Student Affairs

Department: Applied Communications Studies

Nominator(s): 

Carolyn Compton, Kimmel Student Involvement Center

The collaborative spirit Alicia engages in with the Cougar Cupboard and Community Engagement Team in the Kimmel Student Involvement Center has been evident from the beginning. Alicia's continued donations to the Cougar Cupboard through her efforts as Director of Support the Girls Edwardsville has absolutely benefited clients. Being able to offer sanitary products for free to our clients is a huge help. Because of luxury taxes these items are expensive but absolutely necessary and we know it is a service our clients express appreciation when receiving them.

Alicia has been intentional about asking what we needed rather than assuming what we needed. This is important because we have limited space to store overages. Alicia checks in regularly with us to let us know what she has that she can donate and asks what are continued needs are. In the space of cultural competence, Alicia is consistent in ensuring she is checking to see what more she can do or quick to let us know if she will be short on anything. She has been great at educating us on how she receives donations and this has helped understand a larger system that helps serve our Cougar Cupboard system. Alicia's commitment to the value of community is evident in her continued engagement. She consistently shows up at our events and promotes them to other groups when she is networking. When it comes to social justice, Alicia's work with Support The Girls and its collaborative work with the Cougar Cupboard I see social justice, transformational action, and well-being all at work together. Alicia's determination to push this wonderful program forward and to continue to collaboratively work with us in the Cougar Cupboard allows our program to offer a much needed and highly valued care item to clients in need. This often disregarded, sometimes even an item regarded as shameful; restores dignity, it gives hope, it reduces anxiety, it quells fears, it returns power. Yes, the act of providing basic feminine sanitary hygiene products can do all of that for someone deciding between food, formula, toilet paper, or tampons.

It has been a pleasure and a great opportunity to watch Alicia work with my team members on the Community Engagement Staff in the Kimmel Student Involvement Center. Alicia is always bright and excited. She has, as I said before educated us on how she collects and gathers contributions from large companies and then shares those with others. My staff has commented about how fun and how easy it is to work with Alicia. Additionally, Alicia is flexible and willing to work with us to get the job done. She promotes our work when possible and I think these are great examples to my team about how to be stand out professionals, in the best way possible!

Department: Social Work

Nominator(s):

Dominic Dorsey II, ACCESS

Dr. Carter is one of the leading voices in the Social Work Department. Not only does she advocate for the rights of individuals within her teaching but she also advocates for the rights and well-being of students. Dr. Carter always looks for opportunities to lift others up and approaches her teaching style with a social justice lens. She is constantly challenging her students and fellow faculty to have an impact on their community and the world they live in. She is constantly looking for ways to collaborate and expand the world of her students and encourages us to look outside of the box and even to work with other departments on projects. She has been a consistent partner with the ACCESS office and has been instrumental in making sure that for the past two semesters, that ACCESS has had social work practicum students to further their goals of infusing social justice principles into their work, by analyzing and addressing the intersectional concerns of students as it pertains to issues of food insecurity, experiencing homelessness, access to mental health care counseling, affordable medications, and more.

Dr. Carter always looks to support her students in their personal and academic achievements. She listens to the voice of students and helps them problem solve issues or struggles that they may see, or may be dealing with themselves. When on campus her office is a revolving door of student questions, inquiries, and concerns. She always assures students that her door is open and welcomes everyone who comes into the Social Work Department. When she is not teaching or working on research she is sharing information and resources to the student body, and advocating and uplifting the work that her students are doing. If our mission includes: "...supporting and challenging students to achieve their full potential", Dr. Carter is a shining example of how this is accomplished and achieved on the academic side.

