Ross attends staff excellence ceremony to award 15 recipients

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The decision process for staff excellence award recipients has undergone several recent changes to ensure the best staff members are chosen objectively.

Tuesday afternoon in the Bovee University Center Rotunda room, 15 CMU staff members were presented awards.

About 100 friends, family, students and staff members attended the ceremony.

Opening the ceremony, Kevin Smart, director of Employee Relations, explained the rigorous decision process. Smart has been a part of organizing the ceremony since 2001.

Staff excellence award nominations are submitted annually, then solicited, reviewed, and rated using a standardized rating form for each nomination. Line managers confirm outstanding performances using the same rating form, and then division leaders finalize award recipients.

Mary Lou Morey, coordinator of media relations for employee relations, has coordinated the awards for the past seven years. Last year, she redesigned the program to include a rating system committee.

“We really wanted it to be the crème of the crop, the best of the best,” Morey said.

Two of the award recipients from the previous year are included in the rating system committee.

Out of the 1,500 staff members at CMU, 91 were nominated, 23 were finalists, and 15 were chosen. Morey said the winners of the award were very obvious this year since they were rated ten points ahead of the other nominees.

University President George Ross gave a speech and handed each recipient their award.

“We are not doing them a favor by serving them, they are doing us all a favor by giving us the opportunity to do something,” Ross said.

Systems Librarian Ruth Helwig was one of the recipients this year. She was nominated a total of five times this year, although it was her first year receiving a nomination at all.

“(I am) very honored, I appreciate my colleagues taking the time to write the letters to nominate me,” Helwig said.

Also a first-time nominee, Laurie Bahlke, communications disorders clinical supervisor, has been a CMU employee for nine and a half years.

“It feels very good,” Bahlke said. “I’m excited, I’m humbled, and very appreciative.”

The recipients were given a plaque and prepaid parking permit for a year.