Photo by Christina VanHorn,
UNH Human Resources

After two decades of working with the Ivy Leaguers at Dartmouth College in Hanover, NH, Sari Bennett has returned to her UNH alma mater as a Human Resource Business Partner for Facilities Operations and Maintenance.

Sari started working at UNH in October, 2007. After graduating from UNH in 1978 with a masters in music education, she worked at Dartmouth and recently came back to Durham. “I was a student here many years ago. When I moved back into the area I wanted to work here. And having worked at Dartmouth for twenty years, I found the higher education environment is a good fit for me.”

Currently, her responsibilities include “employee relations; recruitment, retention and attrition management; diversity strategies; conflict resolution; performance management; change management; management development; and organizational development. I have dual reporting to the Associate VP, Operations and the Assistant VP of Human Resources.”

The Facilities Operations and Maintenance departments Sari serves include: Maintenance, Housekeeping, Grounds and Event Support and the Lock Shop - pretty big areas for Sari to provide HR support! “My office is in the New England Center which brings me closer to the employees I serve.”

“Good listening skills are important in my job, and the ability to work with a number of different communication styles. I help people find solutions to challenges, and strive to meet the underlying interests as well as the surface issue.” Sari can definitely relate to the people she is working with in her departments. “Having grown up working in my parent’s hardware store, it’s fun to be around the trades-people.”

Sari feels extremely lucky to work with such great people at UNH. “I am fortunate to work with people of high integrity and high humanity. It is one thing to work hard and achieve business goals. It is another when an employer can achieve the goals and also invest and nurture the working life of employees. That is what I find at UNH. From the day I started, everyone around me went out of their way to help me get to know this culture, the people, the resources available to me and how to use the infrastructure.”

Sari loves learning from new people, and seeing how people connect while working together. “It is a joy to continually learn about people and their approach to problem solving. I learn so much from this! I find that the best solutions often come from people sharing their ideas rather than trying to solve something in isolation. It’s amazing what people can create together.”

Though Sari now works in Human Resources, this was not always her plan. “My degree from UNH was in music education but I took a detour from this career when I was at Dartmouth where I worked in Human Resources, danced in the Dartmouth Youth Ballet and taught ballet classes.” Sari is now focusing on music once again and hopes to experience many of the music and dance events offered here at UNH. If you see her at the Ballet, be sure to say “Hello!”