Employee of the Month - March 2025
Elizabeth “Liz” Harris,
Business Systems Analyst
Faculty Affairs
Awarded Tuesday, March 4 at Friendship Walk. Liz was joined by President Jane Close Conoley, Faculty Affairs Associate Vice President Patricia Perez, Assistant Vice President Malcolm Finney, Director Ennette Morton, and numerous departmental colleagues.
As a Faculty Affairs staff member for twenty-five years, Liz Harris as earned a reputation as a subject matter expert not only within the department, but also across campus and throughout the system. Colleagues have praised her character and her contributions.
Associate Vice President of Faculty Affairs Patricia Perez shared: “Liz not only has a tremendous amount of institutional history and knowledge, but she is generous in sharing this knowledge for the benefit of colleagues and the Faculty Affairs team. She is collaborative, a team-player, meticulous, dependable, and a lovely person to-boot. I appreciate her leadership, proactive nature, and her passion to support faculty. She is an invaluable member of the Faculty Affairs team!”
Colleague Somone Washington, Faculty Affairs Analyst, noted that Liz provides “…outstanding PeopleSoft technical mastery and support. She has resolved numerous complex technical issues, ensuring minimal downtime and maintaining the efficiency of the system. Her proactive approach in identifying potential problems before they escalate has been invaluable…She has spearheaded several initiatives to improve technical support processes, resulting in more efficient workflows and better service delivery. Her innovative solutions and forward-thinking approach have been instrumental in promoting resilience and adaptability within the team.”
“Liz constantly provides assistance to coworkers and other CSU campuses, even when it falls outside her direct responsibilities. She handles difficult situations with tact and grace, fostering open communication and compassion for others…Liz has been a rock of stability at Faculty Affairs, consistently demonstrating exceptional service, professionalism, and leadership,” added former colleague Gabriela Bortoluzzi.
Liz was born and raised in Long Beach and graduated from Pepperdine University in History, finishing her degree in Heidelberg, Germany with a focus on modern German history and post-war recovery. In 2000, Liz took a temporary 30-day emergency hire position at CSULB, expecting to begin graduate school at Pepperdine in the Fall. Liz fell in love with the campus and stayed on to pursue a career here in Faculty Affairs.
Liz has witnessed many changes since she was hired back in 2000. “On my first day, I was shocked that our faculty personnel’s HR system was a set of 5x7 index cards. To look-up a faculty’s salary or rank or date of promotion, we had to sift through boxes of index cards, one card per faculty, alphabetized by last name, to locate the information on the card. This inspired me to join the team that would implement PeopleSoft the following Fall. Twenty-five years later, we’ve come a long way with technology.”
Liz also represents the Long Beach campus as a subject matter expert on several CSU system-wide governance groups, task forces, and committees, supporting technology initiatives for both academic recruiting and business operations.
“I thrive in the complexity of technology. Behind the scenes, we are doing the heavy lifting and problem solving, but then we see first-hand the positive impact of our hard work on the student and faculty experience at CSULB.”