Staff Community Awards

The Collaboration Award promotes and rewards outstanding collaborative efforts between colleagues at Westminster College. This award recognizes collaboration that positively improves the lives of Westminster students, faculty, and staff, making Westminster College an exceptional place to live and learn. Collaborations could be between staff members, staff and faculty, across departments, etc., as long as 2 entities are working together.

Criteria (must meet 1 or more):

• Nominations must include parties taking part in a collaborative effort
• Collaborative efforts must exhibit a positive impact towards strengthening colleague relationships
• Collaborative efforts must exhibit a positive impact towards improving the Westminster experience

Winner: Laura Iverson-Bastiani

Department: Fitness, Wellness, Recreation
Nominator: Sierra Krippner
Nomination: Over the past year, I watched Laura Iverson-Bastiani step up in a variety of collaborative ways. This started with her volunteering to be on the Residency Exemptions Committee, a team tasked to go through applications to move off campus. These applications are often challenging to read, filled with emotionally difficult and draining situations. Laura was willing to assist this committee when a vacancy needed to be filled. She served throughout the year until the Committee was disbanded for a new process.

Second, Laura reached out to assist in the food delivery rotation for on-campus students going through quarantine and isolation. This task puts yourself in close contact with exposed or diagnosed students, which requires an additional willingness to take on more health risks in order to be more supportive. There is also little consistency in deliveries, making it hard to manage in a schedule. Laura took this on in Fall 2021 and planned to step out of the rotation in spring. With Omicron came new processes and procedures. The need for more individuals on the food delivery team was apparent, and Laura returned to fill this need. She also coordinated with us to get physical and mental health resources to residents in quarantine and isolation, putting together kits with light workout equipment and a document outlining potential physical routines when isolating.Third, Laura is always willing to collaborate with Residence Life. She has hosted many programs for floors in the halls, coming in after hours to offer unique opportunities to students. During resident advisor training, a 4-hour training with an off-campus partner fell through. With not even a day’s notice, Laura was willing to put on both a self-care session and a yoga class for our resident advisors, helping fill this gap dramatically and providing a better training for our student leaders. A month or so later, she created an in-person Alcohol 101 course for our students going through the conduct process, collaborating to revamp costly sanctions that were not meeting student needs.

Lastly, Laura noticed a lack of staff council events this year – she and Traci offered to collaborate on a cooking class. The event was a hit, well organized, and had a great turn out. These are just recent collaborations I’ve observed with Laura – surely there are twice as many that I don’t know about because she is collaborative in nature. She wants to help – both for our students and the college community in general. She steps up and offers to collaborate to make impactful work happen. Laura is someone who makes the Westminster community great and she deserves some recognition in how much she enhances our community.

Nominee: Chris Eggett

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Winter Morse
Nomination: Over this last year, Chris has made an effort to attend most (if not all campus events) and typically he brings the team with him! Chris will go out of his way to make sure everyone in the department feels included, he plans weekly meetings just to check on people, encourages 7-11 walks, gets to know the person for who they are, and is a great listener. Chris always knows when you need a pick me up and will turn your frown into a smile by cracking on his dad jokes :). Chris has helped the culture in IS stay positive and friendly throughout this year and we hope for many to come.

Nominee: Roksana Rezaei

Department: IS
Nominator: Winter Morse
Nomination: Roksana works tirelessly with other departments giving them the Colleague access and/or retrieving the data they need to help improve student success. She is a behind-the-scenes worker, who helps makes a lot of the College's systems work together to keep it simple for the students. She is always improving communication among different departments encouraging people to work together. Roksana recently was asked to be one of the leaders of the Colleague superuser group, which consists of people from different departments that meet to discuss how they can improve processes and systems. She has worked very hard to maintain relationships with the registrars, provost, and accounting offices especially as the people have changed throughout the years.

Nominee: AJ Kerns

Department: Professional and Continuing Ed
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: I believe that AJ is a wonderful collaborator at the college. Her friendly smile can be seen all around campus, greeting folks from all different departments. One thing I have always admired about AJ is her ability to remember the little things about people. Not only did AJ have my name memorized after only one time of meeting her, a brief meeting at that, she also asked me about a personal affair that, again, I had only briefly mentioned the time before. I was very impressed. AJ knows how to make people feel seen. She also does great work on Staff Council and invites participation from all those around her. I believe that AJ deserves the Collaboration Award.

