Sherry Main takes on a new role as Staff Assembly chair

Staff Assembly had a problem. The group had a logo that looked, in the words of outgoing chair Ramona Agrela, “like a piece of cheese.” No design met with the assembly’s approval.

Then Sherry Main stepped in.

Main listened to everyone’s suggestions about how the logo should look – an informal, casually drawn Anteater – and without much ado presented a logo at the next assembly
meeting. Her design met with approval.

To Agrela, that’s typical of Main’s quiet but effective style.

“She’s soft-spoken and very good at what she does. She can lead in a very collaborative way,” says Agrela, assistant dean of arts. “All you have to do is identify the problem, and
she comes up with a creative solution.”

Main will have plenty of opportunity to exercise her creativity and collaborative skills as the new chair of Staff Assembly. The assembly promotes employee interests and fosters communication between the staff and administration.

“We give staff a voice to express their concerns,” Main says.

Communication has become her forte. After receiving a bachelor’s from UC Davis in 2001, she came to UCI and began spreading the message about the campus to students, staff, community members and others through various roles.

“Higher education seemed a good fit because it’s about helping people,” she says.

She’s honed her marketing and communications skills in undergraduate admissions, biological sciences and physical sciences, and now the Donald Bren School of Information and Computer Sciences, serving as its communications director.

“I joined Staff Assembly because you get to meet a lot of people, and it’s a great way to serve the UCI community,” she says.

She’s also served the campus by volunteering for MATHCOUNTS, a national math competition for junior high students founded by the National Society of Professional Engineers that holds regional and state events at UCI. In addition, she and her husband, Paul, a programmer/analyst in Network and Academic Computing Services, have made friends through the UCI Sailing Association.While fulfilling her service and communications roles, Main also will find time to study for her M.B.A.; she’ll attend The Paul Merage School of Business this fall.

“Every chair brings something different to Staff Assembly,” Main says. “I hope mine will be communication and marketing. It’s my goal to get the knowledge out there.”