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Employees of the Semester Nomination Information

Nominee Information

Nominee:

Brittany Pratt, Development Assistant,

Department:

Vice President of Student Affairs

Nominee Supervisor:

Jana Kennelly

Qualifying statements regarding Nominee:

As I read the core values of the Student Affairs mission, I realize Brittany Pratt personifies these values. Brittany embraces individuals’ thoughts and utilizes their perspective to build better programs and systems. As evidenced in some of the major initiatives that she has worked on, she is eager to take calculated risks to continue UTSA’s growth for the benefit of all students. In just one year, Brittany has accomplished the following: • Senior Gift Program-Working with Advancement Services, Brittany has led a new initiative titled Roadrunners For Life. The University will educate our senior students about the importance of being an Alumni and giving back to the University for the benefit of generations to come. The program will be launched in Fall 2010. • Family Fund - For the first time, Student Affairs Development sent nearly 5,000 letters to parents asking them to make monetary contributions to our Student Affairs strategic priorities. Brittany handled the details of updating parent addresses, design of the letter, and being the liaison with the 3rd party vendor. Her ability to see projects through has allowed the University to build a new prospect pool. In the first week, the fund has raised $830. • Scholarship Endowment Reports - The Scholarship Office is in charge of producing over 100 endowment letters, due to Brittany's initiative she developed a complicated spread sheet that allows the scholarship office to produce the reports with ease. This has created a previously frustrating task into a systematic process. • Grants – Due to Brittany’s writing abilities, Student Affairs has submitted over $335,000. To date we have been able to secure over $160,000 in grants for student scholarships and programming. • Vendor Fair – Brittany’s hard work brought in 48 companies to the 2009 Vendor Fair. Over 1/2 of them were new to UTSA campus. Many of the vendors were so impressed with her organization and her follow through that they have continued to ask how they can help the Student Affairs division. • Athletic Fundraising – Brittany has been asked to help organize Athletic fundraising efforts for three fundraising committees. She has devised a system to record dollars raised and has written thank you letters for the department. • Committees – Brittany on her own iniative has served on many Student Affairs wide committees and has taken an active role. The committees include Homecoming, Roadrunner Days and Family Weekend. • Orientation and Family –Brittany volunteered to mentor freshman students at Roadrunner Camp. She contributes to the Family Connection newsletter by writing articles about parents experiences as a new “college parent”. Brittany is a valuable member of the Student Affairs Development Team. She is a joy to work with and always has a positive attitude about helping out where she is needed. It doesn’t matter who she is working with, she always shows everyone the same level of respect while performing at the most professional level. She’s made strong relationships and had a positive impact for the good of our students and the division as a whole.

 

Nominee Information

Nominee:

Sara Bordelon,

Department:

Office of the Registrar

Nominee Supervisor:

Bryan Heard

Qualifying statements regarding Nominee:

I am nominating Sara Bordelon for Employee of the Semester. She is employed in the Records area as the Administrative Associate I /Technical assignment. She is our front line person as the receptionist. She greets all students with a vibrant smile and always willing to listen to students, faculty and staff and provides outstanding professional customer service. If she does not know an answer, she takes the initiative to seek out the answer. She works with others on a daily basis,however can work independently and is self motivated. Sara is a loyal and trustworthy employee. She is the first person you see in the morning and the smile still lingers in the evening when she departs for the day. She has been in our office for 2 years and 6 months. She is one who is quick to learn and shares her expertise if you ask for help. She is well liked by everyone in our office. She has been instrumental in working collaboratively with staff, students and faculty on campus and has learned and is teaching Second Life (a part of the U T System Virtual learning community initiative). She is also helping our VA office to set up a webpage in Second Life. This will be of great help to assist our veterans who are not physically able to come on campus but have a snapshot of services on campus online. She has reached the level of expertise that she has been chosen to teach other U T System schools how to navigate in Second Life. She is also one that has learned the WEBI and is able to share her experience and knowledge with others in our office. At first impressions she may seem shy and conservative but break out the decorations or holidays and you have one enthusiastic and creative person in Sara. She is very creative with work and helping boost morale in our office. She is our Movie promoter and decorates our office to promote a spirited atmosphere in the office.

