SUNY New Paltz recently announced two promotions in the administration and finance divisions.
Julie Majak was named the assistant vice president for administration and Julie Chiarito was named the assistant vice president for budget.
Vice President for Finance and Administration Michele Halstead said Chiarito and Majak were the first choices for the positions and have a “mastery” in their field of work.
“Being able to promote good people from within saves a lot of time in the long run,” Halstead said. “Much of the training one would have to do with individuals who may come from off campus would take years.”
Majak, who has worked at the college for more than 20 years, has served as the contract administrator in purchasing, associate director of administrative services and telecommunications, director of administrative services, director of facilities finance, assistant vice president for research foundation and operations manager for research foundation.
Majak said she did not apply for this promotion and was “pleasantly surprised” when Halstead discussed the job with her and ultimately offered her the position.
She said her previous work experience in administrative areas will help her in her new role.
“I’ve worked with faculty, staff, students, administration and state central agencies and I believe that communication and compromise is the basis for understanding different perspectives and achieving results,” Majak said.
Now, Majak will be in charge of the offices of Accounting Services, Internal Controls, Receiving & Property Control and act as the campus controller.
Majak said the promotion shows that she’s been recognized for her hard work and Halstead believed her skills translate to a higher position.
She needs to now be aware of the state regulations in her new role, Majak said.
“My biggest challenge will be walking the fine line of streamlining procedures and following multiple state guidelines, rules and regulations,” Majak said.
After working for six years as the financial analyst in the Office of Institutional Research, Chiarito will now be in charge of the Payroll Office and will serve as the campus budget officer.
She said her responsibilities will be to all-funds college budgeting, track faculty and staff vacancies on campus, approve all hires to ensure the college remains “on-budget,” provide an Economic Impact study to the college President every three years, provide yearly data on instructional cost through National Study of Instructional Cost & Productivity (Delaware Study), enrollment planning in consultation with Enrollment Management and to continue her role as the liaison between finance and Institutional Research.
Chiarito said working with the institutional research and finance departments of the college has allowed her to develop a large understanding of the data from the student and college’s perspective. This allowed her to have an understanding from both sides, which she said is unusual because there is no connection on most colleges.
Before working at New Paltz, Chiarito said she worked at IBM for more than 17 years as a cost accountant, general and administrative analyst, and as the lead financial analyst for Sales, General & Administrative.
She said being able to learn how to communicate budget and finance data to non-financial constituents while at IBM has helped her on many occasions when dealing with budget related issues at New Paltz.
In her previous role on campus, Chirarito said she worked closely with the state side of the budget, but had little exposure to the residence hall budget, which she will now be working with.
“My biggest challenge in my new role will be to learn the all-funds campus budget,” Chiarito said.
Halstead said Chirarito is a smart and talented accountant, who impressed her because of how fast she picked up the SUNY budgeting system.
“She is a wizard with a spreadsheet and her attention to detail is unparalleled,” Halstead said.
Barely a month into their promotions, Halstead said she is pleased with the work Charito and Majak have done in their new roles thus far.