Coding Department
Boynton Health
Nominated by: Beth Elliott-Thul
Value Demonstrated by Employees: Resiliency
The coding team has been amazingly resilient during this COVID-19 crisis! They were able to do an unbelievably quick turn around to get Boynton’s mental health clinic up and running with Telehealth and with the correct billing codes in a matter of a day! This required hours of research and combing through information to find the correct codes to fit our unique information here at the University. They have done a ton of research and worked so hard to make sure that Boynton will continue to get paid for the important services they continue to offer! A huge shout out and thank you to Colleen Jahnel, Crystal VanHavermaet, Nanette Hill and Debbie Podvin!
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Aaron Clausen
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: Sarah MacPhail
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Collaboration
Aaron has been instrumental in keeping RecWell working collaboratively by utilizing virtual tools many of us did not previously have business needs for. Aaron's supervision of our IT dept directly impacted how quickly RecWell was able to meet President Gabel's work from home order and continue the work and mission our team provides to the University-Twin Cities community. And, he's just a really cool cat. Thanks Aaron!
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Luke Day
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: George Brown
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Wellbeing
Luke Day has been determined as an essential employee of RecWell given his leadership role with facility operations. He has maintained an extraordinary level of oversight to all operational levels of the many facilities under the supervision of the department. He constantly interacts with Trades and other Facility Management staff to coordinate life systems management and projects that continue to occur during disruption. In addition, Luke recently coordinated a successful inventory of RecWell infection control cleaning products and gathered them for collection and distribution to medical research areas of the University for their use in battling COVID-19.
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Drew Devore
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: George Brown & Ashlee Miller
Values Demonstrated by Employee: Student Centeredness & Collaboration
Drew has worked with his Intramural Sports staff as well as NIRSA colleagues across the country to develop interactive and virtual sports and recreation competitions for students and the University Community. He is also launching a nationwide trivia competition.
Due to COVID-19, most recreation and wellness programs and facilities across the country have been cancelled and closed. Drew is a part of our competitive sports program and manages our intramural sports which allows students to compete against others at both a recreational and high level of competition in various sports. It is nearly impossible right now to do any sort of athletic competition but Drew has spearheaded a nation-wide trivia competition with over 60 other campus recreation programs across the country. These other institutions have donated prizes that will be given out randomly and to winners of each trivia night. This is a great example of collaboration with other institutions to make the most of the current situation and facilitate some healthy competition and engagement among students.
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Julie Faulkner
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: George Brown
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Resiliency
Julie is managing the influx of RecWell membership inquiries, many of which are from students and non-student members who are stressed and concerned about the future and their ability to access RecWell facilities coupled with uncertainty with their personal financial situations. At the same time she is working directly with her professional and student staff and the entire RecWell team to reassure one another during this challenging time.
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Rebecca Leighton
Boynton Health
Nominated by: Maggie Towle
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Student Centeredness
She has been amazing getting the Food Pantry up and running during this stressful COVID-19 time! Special thanks for her leadership and for all the student volunteers!
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Darren Nelson
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: George Brown
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Advocacy
Darren has worked almost around-the-clock since the disruption from COVID-19 began. He has been in continuous communication with the Office of Human Resources as questions and policy and process updates from across all areas of human resources are fielded and determined. He has been thorough and timely in all his communications with the full professional staff of RecWell. He has been a tireless advocate for student employees and ensures that resources for compensation, as determined by the University, are conveyed and applied as quickly and accurately as possible. In the midst of all the immediate needs of our department during this time, Darren has served all on-going HR needs of a department with many staff and evolving operational demands.
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Rahul Rajan
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: Jaime Medina
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Personal/Student Development
Rahul is directly responsible for the creation of the summer internship program within Recreation and Wellness. Its mission is to empower students to explore a career in campus recreation by exposing them to a fully immersive experience to address real challenges through impactful and relevant projects. Going into the program's second summer, Rahul's dedication and passion for campus recreation now sees the program expanding for the summer of 2020.
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Julie Reuvers
Central Student Affairs
Nominated by: Sophia Norwood
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Resiliency
Not only has Julie taken on a vacant role in addition to her own, but she has proved resilient in these hectic times. While communicating with myself and others in OSA, she has been timely, gracious, honest, and kind.
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Christine Velure Roholt
Leadership Minor
Nominated by: Jessica Chung
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Student Centeredness
Honestly, Christine exemplifies ALL of these values and deserves recognition in a lot of ways. The way she has led our department through the unfolding of the virus is notable - she was immediately quick to center student learning and capacity in our programmatic shifts, always advocating for compassion and care and access of the students in class as well as the continued pay of the student employees in our office. She often gives recognition to the people on our team to give us hope and point out ways we have triumphed to promote resiliency. She also messages a lot of patience, grace, and compassion in our communications to encourage us to slow down and take care of ourselves in whatever ways we need. She is always thinking about who else is doing this work on campus and finding ways to bridge and collaborate, not only among us in our department to save resources but to amplify the work of others. We are lucky to have her.
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Latasha Stowe
Recreation and Wellness
Nominated by: Mark Luna
Value Demonstrated by Employee: Personal/Student Development
Latasha has always gone above and beyond her duties, and is very friendly and understanding when it comes to student employees. Latasha you are a Rockstar for the RecWell.