December 6, 2024
Staff Spotlight awardee recognition
The Staff Spotlight committee is recognizing Robin Loader, Barb Turner, Molly Berstein, Hui-Ming Borgman, Ashley McCarter, Emma Hubbell, Austin Daugherty, Trevor Hoffman, Kevin Santo-Flores and Daniel Salceda as recipients of the Staff Spotlight Award. This list includes awardees from last spring who missed getting a public announcement, along with the recent October recipients. The committee apologizes for the delay in those announcements.
The Staff Spotlight Award highlights staff members — university support staff and university professional staff — each month for their service to the K-State community.
Loader, accountant I for the Division of Financial Services, was recognized for her efforts: "Fraudsters used a replica of a vendor's letter head to submit a request to change banking information. Robin's efforts in calling the company to confirm the company initiated the request made the fraudulent attempt come to light. Without her efforts, more than $2.5 million dollars in July payments would have been routed to a fraudulent account."
Turner, program/project assistant in the College of Veterinary Medicine, was nominated with the following words: "Besides the responsibilities of the position, she has evolved into becoming a 'counselor' to graduate students, particularly women students, who are the majority in our programs. Students feel comfortable speaking to her about their problems, generally concerning the pressures and stresses associated with their scholarly responsibilities, relationships with their mentors and fellow graduate students, and sometimes personal problems."
Bernstein, academic advisor in the art department, was highlighted for exceptional contributions to the university: "Molly juggles advising, teaching, recruiting and a myriad of other duties. She developed her own tools and strategies for advising art and used those same skills to help the art department adjust to the new K-State Core curriculum. She is patient and informative when working with her own students and very helpful and responsive when working with other advisors who have students considering art minors."
Borgman, associate director in the Office of Enrollment Management, was nominated for work with implementing Slate: "Hui-Ming has been instrumental in configuring Slate for the Graduate School. The new application process using Slate is nearly complete and, again, has been an overwhelming amount of work including configuration of the system, mapping data points from the new admissions application, and importing data from current application tools, CollegeNet and Salesforce. Hui-Ming always carries herself in a very professional manner and works through an, often, overwhelming amount tasks to improve processes at K-State."
McCarter, communications and marketing specialist at K-State Olathe, was recognized by her nominator: "Ashley continually offers to help improve our look. As someone who needs help to edit presentations to be on brand, she is always willing to help me improve my work and teach me how to do it. She is patient, friendly about helping others and does quality work. She deserves to be recognized for her commitment to working with the entire campus to elevate the K-State Olathe brand to any audience. She truly has improved our professionalism and is an enjoyable, fun, talented team member!"
Hubbell, training support specialist for Human Resources, was nominated with these words: "In my time at K-State, we haven't always had a full-time front office employee, and it was a game changer when Emma came on board. I can't stress enough how much of a positive impact Emma has been on HR as a whole."
Daugherty, network service manager for the Division of Information Technology, was recognized by his nominator: "Austin was responsive, approachable and easy to work with. It is people like Austin who make K-State a wonderful place to work. His attitude would brighten any person's day. Austin works to make other K-State employees' work smoother. He not only takes care of the telecom and network services but also ensures he does it with an exceedingly pleasing demeanor."
Hoffman, control center technician for the Division of Facilities, had nominators say: "His professionalism and technical knowledge are a testament to himself and the facilities team. Trevor is always ready to lend a helping hand, whether it is to a fellow technician or to a stranger in need. He shares his technical expertise across the other maintenance zones and beyond."
Santo-Flores, director in Student Engagement and Belonging, was nominated with the following words: "He has worked to create a welcoming environment in the Morris Family Multicultural Student Center that, due to his efforts, has seen a significant increase in engagement during his tenure. Kevin provides a friendly face and supportive care that students gravitate to; making the Center more than a place to study, but a place you feel at home."
Salceda, Lafene CAPS therapist, was nominated because: "Daniel has connected counseling services colleagues with each other and connecting counseling services with other offices. At CAPS, we experience retention and hiring difficulties. Daniel has been extremely helpful in keeping colleagues connected and has used his personal money to buy cards for birthdays and awards for end of the year parties."
Anyone can nominate eligible employees. Student employees and faculty are not eligible for award. Nominees will be reviewed by a University Staff Leadership committee of UPS and USS representatives. Winners will be featured in K-State Today and will receive $100 from the President's Office. Please submit your nominations by the first of each month.