Day in the life: Bonnie Hallett

When Bonnie Hallett joined UVic in 1976 as a night supervisor in the Law Library, it was still part of the McPherson Library. At the time, a day in her life was "amusing because we literally had to walk through the bathroom to get from the library to the classrooms-women would go one way, and men the other."

She became acquisitions supervisor before helping the library move to its current digs in the then-new Fraser Building in 1980. With the support of her long-time supervisor Diana Priestly, Hallett became a student herself in UVic's Masters of Public Administration program, from which she graduated in 1988. In 1991, after a one-year break to work in the public sector, Hallett joined UVic Human Resources and stayed at UVic until her retirement in May this year. "Working in the public sector convinced me that I wanted to be at UVic," she says.

As an HR advisor in the early 1990s, Hallett navigated the world of employee classification and compensation. "It's like a puzzle and you have to put the pieces together while always maintaining the integrity of the system," she notes. She moved into labour relations and worked closely with the campus union reps before entering the administrative realm, focusing on recruitment and training. Hallett became manager of UVic's Employment Services in 2005.

"HR is the sort of place where you have an opportunity to make a difference. It's a crazy and wonderful place to work," she says. Hallett particularly enjoyed working with staff in the administrative services clerical pool, where she was able to assist women who were re-joining the workforce. "It's personally very satisfying to see someone whom I've helped hire doing well. Many of the casual staff have moved on to continuing positions."

Hallett points to recruiting and hiring many great people as a highlight of her career, along with developing the Aboriginal Employee Handbook and integrating diversity training into UVic's leadership training program. She was a member of the team that received a President's Distinguished Service Award for the implementation of the uHire hiring system in 2007.

Informally, Hallett helped countless UVic employees tweak and improve their resum&e#180;s. She also took the opportunity to further her own skills in the Leadership Victoria training program. Looking back on her 35 years on campus, Hallett chuckles that "Everything has changed in the years I've been here-the buildings, the systems, the people. I see more diversity in the staff, more women in positions of power, and more support services for staff like the coffee shops on campus."

She is looking forward to more travel in the future, with a summer cruise to Alaska already planned. She will also have more time for her creative passions-as a sewer, weaver, dollmaker and fabric artist-and volunteering. Hallett is involved with Wear2Start, a local organization that provides appropriate interview clothing for young women who are trying to get a foot in the door of the workforce.

"Integrity and respect are the two words that I'd use to describe what I've done while I've been at UVic," she says. "I'll miss the people. You get to meet so many people and build friendships-the people here are fantastic."