CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — Sixteen academic professionals and civil service staff members have received the inaugural Chancellor’s Staff Excellence Award recognizing exceptional performance at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
The CSEA Program combines the Chancellor’s Academic Professional Excellence award and the Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award into a unified Chancellor’s staff award program. The CSEA recognizes the importance of the outstanding work of all university staff members who perform a wide range of critical functions for the university. A committee recommends finalists, who are then approved by Chancellor Robert Jones. Each awardee receives $1,500 and a commemorative award.
Two staff members received awards in each of eight functional categories. The 2023 honorees, as described by their nominators:
Administrative and Public Engagement
Hired as the Graduate College’s first communications specialist, Charlotte Bauer has expanded her role to become the assistant dean for communications and strategic planning. She has developed and implemented a multifaceted communications strategy to increase awareness of graduate students as a distinct and integral population on campus and online.
Under her leadership, what began as a weekly email bulletin to graduate students, GradLINKS, has expanded into a multimedia suite of communications channels to not only graduate students but also their faculty mentors, departmental contacts and campus service units. Her communications strategy has fostered a graduate community on campus from recruiting through graduation that celebrates graduate students and supports their success.
For Bauer, communications and strategic planning are integrated and collaborative processes. An adept convenor of stakeholders, she brings people together to think strategically about how to promote and enhance graduate education at Illinois. Nearly everything she does tells the Illinois story and supports the Illinois brand.
Nell Madigan serves the School of Labor and Employment Relations in a broad range of areas including corporate relations, career services, strategic communications, operations, facilities and alumni relations. As the associate dean of external relations and operations, she builds strong relationships with corporate partners and prepares students to shine as candidates. Her leadership has maintained a positive cycle of engagement that has consistently led to nearly all LER students landing HR-related internships and jobs upon graduation.
She produces all unit communications, including the annual report, website and a digital marketing campaign. She oversees regular building operations as well as special building projects and the associated strategic planning and execution. This includes management of the School’s recent six million dollar addition and renovation.
Madigan has been a key contributor to the career services community at Illinois and has been instrumental in the development and execution of strategic campuswide employer engagement initiatives. Her work helped encourage career offices across campus to work collaboratively to better serve employers, to the benefit of students and the university’s reputation as a preeminent source of college talent.
Clerical Administrative Support
As assistant to the head of African American studies, Desirée McMillion ensures that the department functions efficiently and effectively – even if that means going beyond her job description. She consistently supports faculty, staff and students across the university. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she filled vacant roles in addition to her other duties and implemented systems for purchasing, expense reports, advising and online course compliance.
McMillon works to integrate new employees and to obtain campus resources so that staff have everything they need to be confident and competent in their roles. She also ensures that faculty, graduate assistants and instructors are equipped for courses, research and professional development. Her contribution to and instruction of AFRO 100, the department’s introductory course, redefined how the course is taught and experienced, and the course is often cited as an example of the university ethnic study graduation requirement.
Her commitment to teaching and mentoring Black students speaks to her holistic approach. She provides guidance and encouragement to Black students across the university who often feel invisible and unacknowledged at times on campus. Her rapport with all is exceptional.
Audra Weinstein, administrative aide in the School of Art and Design, demonstrates an enormous capacity to manage the school’s multiple, simultaneous and often competing projects and initiatives. Her organization, initiative and creativity have been crucial for school functions such as faculty searches and tenure, undergraduate recruitment, faculty/staff meetings, alumni relations and communications.
As an expert in university policies and procedures, as well as the school and college bylaws, her ability to interpret and administer these policies allows administration, faculty and staff to perform their own jobs efficiently. As a strategic thinker, she provides the executive team with the information needed to identify priorities and develop strategies for action. She has been integral in establishing a culture of support, openness, engaged governance and shared mission.
Through all the diverse tasks she deals with daily, she remains calm and assured in a crisis. She is patient, cordial and unfailingly kind in all her interactions with students, faculty and staff.
Crafts and Trades
When something metal needs repair, service or construction, Facilities and Services calls Todd Hawkins, the iron workers foreperson. Beyond construction projects, iron workers are responsible for any metal fixtures on campus – hand rails, bike racks, trash cans, animal enclosures, art installations and more – and transport heavy, bulky or delicate fixtures and equipment. Under Hawkins’ leadership, this work is performed safely and without damaging the equipment, infrastructure or, most importantly, the crew.
He comes in early each morning to ensure the days’ work is laid out for his crew of six ironworkers. He leads in both word and example, never asking a member of his crew to perform a task he would not or has not done himself. His focus is efficiency, both physical and operational, approaching each project with a well thought out and organized plan to preserve bodily safety and budgetary resources while meeting clients’ needs with care.
Whether moving research equipment, installing new sculpture art, volunteering with the campus charitable fund drive or representing the university’s trade workers at high school career fairs, Hawkins enhances the university and its reputation.
