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Pat on the Back Awards November 2005

Congratulations to —

Brent Kundinger, ATS-Sigma Team Technician - for having one of the largest support academic areas, Brent has had to learn many highly technical software titles and get them to work with each other. His diligence and positive upbeat attitude makes his support areas successful and running very well. Way to go Brent.

Christine O. Jacobs, Circulation Services, FLITE. On Thursday, October 6, Chris was called at home at 4:00AM by the library night supervisor to be informed that the 4AM replacement night supervisor had not shown up to work. Chris got up, came in to work the Extended Hours part of the library where there were approximately half a dozen students who had been studying since midnight. She is always available to do this kind of thing, and has done it many times in the past. This is real dedication to the job and to the students of Ferris. She gets little or no recognition of all that she does, so I believe she deserves a great big PAT-ON-THE-BACK-AWARD in recognition of this above and beyond concern for our students.

Nikki Bigelow, Jennie Zimmerman, Elyse Earnest, Julie Monks, Acacia Norman, student employees, Student Employment and Career Services. At this time I would like to recommend our student staff to be acknowledged for all their hard work getting ready for the Job Fair and for their hard work at the Job Fair. It takes a lot of effort to get ready as well as the hard work during set up for the Job Fair. The companies that attended the Job Fair had many good comments regarding our student employees and felt that we had a good crew and that they were very helpful.

Marsha Longbrake, Donna Myers, Sherry Standen, Linda Reed, Jacque Campau, Beth Prochazka, Kelli London, and Cathryn Claerhout, Admissions and Records. In order to make the transfer equivalencies be a smooth transition from SIS to Banner, tens of thousands of transfer equivalence course records needed to be reviewed and updated! This enormous task was completed in record time thanks to the hard work of this group!

Eric Marshall, Nhu-Khanh Nguyen, Stacey Purcell, job fair student volunteers; Julie Monks, and Jennie Zimmerman, student employees, Student Employment and Career Services; Carrie Adams, job fair assistant; Debbie Lunsted, Laurie Kilborne, SECS's staff. While we had a large group of student volunteers that helped later in the day. This group was the 8 a.m. support that "went above and beyond" when a miscommunication left us with 113 tables/226 chairs to set up. We did it in record time! It was a great group effort.

Dr. John Cullen serves with a smile, encouragement and warmth. He has been a huge support to the staff and students in the Honors Program since he took over as asst. to the coordinator in January 2005. His attention to detail, desire to get all the facts and figures straight with the various majors, and his relaxing demeanor make students' visits to his office positive experiences. John's commitment to high quality programming, and his wide-ranging vision have improved this experience for all.

Deb Vance and Gayle Driggers, Languages & Literature. As Chair of the Academic Senate Diversity Committee, I worked to bring Tim Wise to campus in September. Tim's visit, however, could not have happened without the assistance of the these two staff members. Deb was responsible for seeing the presentation got on the campus calendar, for helping me put together the poster to publicize his visit, and seeing that the paperwork and posters were picked up and delivered on time. Gayle has been responsible for shuffling the paper that paid Tim's fees and his travel expenses. She is STILL negotiating this process in Banner. I assumed the role chair of the committee without realizing it would make work for Gayle and Deb. But, great folks they are, they have not complained about the additional work. They are SUPERB!

Special Item! Random Act of Kindness
Jim Cuneo, father of Ferris student Nicole Cuneo, recently informed the Marketing and Communications that his daughter was on her way home to Big Rapids from Armada on Monday, Oct. 24, and stopped at a rest area near Big Rapids and found an abandoned dog with tags. After determining that the owners were no where in sight, Nicole decided to transport the dog to Big Rapids with her. She boarded the dog for several days while she made attempts to locate the owners. Much to her satisfaction, her research led her to the owners, who live about two hours south of Big Rapids. They were elated to have their "best friend" back home safe and sound.