Staff Council has announced the winners of the
2003 Board of Regents Staff Excellence Awards and
University Outstanding Staff Awards.
The Regents awards go to staff members whose
work has effects not only at the University but
also in state and national or international arenas.
Winners of the Regents awards are:
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| Sandra
J. Jirsa |
Sandra J. Jirsa, public health microbiologist,
Hygienic Laboratory, is supervisor of virology
and teaches virology at the Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention. She provides on-site
training around Iowa for collection of specimens
of influenza and sexually transmitted diseases.
She has implemented highly complex methods
for virus detection and characterization
and is responsible for a number of significant
disease-surveillance programs in Iowa.
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| Michael
D. Schueller |
Michael D. Schueller, limnologist and supervisor
of Environmental Health, Hygienic Laboratory,
is the project manager for the Iowa Department
of Natural Resources’ water-monitoring
program. With an increase in both the number
of sites that need to be tested and the number
of tests that must be done, Schueller coordinated
the transfer of large quantities of water-quality
analysis data from the hygienic lab’s
Laboratory Information Management Systems into
an Environmental Protection Agency database
called STORET (STOrage and RETrieval). This
allows for more rapid retrieval of data.
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| Jamie
D. Sharp |
Jamie D. Sharp, coordinator of continuing
education, College of Dentistry, is in phased
retirement after 26 years as coordinator of
continuing dental education. She has expanded
and improved educational opportunities available
to Iowa’s dentists and auxiliary personnel,
using courses from the college, the Iowa Communications
Network, and the state’s 10 dental districts.
She also has held offices in national, state,
and local dental organizations.
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| James
Walker |
James Walker, director, Health Protection
Office, is an expert in the handling of chemical,
radiological, and biological hazards, including
regulatory issues and proper handling and disposal.
His primary responsibilities are to protect
the health of University workers and the integrity
of the University’s research enterprise
by creating policies and procedures that ensure
compliance with laws and regulations. His office
provides continuing education opportunities
for faculty and trains students in protocols
for safe disposal of hazardous waste. He also
is a consultant to Iowa City, Coralville, Johnson
County, and state emergency-planning groups.
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| Michelle
L. Wiegand |
Michelle L. Wiegand, editor of Legislative
Studies Quarterly since its inception in
1976, has been credited with the growth of
the journal, which now is regarded as the
top journal specializing in legislative matters—from
city councils and state legislatures to the
U.S. Congress, and from provincial parliaments
to the European Parliament and the United
Nations. She chairs editorial board meetings
in conjunction with political science meetings
across the country, and manages subscriptions,
author relations, deadlines, finances, and
fund-raising for the journal.
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| Joel
Wilcox |
Joel Wilcox is an academic adviser and the
director of WebISIS, the University’s
student registration system, which allows students
to register for courses online. WebISIS also
lets prospective students track their applications
for admission and financial aid, saving staff
time and giving students more complete and
accurate information. He also developed OSIRIS,
a staff version, which gives staff access to
student data and allows departments and administrators
to interact automatically with their own data.
He also helped to develop Courses in Common,
the University’s retention initiative
for first-year students in which they may enroll
in two or three classes with the same cohort
of first-year students. |
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Outstanding Staff Awards recognize excellence in work within departments
or organizations on campus and contributions to the University as a
whole. Winners of the Outstanding Staff Awards are:
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| Susan J. Carlson |
Susan J. Carlson, dietitian, Food and Nutrition
Services, is the nutritionist for sick babies
in the special care nurseries at the Children’s
Hospital of Iowa. She has been a key member
of the multidisciplinary team that manages
the prematurely born and critically ill patients
in the nurseries, assuring nutritional management
for more than 10,000 babies who were in the
nurseries during her 16 years. The survival
rate for very-low-birth-weight babies in the
hospital’s neonatal intensive care unit
(NICU) is better than that of 96 percent of
NICUs in a recent survey. |
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| Keith Alan Miller |
Keith Alan Miller, senior engineering research
and development machinist in the College of Liberal
Arts and Sciences’ Department of Psychology,
has been called upon to build instrumentation
and devices used in psychology research—ranging
from interpersonal relations to neurophysiological
functioning. He has designed and built dollhouses
used in studying children’s spatial cognition;
animal learning chambers for rabbits, rats, and
pigeons; and precisely controlled and calibrated
standard stimuli used in studying human perception.
In addition, he configures and fixes computer
hardware and software used in research and teaching
support. |
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| Jacqueline Nelson |
Jacqueline Nelson, administrative
associate, Children’s and Women’s
Services, UI Hospitals and Clinic, served as
department
facility coordinator to work with UIHC Capital
Management in facilitating the construction
and planning of the hospital’s perinatal
construction project. This project, including
the new pediatric intensive care unit, maternity
center, and neonatal intensive care unit, is
one of the largest and most complex construction
projects in UIHC history. She managed every
aspect of the project, working with contractors
and subcontractors, more than 20 hospital departments
and services, hospital architects, bioengineers,
and telecommunication experts. This work was
performed in addition to her role as an administrative
associate in Children’s and Women’s
Services, in which she develops and manages
the division’s $20 million annual operating
budget and multimillion-dollar capital budgets,
and supervises the staffing office.
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| Joyce
Terhune |
Joyce Terhune is the recently retired Neurology
Outpatient Clinic scheduling secretary, charged
with balancing patients’ and referring
physicians’ urgent requests with the
complex schedules of more than 30 physicians.
As appointment scheduling has become more computer-dependent,
she gave patients a human voice that told them
that their requests would not simply be translated
into a keystroke on the computer but that they
would receive personal attention. In doing
so, she gave the clinic a positive impression
for tens of thousands of Iowans. |
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| Donna
Welter |
Donna Welter, director of human resources
and finances, Graduate College, is responsible
for all personnel and budget matters in the
college. That includes 50 faculty and staff
positions and a budget of more than $15 million.
She is responsible for assuring that the
appointments of about 3,400 graduate research
and teaching assistants are maintained every
academic semester for nearly 100 graduate
degree programs on campus. In addition, when
a new, uniform tuition-scholarship policy
was brought into the University’s contract
with the graduate employee union, she was
responsible for implementing it in a highly
complex environment.
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| Martha
Wieland |
Martha Wieland, clinical operations coordinator
at the DeGowin Blood Center, UIHC Department
of Pathology, manages all service and nursing
operations of the DeGowin Blood Center and
its inpatient and outpatient therapeutic
apheresis sections. Her colleagues in the
Holden Comprehensive Cancer Center praise
her ability to give clear and easy-to-understand
information to their patients/families and
medical and nursing staff about serious and
frightening procedures.
by
Anne Tanner
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