A New Honor at Staff Awards

• There's a new wrinkle in this year’s Staff Awards – the Presidential Staff Excellence Awards.
  
  The new award recognizes individual San Diego State University staff members in four categories, as well as two or more individuals for the team award.
  
  Awardees
  
  The categories and awardees for the first-ever Presidential Staff Excellence Award include:
  
  Community Service: Elizabeth Saenz-Ackermann, Center for Latin American Studies
  Service to the University: Cecilia Necoechea, College of Education
  Staff-to-Staff Mentoring: Dawn Christiansen, Department of Political Science
  Innovation: Martha Pedroza, College of Education
  Team: Jill Baumgartner, Joshua Hoskins, Robin Shimasaki, Ian Moore, all with the Division of Graduate Affairs
  
  SDSU President Stephen L. Weber will present the new awards at the end of Staff Awards, which takes place from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, Oct. 10 in Cox Arena.
  
  Choosing the recipients
  
  There were 63 nominations made in total, with multiple people nominating the same person, said Michael Bayliss, committee chair for the Staff Awards and Student Affairs administrative coordinator in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
  
  Bayliss and other committee members evaluated the nominations and sent no more than five nominees from each category to Weber for consideration.

"San Diego State University staff members are among the most hard working and dedicated employees any university could hope to employ," Weber said. "I am proud to honor individual employees for their outstanding performance, service to our university and to the neighboring community."

Making it happen

According to Donovan Geiger, chair of the university-wide Staff Affairs committee and Student Affairs coordinator for the College of Engineering, the award has been more than two years in the works.

The SDSU Staff Affairs Committee approached the president about having a president-sponsored annual staff award. President Weber agreed that it was a wonderful idea.

"We were ecstatic," Geiger said. "(President Weber's) office loved it and we're happy to see this come to fruition."

To nominate someone for next year’s Presidential Staff Excellence Award, look for a call for nominations next May in SDSUniverse.