Dr. Carter sets a standard of respect, acceptance, and responsibility in every class she teaches. She is always finding new ways to accommodate and facilitate the students in and outside of her classroom. She is the first teacher students think of when they see a social justice issue on or off campus. She is a never-ending library of resources and connections to her students and is never more than a phone call away. Her passion and fire for social justice and equity show in everything that she does and she encourages that outlook in all of her students. She is also a staunch advocate for Students with Disabilities within the Social Work program. Any and all initiatives and opportunities to make the work more accessible and much more inclusive for diverse and complex learners, Dr. Carter is the first to pick up the banner and lift it high and take on the challenge to bring it to Social Work and make life and education more welcoming for our students. Whether it is finding an acceptable internship for a deaf student and working in tandem with the office and us to make sure that the student had an enriching experience, or using her voice to amplify the work done by supporting initiatives like the Ed Roberts Dinner or the work of the Disability Advisory Committee, Dr. Carter is always sharing, enlightening and motivating her colleagues and students for greater success.

Department: School of Pharmacy

Nominator(s):

Riane Greenwalt, Health Service
Penny Raburn, Health Service

Dr. Kerr has partnered with Health Service in providing influenza walk in clinics during the Fall 2020. Dr. Kerr took a lead role in coordinating SOP faculty with our clinic schedules so that our unit could provide faculty, staff, and students multiple opportunities to get their flu shot on campus.

Dr. Kerr is student first and student focused. Dr. Kerr exemplifies collaboration with Health Service and continues to promote community within our two units. Her investment in helping our office provide influenza vaccines to our campus community helps to strengthen the well being of all of us.

Dr. Kerr has supported our vaccine campaign for several years now. She is always the first to offer her expertise in arranging SOP faculty to each clinic and projects a can-do attitude with each scheduling challenge. This past year she and her peers remained on ground with the Health Service staff to ensure the vaccine clinics could be operational. She took time to make sure each person that got vaccinated was comfortable with the educational piece of pre and post vaccination.

Department: Department of Psychology

Nominator(s):

Jamie Doss, Career Development Center

Dr. Pawlow collaborates with a variety of Student Affairs departments to ensure students are receiving the services and support that best meet their needs. In addition, Dr. Pawlow utilizes cultural competency skills when engaging with students, faculty, and staff in an inclusive environment. Lastly, Dr. Pawlow has taken the initiative over the past few years to transform the URCA program into a diverse and equitable environment for all students; as she understands and values the importance of investing in our students to strengthen their overall well-being and shape our university community.

Dr. Pawlow exudes every single one of the characteristics mentioned in the final criterion for this award! She is always projecting positive energy, willing to share her knowledge with others, and motivates everyone around her to succeed and reach their full potential! She is a compassionate faculty member, advocate, and individual all around! So grateful that she is apart of the SIUE community.

Dr. Pawlow collaborates with student affairs to enrich the collegiate experience of SIUE students.

Department: Applied Communication Studies

Nominator(s):

Tyler Manning, Kimmel Student Involvement Center

Dr. Wrobbel has served as a campus advisor to Delta Phi Epsilon sorority for the past seven (7) years and has been nominated in the past for Fraternity and Sorority Life's Campus Advisor of the Year award, but has not been recognized in this way. According to a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, "Duff, as we call him, has improved our chapter because he brings a lot of joy to the chapter and our members. He is amazing, fun, and is able to push us to the best organization we can be with his words of wisdom and advice." I believe he is a strong and consistent advisor for this sorority and has always received a strong recommendation to continue as their advisor for years to come. I believe this allows for students who are members of Delta Phi Epsilon to have a connect to a faculty member, even if they are not in the Applied Communication Studies program.

As a faculty member who has agreed to served as a campus advisor and fiscal officer and has served in this capacity for the past seven (7) years, I believe that that Dr. Wrobbel understands the value of collaboration between the work done between Academic Affairs and Student Affairs. According to a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, "He has always been there for the chapter. No matter what kind of questions we have, he always answers them quickly. He is also the chair of the ACS department so he knows a lot about the University. His door is always open for our sisters whenever we need him."

