UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa - Penn State University President Eric Barron and his wife, Molly, welcomed members of the University Staff Advisory Council (USAC) and the recipients of the 2018 USAC Awards to their home at Schreyer House on Tuesday for a celebration of these staff members’ outstanding accomplishments and contributions to the University.
Speaking during the awards ceremony, President Barron shared that he and his wife have initiated a fund that will provide a monetary component for the annual USAC awards, which he hopes others will contribute to in recognition of the important role that staff play at Penn State.
“The awards committee members had the pleasure of reading through more than 90 award nominations this year, which were an example of the outstanding and diverse staff we have at Penn State,” said USAC Awards Committee chair Megan Gilpin. “It was difficult to select just one winner in each category because each nominee brought such talent to Penn State. But Corinna Fisher, Jamie Perryman and Kristy Bryan rose to the top.”
The USAC Staff Morale Award was awarded to Kristy Bryan, who has been employed with the University since 2013 with World Campus. She is an academic adviser and, as she says, “all things student” is her job. Bryan assists World Campus students with their academic planning and course selection, and advocates across Penn State on behalf of her students. She also participates in the Student Disability Team’s strategic planning efforts and contributes to that team’s development of online support resources for online learners.
Her nominator said: “Kristy has been my unofficial mentor. It would be impossible to even estimate the amount of time that she has taken from her own work day to help me field all sorts of questions, help me with students, and live up to the potential that I have as a fellow academic adviser. She is so encouraging - guidance, encouragement, and support are what she sows. She recognizes my potential and progress, even when I can’t see it.”
The winner of the 2018 Staff Leadership Award is Jamie Perryman, who started her career at Penn State in 2007 and became an administrative manager with the Stuckeman School of Architecture and Landscape Architecture in 2016. She works with the associate dean and director of the school, providing long-range planning assistance, managing donor gifts, and overseeing the hiring, training and management of full-time staff.
Her nominators said of Jamie: "It is due to Jamie’s leadership that the Stuckeman School has completely transformed into a highly efficient operation and a place where staff enjoy coming to work every day.” They lauded Jamie’s dedication and how she works “very hard to foster a strong sense of community for our staff. She is building a team that cares about their work but also cares about each other.”
Corinna Fisher is the recipient of the 2018 Staff Excellence Award. Fisher has been employed by Penn State since 2004 and moved into her position as the constituent programming and event officer for the College Relations Office in the College of Agricultural Sciences four years ago. In this position, Corinna manages college events, such as their annual lobbying day in Harrisburg, tailgates, the Farm Show, and serves as the primary point-of-contact for external industry and government stakeholders for the college.
Most recently, Fisher has been instrumental in supporting the Penn State Extension’s effort to manage clientele, stakeholder and organization interactions through the implementation and integration of supporting platforms and processes, known as the Atlas Project. Fisher worked with this team to clean nearly 1,000 independently managed databases from across the state, setting criteria for the use of industry and legislative contacts and recommending structure and navigation for the data within the salesforce. One of Fisher’s colleagues noted that she has been “an indispensable resource to the college as it took on the immense project of integrating multiple systems and data into one central repository for all customer information.”
Her director and nominator notes that Corinna "strives for excellence in all aspects of her job and helps ensure that our programs and events meet and exceed our stakeholder expectations. She exemplifies the standard of excellence demanded by our stakeholders, the College of Ag Sciences, and Penn State University."
USAC serves the president and his administration in an advisory capacity through the vice president of human resources about issues that have an impact on staff across the University. USAC provides a forum for the exchange of ideas among the members of the University staff and serve as an advocate for staff welfare and development.
For more information, visit http://ohr.psu.edu/university-staff-advisory-council.