Nominee: Sarah Lof

Department: Registrar's Office
Nominator: Deborah Marzano
Nomination: Sarah is the exemplary in the way she delivers helps around the campus. Her position is central to many internal campus processes to move students through the pipeline. She is always willing to offer help and never just hands off a problem she can't solve to the next department. She is extremely busy most year, yet she volunteers to take on more tasks, and helps all departments across campus serve our students with empathy. I believe she is an unofficial team member of many teams on campus, surely of Gore! She is of great help not only because she has a lot of historical knowledge and desirable skills, but also because she has the desire to help.

Nominee: Jessica Brazell-Brayboy

Department: Student Affairs
Nominator: Michael Santarosa
Nomination: Although Jessica is new to the College, she has jumped in with both feet and managed several pernicious, systemic issues. One involved managing and updating the vaccination and attestation process which involved significant collaboration with many offices - particularly student health center, registrar, and admissions. Another involved revising housing contracts to align dates and refund policies to better serve students which involves coordination with student account services and other areas. In these interactions, Jessica exhibits professionalism and enthusiasm as well as an eye to improving processes and the student experience.

Nominee: Kari Lindsey

Department: Student Services
Nominator: Hannah Thorne
Nomination: Kari Lindsey could be nominated for many different awards, but when I was thinking about her work, the thing that stood out to me is how involved she is across the Westminster Campus. Her work certainly makes an enormous impact on our student's success and I absolutely believe she's an Exemplary Griffin, but in all of these areas, she takes a collaborative approach. She doesn't JUST get the work done, she builds community along the way.

As part of her role with the Legacy Scholars program, Kari collaborated with the Office of Institutional Advancement to raise funds for the Legacy Scholar's Summer Bridge program. Throughout the entire project, Kari was an exceptional collaborative partner who demonstrated her desire to provide funding to benefit the Legacy Scholars students, strengthen relationships with donors to the program, and create a strong working relationship between her team and the Office of Institutional Advancement. Her efforts set an example for other campus partners collaborating on the projects and ultimately improved the Westminster Experience for our students and donors.

Kari goes so above and beyond in collaboration that she has taken on significant collaborative roles outside of her primary professional role in order to improve the Westminster experience. This year, Kari spearheaded the initiative to expand Westminster's annual Pride celebration into a multi-day event that exemplified the Westminster value of community. Kari led the volunteer committee of alumni, students, faculty, and staff members to plan a variety of workshops, a keynote address, and even a full Prom! If you've ever led a committee of volunteers, you know that even the most passionate volunteers can be difficult to coordinate. Kari's leadership throughout the planning process demonstrates her commitment to collaboration. Without Kari's collaborative spirit, Westminster's AltPride celebration may not have happened, and it was an event that truly celebrated Westminster's LGBTQ+ Community and made Westminster a better place.

In every instance where I have worked with Kari or seen her work with others, she has demonstrated that she is a collaborative colleague. While she's already incredibly effective at her work and could accomplish so much on her own, she takes the time to bring others into her efforts mentoring them, supporting them, creating community, and building things that can only be built through true collaboration.

The Emerging Leader Award recognizes a new professional at the college or a professional who has recently moved into a new leadership role on campus. The recipient has created an impact on campus within their role by being open to learning and challenging themselves and others. This staff member has demonstrated commitment to the college and is seen as an outstanding professional in their department and/or within their field of work.