 

Nominee Information

Nominee:

Sara Bordelon, Systems Analyst I

Department:

Office of the Registrar

Nominee Supervisor:

Bryan Heard

Qualifying statements regarding Nominee:

Sara Bordelon is the front office receptionist for the Office of the Registrar. She greets our students and either handles their issues directly or routes them to other staff workers in our office or somewhere else on campus. Sara does this job better than I can ever remember anyone in my 7+ years here at UTSA. Sara is the most organized person I know. She not only works so well with our student assistants, ensuring that catalogs and other materials are always refilled, but she does an amazing job of making our front area inviting to our students, decorating our front office according to the nearest holiday. When there’s an event on campus, she makes sure that any pictorials are posted on our front windows for students to see but she also keeps a fresh supply of information handy for students when they come to our reception area. It’s these “little things” that make a huge different in our reception area atmosphere. Sara has been with us for 2+ years now, but it’s only been in the last year or so that we began to see what type of exceptional technical skills she possesses. She took WEBI training and absorbed the technology like a sponge does with water. In just a chance conversation with her once, I learned that she had skills and interest with virtual worlds, so she agreed to help me with Second Life training. Similar to her WEBI reporting experience, she took to Second Life like a duck does to water, and became exceedingly adept at this technology. We met and developed a training routine for a basics course, and Sara put this into Word and then a PDF, and now we have two training courses for faculty and staff with outstanding documentation. I was fortunate to be selected as UTSA’s campus lead for the UT System Second Life project, and the principal investigator for this project from UT Austin saw Sara’s training documentation and said in front of our group that her training materials “put UT Austin to shame.” Since last February, Sara is closely reaching the 100th UTSA faculty and staff person who she has trained in either her basics or intermediary Second Life seminars. She is now working on a seminar with an expert faculty member on “Basic Building in Second Life” and hopes to begin training on this course in December. Sara is an expert with Powerpoint too, and she was a co-presenter with me last September at a virtual world’s conference at Incarnate Word. I’ve done some other presentations,and each time Sara has taken my initial slides and turned them into a work of art. You can go to this web site to see what she has put together: http://utsa.edu/registrar/inSL/. Sara became so familiar with using Banner as a screening tool for students with problems we have put her in charge of coordinating the Registrar’s Banner test program to ensure that we have tested all of our Banner forms and processes before next year’s upgrade. Sara is just an exceptional staff member who works at an exceedingly high level to provide the best possible service to our students. It is an honor to work with someone with her dedication and expertise.

 

Nominee Information

Nominee:

Ricardo Rodriguez, Operations Assistant I

Department:

University Center - Operations

Nominee Supervisor:

Sid Lozano

Qualifying statements regarding Nominee:

Ricardo Rodriguez is an Operations Assistant I in the University Center III. Since we moved into the new building, we have been greeted by Ricardo's smile on a daily basis. Moving into a new building is sometimes difficult because things don't always work correctly or you need help in other areas. Whenever we have an issue in our office, we will ask Ricardo for his assistance. Even though this is not part of his job description, he graciously accepts the assignment because he is customer service driven. He does everything possible to resolve or fix an issue so we will not have to wait to have it fixed. On days when we have been overly productive (i.e., messy), we have asked for a vacuum to clean up our mess. Not only will Ricardo get it for us, he graciously offers to clean up our mess. We have relied on Ricardo so much since being in the new building that we miss him when he takes time off or is moved to a new area. During a fire alarm pull several weeks ago, Sally was struggling to get to the end of the hallway because of an ankle injury. Being the only person on the 1st floor who is a team captain, she knew it was her responsibility to make sure everyone was out. When she looked down the hallway and saw Ricardo going through the building and making sure everyone was out, she was very relieved. Again, he was going above and beyond and assisting where he saw a need. The Special Events Center staff knows that we can depend 100% on Ricardo when something in the building needs attention, or we run out of something, or something isn't working right. We know he will assist us and does so with a smile on his face. His attitude, smile and genuine attention to detail is what makes him a prime candidate for this award. Ricardo definitely fits the VPSA profile for excellence in service and programming: he communicates, he connects, he collaborates and he definitely creates. Special Events Center Staff Sally Crouser, Pat Graham and Charlin Jones