As the pipefitter sub-foreman for housing facilities, Jeromy Spesard ensures that all resident HVAC needs are addressed in a timely manner, whether during the day or after hours. He leads a group of seven pipefitters that responds quickly to calls. He ensures each request is addressed with high priority, from each of the hundreds of air conditioner service requests at the beginning of the school year to mitigating a burst pipe on Christmas Day. His timely responses to emergencies at any hour minimize damage to the buildings and residents’ personal belongings.
In addition to deftly handling emergency repairs, he is proactive in maintaining quality and comfort for residents: He helped devise a plan to flush out piping to restore heat capacity in several buildings with recurrent problems, and identified additional piping and filters needed to provide the cleanest ice possible in residential ice machines.
By serving residents in a timely fashion and explaining the details of the service provided, he builds on the service reputation that University Housing counts on to continue growth.
Education/Extension/CITL
Lynn Burdick is a gifted teacher, role model and mentor who exemplifies the qualities of an outstanding educator. As the program coordinator for elementary education within curriculum and instruction, she helped the department navigate the shift to online classes in 2020 and the return to in-person instruction in 2021, turning a storeroom into a comfortable, casual meeting area for students who had been isolated for two years.
Beginning as a faculty development coordinator, she worked to equip instructors, researchers and preservice and practicing pre-K and K-12 teachers with 21st century skills to improve instruction, learning and assessment. She expanded her role to become the edTPA coordinator for Early Childhood, Elementary Education, Middle Grades and Secondary Education, helping students completing their portfolios for licensure.
After also taking on the program coordinator role, she noticed that recent graduates in their first years of teaching reported a lack of preparation in how to support students experiencing trauma. She is working with colleagues to integrate trauma-informed practices in preservice teacher education courses and develop a master’s concentration in trauma-informed education.
Krannert Art Museum education coordinator Kamila Glowacki leads the education team in setting values and priorities for museum educational programs. Her commitment to public arts and cultural education has strengthened public engagement and championed diversity, equity and accessibility in museum programs since 2014.
As museums pivoted in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, she led KAM’s education division with strong attention to the evolving needs of museum patrons and innovations in self-guided engagement and virtual and hybrid programming. She spearheaded a yearlong partnership with Booker T. Washington STEM Academy and co-created the KAM Pen Pals program to reach classrooms and homeschool groups across the state with art education curriculum. She also leads KAM's accessibility committee and assists in authoring guidance for disability-aware museum engagement.
Drawing from her own experience as an artist and musician, she devised Art Remastered, landmark live music series where local musicians perform original music composed in response to artworks in the museum's collection. She evolved the program through pandemic shutdowns and safe return to in-person events. With her leadership, museum education continues to grow in innovation, inclusivity, and diversity.
Information Technology
Cordelia Geiken manages two critical teams within Technology Services: quality assurance and assessment, responsible for evaluating and testing all products produced or purchased by Tech Services, and web hosting, responsible for website platforms offered to the campus community. She leads both teams deftly while also leading individuals with different reporting lines to achieve common goals.
As someone who has improved her skills over more than 30 years of work on campus – starting as a student worker and later becoming the first webmaster on campus, thanks to Mosaic – she also encourages her staff’s professional development. An advocate for inclusivity, she is involved in both campus and Big Ten-level organizations to strengthen the recruitment, retention and advancement of women in IT.
Along with managing two teams, Geiken co-chairs the campus Web Implementation Guidelines Group. This cross-disciplinary team has created free templates, tools and resources to help units across campus build and maintain engaging, useful and accessible websites that also meet brand standards, saving units time and money while facilitating a stronger, more consistent web presence across the university.
Since becoming infrastructure services manager for Engineering IT Shared Services in 2020, Darius Summerville has led the team to new levels of excellence through positive energy, improved collaboration, creative problem solving, reduced inefficiencies and continuous staff development opportunities. As a result of his success in transforming the infrastructure group, he also was given leadership of the audio video group, rebuilding it after staff departures and improving service.
He is an advocate for his staff’s development, seeking out opportunities for further advancement of their skills and careers. He also co-leads an internship program he helped to develop with Technology Services, and his development of interns in the program has been so successful that Engineering IT has integrated the internship program into its hiring plans and other units have expressed interest in participating.
In addition to improving staffing and structural development, he also has increased efficiency in services provided. By asking simple, direct questions and collaboratively composing proposals, he removed roadblocks to acquiring hardware and software and replaced operating systems at an affordable cost.
Research
For more than 15 years, Michael Brosco has led the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research and Innovation’s research application team in the ongoing development of a highly integrated IT environment for research support. Strategic innovation, user feedback, integration and responsiveness are hallmarks of his approach.
The work of Brosco and his team is crucial to maintaining research compliance, ethics, training requirements and funding programs, while reducing the administrative burden for researchers and support staff. He keeps the ever-growing list of research systems updated and running smoothly to help users achieve their objectives while also complying with changes in research policy and guidance, accessibility requirements, security systems, campus identity standards and more.