Criteria (must meet 1 or more):

• Seeks additional responsibilities and opportunities and (either formally or informally) influences and inspires others to improve and grow
• Has demonstrated a commitment to their role and the betterment of their team’s experience working at the college
• Engages in and/or develops opportunities for community development and serves as a positive member in the campus community

Winner: Ryan Braeger

Department: Westminster Advising/Student Success and Retention
Nominator: Christie Fox
Nomination: It is a pleasure to nominate Ryan Braeger for the Emerging Leader Award. Ryan started in summer of 2021 and has made great strides to move Westminster at 150 forward, especially the Griffin Guides initiative. He quickly found collaborators in the Registrar’s office and in the faculty to help him understand the state of advising at Westminster and how it could be improved. He started with the Fall 2019 Student Advising Survey, in which students indicated that they wanted more consistent staff advising. From that, he devised a research-based exploration program, seeking to unmask the often-invisible process that students undergo when they choose an academic program. Perhaps more importantly, Ryan wants to make sure that students have a guide in that process, that they can consistently meet with a staff advisor to help them through a pretty significant choice in their lives.

To that end, Ryan has worked tirelessly to help his staff thrive in these changes. He instituted a weekly “learning group” in which the advising staff bring new ideas, test out tech, and share advising and student-success related articles and reading materials. The learning group creates a sense of shared staff development and that we are all constantly learning together, a concept at the heart of a liberal arts education. He guided his team to rename the “meta-majors” as Pathways, a term that was approved by the upper administration. Taking ownership of the implementation of Pathways, he and his team created beautiful documents and checklists for faculty, students, and families encountering Pathways for the first time.

Ryan also jumped into the local community, quickly being voted President-Elect of the Utah Advising Association. He ensured that his whole team has support to attend UAA this year and joined the National Academic Advising Association so that they have consistent professional development opportunities throughout the year.

In the Westminster community, Ryan is a familiar face at Admissions events, helping incoming students and parents understand the new advising model and what it will mean for a student to join a Pathway and have a dedicated staff advisor for the duration of their academic career here. Ryan has held impromptu advising sessions at soccer games, in the parking terraces, and of course, in the Commons. Whenever he walks across campus in Westminster clothing, someone stops him and asks for advising information—including students!

In summary, in a short amount of time, Ryan has made a big impact on our campus, creating collaborations with colleagues across campus, implementing a student-facing aspect of Westminster at 150, and building his staff professional development. He is definitely a campus leader.

Nominee: Virginia Oelkers

Department: IS
Nominator: Winter Morse
Nomination: Virginia has recently accepted a manager role for the IS department, where she is responsible for the Help Desk and customer relations. She nominated herself to participate in the emerging leader program with President Dobkin, stating she would like to develop her leadership style, learn new strategies, and share her experiences with others. Virginia brings a different perceptive, a positive attitude, and an unbelievable amount of customer care to the IS department. She is truly an asset to the College and I can't wait to watch her grow in this leadership role.

Nominee: Harrison Crisman

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Virginia Oelkers
Nomination: Harrison is an excellent employee and leader for our Help Desk student employees. He seeks out every opportunity to improve not only his technical skills but his leadership skills as well so that he can provide his students and the campus community as a whole the best possible support. He is always quick to volunteer his help right away, no matter the issue. He never hesitates to ask questions and tackle new problems. He follows through each and every issue to the best possible resolution. Harrison has clearly demonstrated his commitment to the community over the last 6 years that he has been at Westminster, whether that was as a student or student employee, and now as a staff member. I am grateful that I have been able to witness his personal and professional growth first hand through every step. I look forward to our future in IS, learning and growing together!

Nominee: Ethan Harrison

Department: IS
Nominator: Winter Morse
Nomination: Ethan recently accepted a position as a project manager! This is a new position in the IS department, and I can't think of a better person to grow into the position. Ethan is a go-getter, give him a task and he will figure out how to do it. He is very good at looking at how to improve processes and procedures, he is a huge fan of everyone learning with him, and he is great at engaging the team to make sure projects are accomplished. Ethan is a huge asset to the IS department and I am excited to see him grow as a leader in his new role.

Nominee: Marlee Brown

Department: Human Resources Management
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: I think Marlee is exceptional and would make a perfect recipient of the Emerging Leader Award. When I think of three words to describe Marlee, I think of: helpful, professional, and inspiring. Her dedication to the college and her work is shown through her optimism and forward-thinking. These types of qualities are exactly what make her an amazing leader. Marlee also shows a betterment for not only the college, but the community. She can oftentimes be seen riding her bike to and from campus, with a smile on her face. Overall, Marlee has definitely positively impacted the campus at large.

