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January - March 2010
Employee of the Quarter
Award Recipients
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Cathy Councilman |
Steve Anderson |
The Department of Human Resources would like to congratulate Cathy Councilman and Steve Anderson on receiving this honor.
Cathy Councilman, Administrative Assistant II for the Office of Off-Campus Student Services, has been named UMBC’s Nonexempt Employee of the Quarter effective January 1 to March 31, 2010. Cathy began employment at UMBC in January 2006 after working for many years as UMBC’s advertising representative at the Baltimore Sun.
Cathy was nominated by Ben Goldberg, Coordinator in the Office of Off-Campus Student Services. “Cathy Councilman’s outstanding abilities make her invaluable to the Office of Off-Campus Student Services,” says Goldberg. She has outstanding people and customer service skills even when she is very busy, which is most of the time. Cathy does a lot and does all of it well. One of Cathy’s responsibilities requires technical skill to maintain online listings of available housing. It also includes maintaining a good relationship with property managers and homeowners and assisting students (and sometimes their parents) when they enter our office seeking help finding housing. This is an excellent example of Cathy’s customer service, because she takes the time to give hands on guidance to those using our off-campus housing resource, when she could simply explain the available resources and leave students on their own. In the midst of managing our office, which includes overseeing supplies, coordinating schedules, and managing payroll, Cathy still finds time to support our student workers, the Commuter Assistants. She constantly offers advice and counsel to the students as they are working on Commuter Connection programs. While Cathy sometimes states that she does not want to get involved in a certain project, she has never been able to resist helping a student who needs it. Cathy is committed to the work of helping off-campus and transfer students at UMBC and she is willing to go beyond the job duties to do it.”
“One of Cathy’s responsibilities is overseeing our office’s sale of discounted monthly MTA passes to students. She coordinates with the MTA to receive the passes, oversees sales in our office and is responsible for reconciling the passes sold at the end of each sales period. As this program has grown, the amount of money coming in and out of our office grew unwieldy. Cathy has overseen the transition to a paperless system allowing students to purchase MTA passes with their UMBC cards. It also should be noted that when there was a housing crunch during the previous summer, Cathy was instrumental in organizing a bus tour of local apartment communities for students on the housing waiting list. The program proved so popular that is was repeated this summer. Cathy really goes above and beyond her job responsibilities and this extends outside our own office. I want to share a recent story to illustrate this point. Due to staff absences and other issues, no member of the Student Affairs Business Service Center staff was able to help a student leader purchase supplies with a procurement card as they usually do. Fred Meyers, Business Service Manager in that office, came to Cathy for help because he knew she would say yes, which she did. Cathy helped multiple students over a two-day period, most notably she sat with one student for over an hour as they set up a new account for an online vendor. This level of dedication truly deserves to be recognized.”
The Office of Off-Campus Student Services surprised Cathy with the news of her award at a holiday party in December 2009, attended by staff of the Division of Student Affairs. She was very happy to learn that she was selected for the Employee of the Quarter Award. In honor of Cathy’s achievement, the department will hold a lunch celebration.
Steve Anderson, Manager of Classroom Technology, Instructional Technology & New Media has been named UMBC’s Exempt Employee of the Quarter effective January 1, through March 31, 2010. Steve began his career at UMBC in March 1992 as an Audio Visual Technician in the Department of Instructional Technology. He was promoted over the years and moved to his current position in July 2006.
Nancy Abell, Executive Administrative Assistant of the Office of the Vice President for Administration and Finance, nominated Steve for this award. In addition, Steve was highly recommended for this award by three other colleagues: Karin E. Readel, Phillip G. Sokolove, and John Fritz.
“Steve is the consummate customer service provider,” says Abell. “He consistently goes above and beyond the call of duty in assisting with audio visual equipment/presentations. It seems nothing is ever too much to ask. His finest attribute is probably his ‘grace under fire’; glitches at show time never rattle him and his calm presence is always reassuring. He has put together a team who are well qualified, and as customer service oriented as he is. He serves the entire campus community, and is just as comfortable providing assistance in campus leadership events as working with faculty to provide state-of-the-art classroom technologies.”
Karin E. Readel, Senior Lecturer for the Department of Geography & Environmental Systems says, “I have known Steve since I started at UMBC in 1999. As a new faculty member I wanted to make sure I knew what equipment was available for me. Steve took the time to show me how to use everything, and patiently answered my many cries for help during my first semester teaching. He provided invaluable advice when I purchased a portable data projector. More recently he has been instrumental in troubleshooting problems with the CPS clickers on campus. His professionalism and ‘can-do’ attitude are constant.”
Phillip G. Sokolove, Professor of Biological Sciences, says, “Steve is typically up-to-date on the latest innovations in educational technology, and is always willing to try a new device, or to reconfigure an older one to improve it or to do something new with it. The fact that the campus has a working clicker system in most of the large rooms and lecture halls would not have been possible at all without his and his team’s patience, perseverance, and responsiveness. Steve works very hard to stay current in his field, and is always willing to go above and beyond what is required to support the faculty and the students who depend on him.”
John Fritz, Assistant Vice President of Instructional Technology & New Media, describes Steve by saying, “he is one of the most responsible and conscientious colleagues I have ever worked with. He anticipates the needs of others, is extremely responsive, has an incredible commitment to customer service, and is respected by his colleagues. He has a particular talent for remaining calm, cool, and collected when all hell seems to have broken loose 10 minutes before class starts. Steve has kept meticulous records about AV services delivery and support, which were invaluable to the Provost’s Classroom Technology plan that DoIT facilitated. Since 2007, more than 25 classrooms have been upgraded, based largely on Steve’s analysis of where AV Services delivers or supports technology for classes.”
Steve received his certificate and learned that he had been selected as Employee of the Quarter during a surprise announcement at the DoIT holiday pot luck luncheon held on December 18, 2009. Nancy Abell, Karin Readel and Phillip Sokolove attended the event in addition to DoIT staff to offer their congratulations to Steve.
Each recipient will receive a check for $500, a special parking space, one day of administrative leave, a certificate, his/her name on the Employee of the Quarter plaque and an invitation to the annual Service Award Ceremony for all the recipients.
Human Resources offers special thanks to everyone that nominated an employee for the award. Previous nominations received will be eligible for consideration for one year from the date received. The next Employee of the Quarter recipients will be selected in April.
Learn how to nominate an employee that you feel is deserving of this award for the next quarter.