5  Onboarding

Welcome to the Fay Lab at UMass Dartmouth!

Here are some resources to help you get settled into the Lab.

Our group is excited that you have decided to join our team! We hope that these onboarding resources, guidelines, and tips will make your transition to SMAST seamless and enjoyable. Most importantly, welcome!

If you are already a student, post-doc, or researcher we hope these resources prove useful as well.

5.1 MyUMassD SMAST Occupants page

SMAST related resources, forms, policies, procedures, calendars, as well as job aids are housed on the SMAST Occupants page of your myUMassD portal. For everyone in the SMAST community, a link to the SMAST Occupants page will appear under the “MyUMassD Sites” list on the right-hand side of the myUmassD landing page (if this is not visible to you, let Ashleigh know).

5.2 New employee and student onboarding checklists

A work in progress.

  • IT Help for new students and staff/faculty
  • Here, you can navigate to the “Are you new?” section and select either student or staff.

5.3 Individual Development/Mentoring plans

Within the first few weeks of joining the Fay Lab, you should work with Gavin to develop a plan outlining your short, medium, and long term goals. More on individual developing plans can be found in Chapter @ref(expectations).

5.4 Timesheets

(graduate students do not need to complete timesheets)

You can access you timesheets through the HR portal in. Navigate to Quicklaunch and click on HRDirect. You need to enter your UMassD user ID, password, and select the Dartmouth campus. If this is the first time you do this, you will also need to verify your account through DUO authorization. We recommend using the DUO app on your phone. You can choose to have push access, or send codes. After your initial setup, you can also opt to go through DUO 1/month (instead of every time you login to HRDirect).

Even if you are salaried, it’s still important to keep track of and submit your vacation and sick time!

5.5 Facilities

Currently all work in the lab is being performed remotely due to the COVID-19 pandemic. All access to SMAST facilities requires prior approval from Gavin, Mike Marino, and Eric Lyonnais. No work is to be performed on site until further notice.

5.5.1 Office space

Our physical lab space is in the SMAST-East (new) building. The lab is room 245. Ashleigh’s desk is in the lab. Gavin’s office is room 228.

Everyone in the lab is provided with desk space. Lab members sit either in the lab itself, or in the shared graduate student cubicle space and shared postdoc offices. Gavin encourages people to set up and work where is most comfortable. Graduate students should make use of their allocated space in the shared area but can do computational work in the lab area.

Lab meetings are held either in the lab, or in one of the SMAST-E conference rooms.

5.5.2 Key card building & room access

Access to the SMAST building, and to individual lab spaces within the building is through your UMass Pass keycard. Typically, you will have access to the SMAST gate, SMAST East building, the lab space (room #245), classrooms, and if you are a grad student/postdoc you will have access to the relevant shared office space.
The necessary building access forms can be found on the SMAST Occupants page which need to be filled out and approved and signed by Gavin before submitting to Mike Marino and Eric Lyonnais.

5.5.3 Parking and transportation:

Parking at either of the SMAST buildings is free and no parking pass is required. Parking on the main UMassD campus requires a digital parking pass. If you are staff this pass is free, there is a fee for students. Full details for campus parking policies and procedures are on the UMassD parking webpage. Note that there is limited short-term/temporary parking available on campus so you may feel it’s not necessary to obtain a campus parking pass.