Nominee: Jovana Sisovic

Department: Business
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: Jovana is the director and tax law instructor of the Westminster Tax Clinic. She truly embodies everything thing that a leader should be. She is one of the hardest-working individuals I have ever met. She has grown the tax clinic here at the college exponentially since her recent time here. Jovana oversees, trains, coaches, mentors, and engages with many students here on campus. The only times I have heard Jovana's name brought up is in pure praise. She also serves as an amazing leader in the community. Every year, thousands of community members come to the tax clinic to take advantage of the amazing, free work that Jovana has put together. She represents Westminster wonderfully, which is shown by the return of community members year after year. Jovana takes challenges head-on and is an inspiration to us all; her strength is one of her greatest qualities. Lastly, Jovana is an amazing team member. She is professional, well-spoken, intelligent, and selfless. If anyone deserves this award, it is Jovana.

Nominee: Ashlynn Talcott

Department: Gore Business School
Nominator: Matthew Crouse
Nomination: With her enthusiasm and professionalism, Ashlynn has been a breath of fresh air for the Gore business school, filling in the hole left by Emily Modell. Ashlynn is prompt and eager to work on tasks. She has a strong attention to detail and has greatly enhanced the business school's social media presence while deftly handling other administrative tasks.

The Exemplary Griffin Award recognizes an individual who demonstrates leadership by mentoring, coaching, inspiring, and motivating colleagues. The recipient promotes excellence in teamwork, performance, and achievement within their department and demonstrates a commitment to and support of the college’s vision, creativity, and innovation while promoting inclusiveness and respect for difference.

Criteria (must meet 1 or more):

• Mentors and coaches colleagues in both their department and/or across the campus
• Serves on committees to represent their peers and to support change impacting the college
• Often recognizes and celebrates the accomplishments of their peers and actively engages in providing critical and constructive feedback

Winner: Maggie Regier​, Manager of Alumni Relations

Department: Institutional Advancement
Nominator: Hannah Thorne
Nomination: Maggie Regier is the definition of an Exemplary Griffin. Their time and impact as student body president aside, Maggie brought their love for Westminster and passion for making the world a better and more inclusive place into all their work as a staff member.

Maggie was instrumental in the initiative to expand Westminster's annual Pride celebration into a multi-day event that exemplified the Westminster value of community. Maggie led the volunteer committee of alumni, students, faculty, and staff members to plan a variety of workshops, a keynote address, and even a full Prom! All of this work was in addition to Maggie's professional role. Maggie went above and beyond to create an event that truly celebrated Westminster's LGBTQ+ Community.

Clearly, Maggie shows up in big ways for the Westminster Community--but it's not just the big things that makes a Griffin exemplary--it's the way that you show up for your colleagues and students every day. Maggie shines enthusiasm wherever they go and is constantly reaching out to support and uplift colleagues. Whether you're having a bad day or need help on a big work project, Maggie will never think twice about jumping in to help and say an encouraging word.

Maggie is also passionate about mentoring. In addition to coordinating the Take a Griffin to Lunch program which pairs current students with alumni, Maggie also mentors student interns in her office and is a trusted resource to many staff members across campus.

Their effort in creating a safe, supportive, and celebratory community shows up in all aspects of Maggie's work at Westminster making them a truly exemplary Griffin!

Nominee: Aaron Lewis

Department: IS
Nominator: Winter Morse
Nomination: Aaron is the hidden gem, that we don't let out much!!! He has continued to step up for the department, showing his coaching and mentoring skills as took on the OPS team. He has quickly become my "go-to person" patiently talking through problems with me, discussing strategies, and reminding me not to take on too much. He is wonderful at recognizing his teammates during the weekly IS meeting, making sure he gives credit where it is deserved. Aaron is a very special employee and an incredible asset to the College.

