Twenty-Three CICS Staff Members Receive COVID Hero Awards
Throughout the year, the faculty of the College of Information and Computer Sciences fund the Staff Spot Bonus Awards that recognize the outstanding accomplishments of staff members who are important champions of the college. Award recipients are nominated by peers or by faculty members.
During this extraordinary time, CICS leadership decided to add a special edition of the Spot Bonus Award—the COVID Hero Award—to recognize those individuals who helped out in unusual ways during the events leading up to and the difficulties following the sudden campus closure in March 2020.
Congratulations to the twenty-three COVID Hero awardees listed below!
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Emma Anderson, for keeping the graduate students informed and supported with respect to all of the pandemic-related changes, and for pivoting quickly on our needs to change summer programs
Randy Barrios, for helping with many aspects of the transition of various meetings and events to online platforms in response to the pandemic
Robbie Calliham, for exemplary support of a seamless transition of the Academic Dean's Office, College Advising, Recruiting and Outreach, and all the associated communication, to online interactions, with positivity and warmth
Alicia Clemente, for maintaining and expanding the scope of advising and support for student success in the face of a pandemic
Steve Cook, for essential efforts in upgrading our infrastructure to cope with the transition to remote work and education in response to the pandemic
Erika Dawson Head, for working hard to maintain a sense of community in the midst of our abrupt shift to distance learning
Darlene Fahey, for graciously managing so many aspects of the undergraduate program and advising response during the abrupt transition necessitated by the pandemic
Andrew Gorry, for exceptional efforts in support of transforming graduation ceremonies under the pressure of short deadlines
Zinj Guo, for exceptional work in support of transitioning graduation ceremonies to online formats in a very short period following the campus shutdown in response to the pandemic
Eileen Hamel, for responding with fortitude and good cheer to a plethora of extremely challenging advising needs among our students as they coped with the pandemic, and supporting the transition of graduate commencement to its online format
Elena Hayes, for doing a stellar and fantastic job in helping with the Data Science search under the difficult conditions of transitioning to remote interviews
Christine Holbrook, for jumping into a new position under stressful conditions and then onboarding two new staff remotely in support of our complex academic program
Jeffrey Keedy, for countless hours working out new processes with the Controller in response to the pandemic-caused changes, tracking down lost packages, and processing numerous financial transactions without student help
Terrie Kellogg, for her outstanding work to ensure that CSCF's customers were kept happy throughout the incredibly complex transition to remote work and education, and in personally guiding new staff and faculty through the onboarding process, and ensuring that everything was going well for them
David Korpiewski, for being the on-site eyes, ears, and hands in support of our massive technological needs during the transition to remote work in response to the pandemic
Rachel Lavery, for dealing with many aspects of changes in conferences, travel, contracts, and vendors, in coordination with the College of Education, under difficult circumstances imposed by the shutdown of the University in response to the pandemic
Glenn Loud, for coming into the office while it was officially closed and fixing laptops for faculty so that they would be able to continue to work remotely
Joyce Mazeski, for scrambling to handle rapidly changing circumstances in the many interconnected aspects of multiple faculty hiring searches that resulted from the pandemic shutdown, contributing significantly to a very successful hiring season
Jennifer Rogers, for a superb job handling a huge amount of extra HR work associated with the transition to remote working
Malaika Ross, for simultaneously dealing with delayed portfolio materials, grading issues, and the largest number of graduation eligibility submissions of any department in the University, under the stress of shifting to remote work, and maintaining timeliness, quality, and consistency throughout
Vickie Rupp, for scrambling to handle rapidly changing circumstances in the many interconnected aspects of multiple faculty hiring searches that resulted from the pandemic shutdown, contributing significantly to a very successful hiring season
Kerry Shaw, for exceptional work in support of transitioning graduation ceremonies to online formats in a very short period following the campus shutdown in response to the pandemic
Alex Taubman, for supporting many aspects of our transition to virtual interviews this semester