The Fraternity and Sorority Life Team have monthly chapter coaching meetings with each organization. Any meeting with Delta Phi Epsilon leadership has never led to concerns or issues with Dr. Wrobbel. Delta Phi Epsilon leadership, year after year, continue to be connected to the advisory style of Duff, which can be hard to find in a faculty member. According to a member of Delta Phi Epsilon, "Duff exemplifies our ideals because he is 100% himself all of the time. Our motto is "Esse Quam Videri" or "To Be Rather Then To Seem", and Duff is always his truly authentic self, which we appreciate."

Department: Office of Academic Advising

Nominator(s):

Evan Lowis, Student Opportunities for Academic Results

Ryann, as an academic advisor, may not fall under Student Affairs; although, her work deserves to be rightfully acknowledged. With her retention efforts in programming for SASS (Student Academic Success Sessions), she allows for students to fulfill the Health Experience prerequisite for general education. With SASS, Ryann schedules academic learning events that pertains to the prerequisite and always recruits great session leaders to help. Ryann always puts students first in all the work she does and never asks for anything more for her efforts.

Ryann demonstrates the many values in the Office of Academic Advising for the students she is assigned as well as students that she is not assigned. She gives assistance to students and helps students link their own abilities/interests to programs and majors that SIUE provides. Her work includes acceptance and integrity for all student populations in order to achieve the overall success for the holistic development of students.

I, personally, look up to Ryann when it comes to being a student advocate. Her positivity and happiness helps everyone in the office to keep going and help our students succeed. I have learned so much from Ryann and she always lets me know that she is only a phone call away. Ryann has taught me that empathy for students goes a long way even if you do not see the effort you put into students. Her work has shown to make positive impacts in the office and for the campus of SIUE.

Department: University Marketing and Communications

Nominator(s):

Mallory Sidarous, University Housing

Our campus greatly benefits from Ashley's partnership with staff and faculty all across campus, including Student Affairs. As our campus leader in social media, she has equipped and supported student affairs staff members who are members of various campus social media platforms. Additionally, she is present for programs and initiatives sponsored by Student Affairs - highlighting those efforts to the greater campus and external community.

Ashley frequently seeks partnerships and opportunities across campus to highlight student learning, their efforts, etc. She has built successful social media platforms that highlight the diversity and inclusivity of our student body and campus. Her efforts have included more accessible videos and social media content and messaging.

Ashley is fantastic. She is present, positive, collaborative, and creative. We are extremely lucky to have her as part of the campus community, and she is very good at her job. Since last March and the start of COVID, she has had to answer more questions and comments than we can imagine for each announcement that went out about campus operations, academic delivery, housing, and much more. She always answers well. This speaks to her skill, but also to her relationships and collaboration across campus. She is able to swiftly respond because she has built valuable relationships and staff and faculty trust her. And she has equipped fellow staff and faculty to respond as well. Students benefit from her commitment to clear communication and sharing the SIUE story.

Department: Information Technology

Nominator(s):

Daniel Rosner, University Housing

Around the beginning of November 2020, SIUE was beginning to determine the re-entry process for students returning to campus and University Housing after the winter break. After reflecting on the tools utilized for both spring 2020 move-out and fall 2020 move-in, a better, more efficient and service friendly solution was required. University Housing reached out the Ben Hubler with Information Technology to ask for a recommendation. After Ben gathered an understanding of the requirements, Ben offered to build an application within Sharepoint and Office 365 with the goals of being: easy for students to use, flexibility to allow for students to change their own move-in date and time (knowing that grace is always needed when working through COVID-19 challenges), connect with the pre-arrival test submission and approval process, and efficiently communicate with students via both personal and SIUE email to ensure the most up-to-date information was available. About a month after the initial meeting, Ben was able to demo the app to University Housing and Student Affairs team members from start to finish. While students did sometimes struggle to understand the pre-arrival testing, re-entry testing, and moving back requirements, the application that Ben developed ensured that students were easily able to select a time, change it if needed, submit their test, and be communicated with efficiently and effectively throughout the process.