Nominee: Walter Prado

Department: Admissions
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: Walter is the definition of an Exemplary Griffin. I have never known someone to be so passionate about the work that they do. Walter works closely with prospective and new students, easing their transition into college. He does so in such an engaging and inspiring way. Walter is kind, patient, excited, and trustworthy. I believe he is a mentor, formally or informally, to many on campus. He stands by the college's Vision and Mission wholeheartedly, making decisions that will only benefit Westminster's community, campus, and students. He recently gave a talk at the college that further solidified his noteworthy passion and leadership. I believe Walter strongly deserves the Exemplary Griffin Award.

Nominee: Mary Denison

Department: Financial Aid
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: Mary Denison would make an amazing recipient of the Exemplary Griffin Award. Through some challenging situations and changes in her department, Mary has remained nimble, strong, and successful. The work that Mary does is beyond important to the college, and she does it with such professionalism and optimism. She is an inspiration to all those around her, and it is very easy to want to befriend Mary. Mary is a great team member and support system for individuals on campus. Perhaps her heart is the greatest thing about her. It is filled with kindness, selflessness, and determination. She stands by the college's values and exemplifies them in all the work that she does.

Nominee: Winter Morse

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Aaron Lewis
Nomination: To be quite honest, it's hard to know where to begin with Winter. I think everyone who has been on campus for even a short time has been impacted to some degree by Winter's influence.

In the last several months, she has taken on a significant increase in responsibilities within the Information Systems department. This has required Winter to become involved and proficient with many of the tools in use by the enterprise applications team. All this while juggling position changes and new additions to her own team, client services. She has mentored her team well, evidenced by recent promotions for some of her team members being able to slide into positions of increased responsibility almost seamlessly. This would not be possible without Winter's guidance providing feedback to the individuals strengths and areas where there is an opportunity for improvement.

Winter serves on the planning and priorities committee and is very involved in many of the groups on campus including the teaching and learning resources group. She participates in these committees and groups to ensure all campus community members have the ability to be successful with the technology resources available to them.

Winter genuinely cares about the campus and every member of the community in her efforts to ensure technology resources are available and functional for everyone. I can personally attest that she is a little bundle of joy to work with and is an enormous part of what makes the Westminster community great!!!

Nominee: Rebecca Riley

Department: Graduate Admissions
Nominator: Izzy Moore
Nomination: Rebecca is so kind and welcoming to students! She approaches every problem with compassion and has truly made an impact on our staff. She is a wonderful colleague and always participates in everything she can. She provides great feedback and is always there when anyone needs help or guidance. Rebecca is awesome!

Nominee: Hannah Thorne

Department: Institutional Advancement
Nominator: Maggie Regier
Nomination: Hannah is a constant source of mentorship and inspiration. Her commitment and talent shine so bright it’s impossible to ignore. Hannah sets a precedent of excellence in everything she does - from one Westminster day to staff council. She is committed to always doing better and working with her peers to constantly better the college. Somehow she also finds time to offer support, recognize accomplishments, and celebrate life milestones. Westminster is better because of Hannah.

The Campus Innovation and Impact Award recognizes a staff member or department who uses creativity to develop new or improve processes, systems, products, methods, or services and encourages others across the campus to do the same. The recipient makes innovation a priority and takes reasonable and calculated risks that improve Westminster and make the campus community a better place to live and work.

Criteria (must meet 1 or more):

• Carefully assesses and identifies problematic systems or processes impacting the campus community and quickly implements new ideas into action to solve the issue(s)
• Questions existing assumptions and beliefs and considers diverse perspectives in challenging those ideals
• Creatively navigates limited resources to address rising concerns impacting the college and provides a wide range of suggestions to approach change in a practical and mindful manner

Winner: Pamela Shields

Department: Marketing and Communication
Nominator: Hannah Thorne
Nomination: When reading the description of the Campus Innovation and Impact Award, I immediately thought it was a description of Pamela Shields. In her short tenure on campus, she has already made an incredible impact on the way we do events by assessing systems that weren't serving us, questioning the way things had always been done, and being imaginative and strategic about limited event funds.

Pamela has helped to re-vamp our graduation ceremonies to create events that are more representative of Westminster College and our graduating students. Even during the exceptionally difficult pandemic times when event planning seemed impossible, Pamela put together wonderful events for our campus to celebrate the culminating achievement of graduation safely.