His team is adept at identifying opportunities to integrate their software with other applications across campus, from integrating experts data to make faculty profiles readily available across applications to developing a tablet-based tool for research animal care to distributing and recording COVID-19 safety training. The applications Brosco and his team develop have been showcased at national professional and research conferences, bringing distinction to the university and potentially achieving broader impact by being adopted by other institutions.
Anyone who has searched for a researcher or scholar on campus or needed to manage their own scholarly identity and profile has encountered the work of Mark Zulauf, the research information systems coordinator in the scholarly communication and publishing department of the University Library. He coordinates Illinois Experts, a research information management system that the library runs on behalf of the campus. His efforts help connect faculty and students, the press, funders, donors and others looking for campus researchers with expertise in particular areas.
He proactively leads outreach activities with units across campus to promote and identify opportunities for use of Illinois Experts data for departmental, advancement and communications needs. The system makes information on publications, patents and other forms of research and scholarship activity available to a range of stakeholders and supports a public portal, multiple campus websites, and various strategic reporting and decisionmaking needs. He also leads the university’s involvement in the international-standard ORCID researcher identifier system.
Beyond his stated job description, he also helps to manage and mentor the unit’s graduate assistants and serves as a safety coordinator for emergency situations.
Service and Maintenance
From the nitty-gritty details of animal cage wash to the subtle art of leadership and motivating staff, Holly Clem ensures that the university exemplifies excellence in research and animal welfare. Having begun her university career as an animal caretaker and worked up to animal facility supervisor and, finally, facility operations coordinator for the Division of Animal Resources, she is a trusted leader, coach and mentor to her staff.
She leads efforts to standardize animal care training, processes and facilities, while also accommodating the unique needs that some research settings require, such as reverse-light, biosafety and quarantine, and specialized species housing. Holly’s contagious spirit, positive attitude, eagerness to work as part of a team and willingness to take on new challenges were exemplified during the COVID-19 pandemic. Her practical guidance, confidence and compassionate leadership style were instrumental in helping her unit meet moral and ethical responsibilities to care for each other and the animals under their charge each day.
Clem’s work highlights the importance of research for animal and human health, while safeguarding the wellbeing of staff, researchers and the animals they work with.
As a building services worker in the Facilities and Services garage and car pool, Ebony Murray goes beyond her routine cleaning duties to take on extra tasks to improve building quality. Her positive attitude, flexibility and initiative enhance the ability of staff to work and thrive in the building.
Unfailingly respectful, polite and dedicated, she takes pride in her work. If there is an event or meeting in an area she needs to clean, she restructures her tasks so as not to interrupt any building occupants, yet ensures her job is completed efficiently and excellently.
She routinely steps up to perform any tasks that she sees need doing without waiting to be asked, whether taking care of a dropped coffee mug or keeping ahead of periodic deep cleaning tasks to maintain a welcoming atmosphere for all who enter the building. She even takes the time to detail clean the UI Ride intercampus shuttle buses to give riders a flawless experience in a clean atmosphere. She is committed to learning, growing and representing the university in a positive light.
Student Services
Rather than seeing the COVID-19 pandemic as limiting her role as the academic advisor and experiential learning coordinator for agricultural and consumer economics, Lauren Karplus accepted it as an opportunity to think more creatively about how to engage students in experiential learning. She deftly created new programs to help students safely put their classroom knowledge to work in the real world, such as an in-person course examining local food security and “ACE Farm Field Days,” daylong field trips to local agribusinesses.
Although her job description does not include supervisory duties, she has been a leader in mentoring new staff hires within the department. Based on feedback from students in a struggling program, she worked with faculty members to revamp it. She marketed a faculty study-abroad program so well that it became a highly sought-after experience and helped create a parallel course option to make the material accessible to more students.
Her commitment to integrating local agribusiness, speakers from diverse backgrounds and alumni into students’ curriculum has ensured that the department has meaningful connections throughout the state, nation and world.
As the director of the National and International Scholarship Program in the Campus Center for Advising and Academic Services, David Schug is dedicated to helping students and recent alumni pursue prestigious scholarships, leading Illinois to become one of the top producers of many nationally competitive awards.
While advising students on study abroad scholarships, Schug found only a few scattered resources across campus to support those interested in applying to other eminent scholarships. He proposed bringing all undergraduate advising for prestigious scholarships into a single office. As that office’s director, he has forged mechanisms to advertise scholarship opportunities and expanded the kinds of advising offered to match each scholarship’s idiosyncratic expectations. He leads students through reflective processes to compose the authentic and compelling stories at the heart of their scholarship applications.
Schug also has assembled a robust faculty network to distribute workload and add value to student interviews, assessments and feedback. His expertise has gained renown outside Illinois through the National Association of Fellowships Advisors, where he participates in key committees and training sessions for new advisors.