When looking to connect Ben’s work with the mission and goals of the Student Affairs Division, the link is easily created. The importance of having an easy process (moving back onto campus) while navigating difficult challenges related to COVID (pre-arrival testing requirements) helps students persist through the difficulties so that other pandemic related items (impact on families, work, transportation, etc.) are focused on. Additionally, connecting two different departmental tasks (signing up for a time and approving test results) allows for a much more seamless process overall. The ease of use allowed other staff the time needed to support students via phone and email as the overall administrative workload was reduced.

Between the different meetings, trainings, and trouble shooting sessions, Ben always made the process easy and there was not a challenge too large. He was always receptive to feedback and changes (due to tweaks in the process) and often, designed out of the box solutions to make the work easier on the users. Examples include the need the differ between new housing students and returning housing students (and the days/time slots that were available to both groups) as well as the need to automatically approve students who had previously had COVID-19 within the last 90 days. While both instances could be completed through a manual process, the answer was always, give me a little time and I will build something to automate the process. These changes allowed us to keep our information up to date in near real time to provide the best quality service to our students. Ben was always focused and thorough in his work and we never felt like we were place on the backburner. Ben was also able to collaborate with other members in IT to link approval to return to campus with card access to add an additional layer. Throughout all of this, Ben was always willing to take to time explain how and why something worked the way that it would which allowed us to troubleshoot small issues if they came up. Overall, Ben was always positive throughout his work and more than happy to support this project from start to end.

Department: Facilities Management - Electrician Shop

Nominator(s):

Nicholas Rachowicz, Morris University Center

 Aaron Kruse, an electrician assigned to the Morris University Center and Student Success Center, literally keeps the lights on for us and the students, staff, and faculty working or visiting the buildings. He has taken the time to understand how the both facilities are funded by student fee dollars and seeks to do work that observes good stewardship of those dollars. He has been instrumental in helping the MUC and SSC look good and giving our students and employees a place to be proud of in a time where dollars are tight and need be used wisely.

Aaron understands why we are here. It is my belief that he doesn't just come to work to be an electrician. He understands the mission of what we do and what we want to offer our students and guests. He understands the MUC and SSC not only gives a good place for people to come in their free time but has been instrumental in helping build environments for learning. He also understands how lighting impacts our mission and that ability to learn and the impact our appearance has on University recruiting efforts. Over the past year, Aaron has lead the transition from incandescent lighting (yellow and dull) to LEDs lighting throughout the building both inside and out. He has helped us to rid many of the dull and dingy can lights in meeting rooms and replace them with bolder and brighter LED lighting which- often transform a room with brightness. He has also helped us convert the exterior lights of the building from yellow to daytime white lights which has transformed the look of the building. In addition, as bulbs go out, he is converting them to LEDs throughout both buildings. Through many small changes and minor updates, he has breathed new life in to many of our spaces when there is not a lot of money to make major renovations. He has also sought to find us rebates on products and save us (our students) significant amounts of money without being asked.

He is a positive role model. When many people are ready to gossip or share rumors or play to their own interests, Aaron stays out of it and does what is right for the team. He sticks to his work and providing the best service he can. Any time someone has a question or wants to run something by him, he stops and makes some time to help. When he notices something wrong, he either addresses it or brings it up to someone who can make a decision. He doesn't wait until someone else finds a problem. Just the other day, he found something potentially dangerous in a student office area and while it was going to cause him some additional work, he brought it up to help keep people safe. He also raises suggestions and presents options when something can be improved. He does not just wait for the work order. We are so lucky to have someone like Aaron working with us in the MUC and SSC.