For smaller evets across campus, Pamela has streamlined the planning process. Her efforts have made it easier for small offices to host events, lessened the burden of planning and communication for event vendors, and ensured that all guests to our campus receive a high quality event experience. She has also helped to find new revenue sources by leverage underused spaces on campus.

Pamela consistently delivers high quality events with limited budget and staff resources while also finding new ways to improve and innovate. Westminster is lucky to have someone as dedicated, creative, and innovative as Pamela coordinating our campus events. Her work has an impact on Westminster alumni, students, faculty, staff and the wider community!

Nominee: Winter Morse

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Chris Eggett
Nomination: Winter has taken on new role this academic year as Deputy Chief Information officer. Winter has had to go back and look at everything that the Information service department has been doing for years. In doing so Winter and her team has had to look at what has been working and what is working but not well. Winter has had to come up with new inventive ways to handle process that effect all of campus. When Winter is looking at a problem she will always look at her decision not only affects her team but the campus as a whole. When the decision is made Winter will always look at what's best for campus, it might be more work for Winter and her team but she always put the campus community first. Winter will spend several hours meeting with stake holders when looking at process that might need to be changed, Winter wants to hear from people that might be effected from the decisions she makes. Winter Makes the Westminster campus a better place with her being part of it.

Nominee: Chris Eggett

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: Chris is not only one of the most innovative individuals on campus, but he is also one of the most innovative individuals I have ever met. He is the definition of a "creative problem-solver." With only the handful of interactions that I have had with Chris, I have been beyond impressed with him and the work he does. Chris is always taking on big projects at the college, and I am always shocked by the innovative solutions and ideas he comes up with. His goal for campus-wise improvement is evident in everything that he does. Chris not only undertakes these large systematic improvements, but he is a teacher to those around him. Before he leaves a project, he makes sure to teach the upkeep skills and knowledge to those impacted by the changes. On top of his work at the college, he is just an all-around good guy. Kind, patient, and hardworking. Chris is beyond deserving of the Campus Innovation and Impact Award.

Nominees: Eric Johnson and Donna Campbell

Department: Enrollment Data and Systems Team
Nominator: Erica Johnson
Nomination:

Enrollment Data and Systems Team

Beginning in the spring of 2020, the enrollment team began implementing Slate CRM software. This software aids the enrollment team in everything from managing the campus visit program to executing communication campaigns. Slate is also responsible for managing our interactions with prospective students and their application materials. This means maintaining accurate records on tens of thousands of inquiries and thousands of applications. While Slate implementation impacted all aspects of the enrollment process, for two members of the enrollment team, the implementation of Slate meant innovating and reimaging nearly every aspect of their jobs.

Innovation is usually thought of as a flashy, front-facing thing. But in this case, innovation is tedious and time consuming with very little to show outside the enrollment team being able to continuously recruit students using relevant data as it was incrementally transitioned to a new system. Throughout this process, the enrollment systems team showed up each day willing to reconsider processes, learn new skills, and imagine new ways of collaborating. On some days, we are sure that it felt like they were being asked to build the airplane while flying it.

Donna Campbell

Donna is our longest-tenured staff member on the enrollment team. She has always worked in an operations and systems role, and because of that, it can be easy for a lot of her work to go unnoticed in the same way that the computer code behind our favorite websites or apps goes unnoticed. But if it weren’t there or weren’t working properly, we’d notice. But Donna isn’t driven by attention or recognition, which is exactly why we believe she is especially deserving of it.

Eric Johnson

Eric has been on the enrollment team for five years, and he has extensive knowledge of the inner workings of the operations of the team. When we transitioned to Slate, he was asked to pivot and lean more into the data side of the work. He is a nose-to-the-grindstone kind of worker, which is a helpful trait when it comes to identifying thousands of rows in Excel documents from our various outside partners and documenting how all that content will be tracked by Slate and organized within the database.

