The reporting and portfolio changes take effect August 1, 2026, but the way you access reliable and trusted HR help will evolve more gradually. Support continues without interruption, and change will come with intention. 

Here is what that means in practice: 

• A Dedicated Team That Knows CHASS: The people who support your HR needs today continue to do so. We maintain familiar, accessible points of contact for both strategic priorities and everyday questions. These trusted professionals remain: 
  • Erika Leon, HR Business Partner 
  • Alisha French, Senior HR Generalist 
  • Loren Bacallo, Senior HR Generalist 
  • Kimberlie Hayden, Administrative Officer 
• No Disruption to How You Request Support: Nothing about how you reach HR changes on August 1. You will continue to reach the team the same ways you do today — in person, by Zoom, by email, by message, and through official online systems. As Central HR rolls out new or enhanced shared tools, you will hear about any change well in advance, with enough notice that your work does not suffer undue disruption or delay. 
• Significance for Our HR Colleagues: Our CHASS HR professionals move into a larger, unified campus team that offers skills and career growth opportunities. Rather than working in a small, standalone unit, they join a broader HR community of practice, shared standards, and built-in support systems. It also opens access to professional development: structured training and certification in areas such as employee relations, change management, leave administration, and talent acquisition, backed by ongoing continuing education. Because roles are mapped through the UC Career Tracks framework, staff gain a clear, visible path — from entry-level and intermediate roles toward experienced, advanced, and strategic-partner positions — replacing the career ceilings that exist in small, fragmented units.

Why This Change Matters 

Above all, this change is about the people who make CHASS work every day. It advances a priority the CHASS Strategic Staffing Task Force championed — a stronger, more supportive, more sustainable employee experience — in step with the UCR HR ETHOS and its focus on employee success, well-being, and dependable service. In practice, that means an HR function built to help each of us maximize our potential: responsive support, consistency, and HR partners with the time to focus on what moves careers and workplaces forward. That is the experience we are building toward, and this integration is the first real step there. 

This transition allows CHASS to align our HR resources with our core academic, research, and student success priorities in several key ways: 

• Continued Focus on the Strengths and Accomplishments of CHASS Staff: The Task Force has already identified opportunities to strengthen CHASS HR’s strategic impact through partnership. Transitioning our small HR unit into a centralized organization enables broad, people-centered decision-making around talent development, workforce planning, labor relations, and organizational strategy. Financial constraints will undoubtedly continue to impact decisions, but the support, expertise, and broader perspective of Central HR allow our team to better balance fiscal realities with long-term workforce needs — creating greater capacity to invest in employee development and to position the College for future success. 
• Consistency You Can Count On: A unified model supports more uniform application of policy across the College. That consistency is more than a matter of fairness: in areas involving sensitive, high-stakes decisions, being part of a larger unit with modern case tracking keeps decisions accurate and compliant, reducing real legal and financial risk for the College and the University. 
• Leave and Accommodations, Connected to Avanti: Requesting a medical, family, or parental leave — or a workplace accommodation — is one of the more personal things we ask of HR. This integration ties CHASS more directly into the campuswide Avanti initiative and its R’Employee Services portal, so these sensitive requests are tracked and handled accurately, on time, and consistently. 
• Faster Answers Through Better Tools: Shared systems and self-service options mean faculty and staff get reliable answers to common HR questions quickly, instead of waiting on the manual, behind-the-scenes steps that slow things down today. 
• HR That Can Think Ahead: When routine transactions move to a shared Employee Experience Hub, your embedded HR partners get their time back — for workforce planning, organizational strategy, coaching leaders, and the complex people matters where experienced HR judgment makes the difference. 
• Development Opportunities for Every Employee: Beyond HR careers, the unified model connects CHASS staff more directly to UCR’s campuswide development resources — professional development programs, the UC Learning Center, mentorship, and career coaching — to help you grow in your own role. 

Join HR for an Information Session 

To walk through this transition and answer your questions directly, CHASS HR and Central HR will host a virtual information session on Wednesday, August 19, 2026, from 10:30 a.m. to noon. UCR Chief Human Resources Officer Alex Nájera will join us to share the larger campus vision and to engage with you in conversation about what lies ahead. Please come with your questions; this session is meant to be a two-way conversation, not a one-way briefing. Details on registration for the session are forthcoming.

join THE AUG. 19 ZOOM SESSION

I am deeply appreciative of our dedicated CHASS HR staff, whose knowledge of our College and unwavering service have supported our faculty, staff, and students for many years. They remain essential partners as we build a more sustainable and effective HR function across UCR. I also extend my gratitude to key Task Force members and the ASSET group, who worked closely with me and the CHRO to finalize the Memorandum of Understanding that guides this partnership. 

Finally, I thank you all for your patience during this transition and for your ongoing contributions to the CHASS community. 

Sincerely, 

Daryle Williams 

Professor and Dean