 Nominator(s):

University Housing

During the pandemic I was blow away with Scott Ettling and his team in Central Receiving and how helpful they were. They were able to change their day to day and start receiving packages for the University Housing Areas where students were still living. If you have worked around student packages before you will know that this is no little task. Housing staff went to collect them every day and the packages would often fill my car. I was blown away with Scott and the team, not only for handling the large task at hand but also for their attitude and positivity in helping housing staff. I really feel like I got to know the team over there as I was collecting packages. They remembered me by name and greeted me every time I went to collect packages. They also helped university housing offer a crucial service for residents. Some of our on campus residents do not have cars and rely on packages for some grocery items at times. Package numbers seemed to increase during the pandemic. I am thankful for the help of this team of individuals and their ability to stay positive and be great partners to Housing staff during a time that was rough for all. They often helped me carry packages and looked in to any issues or discrepancies with packages without blinking an eye.

The central receiving loading dock staff exemplified putting students first. Some times a student will only put a first name or a nickname when they receive a package or may not indicate where exactly on campus they reside, and in these cases this staff was always helpful and wanted to get the information correct to help get our on campus residents their packages and in a timely manner. Their positive attitude through the pandemic was contagious and always helped brighten my day.

Again, as I mentioned this staff helped Housing to provide a crucial service to residents. Some of our residents heavily rely on their ability to receive packages. We have students without cars and international students that use this service regularly. 

Nominator(s):

Tyler Manning, Kimmel Student Involvement Center

During the 2019-2020 academic year, Kimmel Student Involvement Center (Kimmel) worked with University Marketing & Communications (UMC) in order to improve students' experience when navigating our website. In working with UMC, we learned the Kimmel website is one of the most frequently visited websites for SIUE, which was important to both departments to recognize as we considered how to improve our website and to make it easier to navigate for students and constituents. I believe the huge 'face lift' completed by UMC for the Kimmel site will allow for students to easier navigate opportunities to create belonging outside of the classroom.

I believe that University Marketing & Communications (UMC) best exemplifies the Student Affairs' value of 'Community'. In working with UMC, the Kimmel Student Involvement Center (Kimmel) saw UMC's intentionality in ensuring students were able to see easier access the various ways to "Get Involved" from the main page of Kimmel, which were not as easily accessible or navigable. Now, directly from siue.edu/kimmel, there is a section that is dedicated to "Get Involved", which is focused on each functional area within the Kimmel. I believe this new layout allow for every individual student to decided their own path for involvement at SIUE, while also enhancing their success and promoting an environment that is inclusive and engaged.

In addition to the work done by University Marketing & Communications (UMC) for the Kimmel Student Involvement Center (Kimmel) on behalf of our updated, accessible website, UMC also is a continued, collaborative partnership for various marketing, public relations, and communications initiatives. From Fraternity & Sorority Life, I can specifically speak to the work completed to develop and finalize a design and image to celebrate 60 Years of Fraternity and Sorority Life. It was helpful to work with UMC to create a design that was consistent with University branding, but also emulated the celebration and continued membership that is existent in fraternities and sororities. While I am less knowledgeable of this, our department continues to value our partnership in many of the programs hosted by Campus Activities Board, including Homecoming, Black Heritage Month, and SpringFest.

Nominator(s):

Riane Greenwalt, Health Service

The Vice Chancellor of Administration was instrumental this past year in securing protective wear and cleaning supplies for all of Student Affairs. This office secured and purchased masks for all employees, hand sanitizer for all campus areas, plastic barriers, and specific cleaning supplies for spaces impacted by COVID infections. There are many units within this office that supported all of these activities, it was the leadership and quick responses that led to our many safety items during the past year.

The VC of Administration collaborated with Student Affairs so that we continue to focus on student service and safety. We were given supplies that were very hard to obtain - and were able to place plastic barriers in all of our face-to-face areas. This allowed Health Service remain on ground to care for students in a safe manner.

Health Service appreciated their proactive approach to all of the mitigations that were asked of the university (especially early in the pandemic). The swift action for all the reporting units to the office of the Vice Chancellor of Administration supported our ability to care for student - keeping students first and foremost and letting us keep students safe with access to on ground health care.