Partnering with Campus Colleagues

This work wasn’t done in a silo. Many of the innovations and changes also impacted how the enrollment team works with other offices on campus. Here are a few examples of how Eric and Donna have partnered with campus colleagues to improve processes and systems:

• Created a new process to gather parent and family information. This information supports Institutional Advancement, Student Accounts, and all offices that engage with current student parents.
• Ensured consistent tracking of application fees and enrollment deposits with Accounting Services.
• Improved how documents and data are integrated with other campus information systems such as E-trieve and Colleague. This work impacts nearly every office on campus!
• Ongoing support of new PACE initiatives to increase enrollment in our BBA and RN to BS programs.

Nominee: Jeff Robinson

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Aaron Lewis
Nomination: Jeff recently took on and completed a very significant networking project involving the migration of DNS and DHCP services as a means of addressing a portion of the College's technical debt. This project required him to plan and implement this change while managing third-party vendors and their timelines. The project also required Jeff to put in significant time, often outside of what we consider normal working hours to successfully complete the migration so it would go unnoticed by the campus community. The fact Jeff was able to complete this project while juggling other responsibilities and small emergencies is a testament to the type of leader and community member he is. Thanks for all your hard work Jeff, we are very fortunate in IS to have someone so talented!

Nominee: Justin Griffiths

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Aaron Lewis
Nomination: Justin is excelling at his role in IS as the Desktop Administrator. He has been involved in several projects designed around improving the Westminster Anywhere user experience by ensuring faculty have the requested software in the most up-to-date versions available. He has also worked with outside vendors to secure software quotes and add value to to the Westminster student experience. One very significant project he is currently leading involves working with select departments within the community to add wireless devices used for taking credit card payments to a newly created Payment Card Industry (PCI) compliant wireless network. His work in adding these devices to the PCI network ensures Westminster College demonstrates compliance with the PCI standard and provides peace of mind to anyone using payment cards for purchases or donations on campus. Thanks for being an important part of the IS team, Justin!

Nominee: Rob Passalacqua

Department: Information Services
Nominator: Aaron Lewis
Nomination: Rob has been working incredibly hard behind the scenes to improve Westminster College's systems. He has taken the initiative to audit the College's server architecture, identifying servers that can be decommissioned through our archiving process, servers requiring operating system updates, and identifying other vulnerabilities that can be addressed. Rob has also done fantastic work collaborating with the Information Systems department by organizing service outage windows and leading the tasks needing to be completed during those outages. I am especially proud of the hard work and effort Rob has put into improving his customer service and communication skills as he helps community members with printing and other technology related issues. We are extremely fortunate to have Rob on the IS team!

The Student Success Award recognizes a staff member who has gone above and beyond to provide support and services for students. The recipient is known to create space for students to be heard and valued and acts as a mentor to students to create a transformational and accessible student experience. This staff member cares deeply about students and their education.

Criteria (must meet 1 or more):

• Seeks to improve services, processes, systems, and/or products that enhance the living and learning environment for Westminster students
• Creates space for students to feel safe and respected and works diligently to advocate on behalf of students by bringing their voices to the decision table
• Positively speaks about the college student experience while promoting new ideas to elevate the standards of learning at the college (i.e. through collaborative efforts with other departments and faculty)
• Invests time and energy in mentoring and coaching students through their student development and creates learning opportunities outside the classroom for students to implement their learning into practice

Winner: Mario Reeve​

Department: Admissions
Nominator: Ashlyn Talcott
Nomination: Mario is an absolute role model when it comes to going above and beyond for the students here at Westminster College, in so many different ways. To start with, Mario has spent so much time creating a safe, comfortable space in the Veteran & Military Services building for students. He even keeps snacks, water, and entertainment readily available for any student who needs it. Mario is always getting involved in mentorship and coaching roles for students, and is notably passionate about this work. Whenever Mario needs to make a decision, he always considers the students and their experiences first. I have known Mario to spend his weekends or outside work hours just to engage with students and aid in extracurricular activities for them. I think he's a great advocate, always looks to improve the student experience, and is more than qualified for the Student Success Award.

Nominee: Bree Ann Anderson

Department: Athletics
Nominator: Conor Bentley
Nomination: As Director of Compliance Bree works hard to make sure that our student athletes have everything they need to be successful and stay compliant and eligible. As an alum of Westminster she has a real love and appreciation for the college and instills that into the students she works with. I also appreciate how she comes to games and supports our teams.