CoE Announces Winners of Staff Awards
January 10, 2008
On October 18, 2007, winners of the CoE Outstanding Administrative Support Staff Award and the Outstanding Professional Support Staff Award were announced. All full-time support staff employees in the College were eligible, through a CoE staff or faculty nomination. Criteria for nomination included collegiality, helpfulness, initiative, positive attitude, and exemplary performance of tasks included in the individual’s job description. The recipients were honored at the ceremony and presented with a certificate for framing and a cash award of $1,000.
Darla Dao, ChE Administrative Program Specialist, was awarded the 2007 Outstanding Administrative Support Staff Award. An employee of the CoE for 21 years, she has worked in her current position for the past 13 years. Her job description includes overseeing daily operations of the office, managing all ChE Department accounts, and assisting visitors, students, and employees with any problems or questions.
A nominator stated, “Ms. Dao has demonstrated superior work performance in contributing to the achievement of Departmental and University goals by providing consistent and reliable support to the chairman, 15 full-time professors, 4 instructors, 52 graduate students and more than 300 undergraduate students. Ms. Dao continually demonstrates her willingness to do more than her assigned duties. For example, on more than one occasion she has taken the time to instruct faculty on how to use the Office of Purchasing new on-line requisition system as well as the Office of Sponsored Programs new on-line proposal routing system. It is one of many things she does, on her own accord, to support the faculty and staff of the Department.”
Charles Smith, ME Research Specialist 2, received the 2007 Outstanding Professional Support Staff Award. He has worked for the CoE for seven years. His job description includes troubleshooting and servicing instruments and equipment in the laboratory, serving as principle laboratory instructor for ME 3633, and supervising student workers and graduate students on special projects.
Excerpted from numerous letter submissions, Smith’s nominators stated “Whenever I needed anything related to my research work or for items in the undergraduate laboratory work Charles was always there to help me and my graduate students.” One colleague explained, “Noteworthy was his dedication and timely response in meeting the transportation needs of the ABET reviewers for all the Engineering programs at LSU. In addition, … he would go out of his way, working even during weekends, to prepare the ME labs. In fact, he himself planted some of the boxwood plants in front of CEBA working even on Sunday mornings.” Another nominator said “… let me outline Charlie’s contributions to ME 3633: Manufacturing Processes, a required course for all ME and IE students. The key learning aspect of this class is student shop experience. Since Charlie took over, the two turning projects have been made more realistic, the milling project has been brought up to date by including a CNC component, and a MIG welding project has been added. Moreover, all projects are individual projects, so now (there are) four one-person projects per student. This four-fold increase in hands-on projects can be expected to result in a like increase in students’ learning. None of this would have been possible without Charlie’s tireless efforts, his insights into developing/improving projects, and his passion for teaching. It would also not have been possible without his considerable skill as a mechanic: he has single-handedly managed to get the five seldom-used lathes we inherited up and running sufficiently well to handle 45 student projects/year on each lathe.”
Article by Collette Burke for the College of Engineering, 225-578-5706, mlavall@lsu.edu
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