Welcome our new Administrative Assistant!
River Cook Needham
The Personnel Ministry is delighted to announce that St. Luke’s new Administrative Assistant is River Cook Needham! The Personnel Ministry has loved getting to know River. She is communicative and professional. We believe she brings the necessary skills to do the job well, in addition to an understanding of and commitment to our mission and values. We are delighted to welcome her to our staff and look forward to working together!
River writes:
Hello, Saint Luke’s!
I am so excited to be working with you as your new administrative assistant. Recently, you may have heard me preach here, or seen me around in the past. It thrills me to be part of the ministry of this congregation.
I plan on being on email on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays. Outside of my time with Saint Luke’s, I am a doctoral student at The Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago, where I have previously earned two master's degrees. There I study Process Theology through the lenses of fat, trans, queer, and disability liberation. Rarely am I too far away from a good book, and I’m always happy to talk theology.
About the hiring process:
The Personnel Ministry has been working since October 2021 to design and carry out a hiring process for a new Administrative Assistant. Our first step was to develop an updated job description specifying WHAT our Administrative Assistant needs to do, and also HOW we hope they will do their work; that is, WHO we hope they will be as a person. You can view the job description here.
One significant change to the job description was to make it a partially remote position. Before the pandemic, our Administrative Assistant kept regular office hours in-person, but when the pandemic happened, much of our staff’s collaboration moved online. The new Administrative Assistant job description requires only one day of work per week in the office, for tasks such as mail, printing, and finances that must take place in person. Our hope in making the position more flexible was 1) to reflect the reality of how our staff currently operates, and 2) to attract more applicants who didn’t necessarily live in the neighborhood, or who could benefit from the flexible schedule.
Our next step was to post the job description and invite people to apply. We were surprised, overwhelmed, and delighted to receive nearly 100 applications! Around 20 of the top applicants were invited to an initial phone call; 6 were invited to a full-length interview, and 2 finalists met with the staff and Treasurer for a team interview. We had a difficult choice between many capable candidates.
Finally, we drafted an Employment Contract and made our recommendation to Council to hire River. This process was a lot of work, and we give thanks to God for the exciting outcome of working with River!