Award Winners

Erin Bisenius
Erin serves as an adviser, mentor and counselor for her students and is responsible for the success of her students. Working with students in the biomedical sciences graduate program, she helps them through the admissions process, establishing their curricula and guiding them through graduate school requirements. To make the life of faculty easier, she created guidelines with a comprehensive breakdown of what’s involved in mentoring a graduate student and began an applicant tracking system of current students. To ease the inquiry process, Erin created bi-weekly group meetings for those seeking entry into the program to answer their questions. Through “seeking a good deal” Erin was able to “upgrade” the 12 computers in the graduate student office with what they consider new computers. Her nominated said this: “Erin is the glue that holds our entire graduate program together.”

Linny Frickman
Linny was an essential player in developing the plans for the new Art Museum at CSU which brings approximately 12 international interdisciplinary focus exhibits each year to campus. She works with a 16 member advisory board composed of faculty and students to select these exhibits. Linny coordinates the Critic and Artist Residency series which is endowed by a 1.2 million anonymous gift and works with the Department of Art to secure many of the grants they obtain. She planned and executed the move of the permanent collection to the Center for the Arts. Her nominated said: “Linny is an experienced manager who collaborates with other departments on campus to bring exhibits to the region and make them accessible to a wide range of audiences.”

Demetrios Godenitz
If you know Demetrios then you know his “barbaric yawp” of a laugh and how he seems to acquire more energy the more work he does. He was instrumental in taking the lead on the PEAK program that is being considered by advisors in other departments across campus. His creation of the RamCT shell for first-year undeclared students will guide them through a variety of activities and assessments to help them in their major exploration. He has a talent for finding ways to do more with less such as implementing a one day of group advising for undeclared students. Demetrios works across campus with many departments such as The Career Center, AAC, Construction Management, Liberal Arts, Residence Life and the Braiden Outreach program. You might see him in Braiden over the lunch hour wearing a yellow t-shirt that says “Ask Me!” on the back

Andrea Leland
Andrea spearheaded the Centennial Project for the College of Engineering, making 100 years since the first degrees were awarded in Electrical Engineering. She pulled together multiple resources across campus to achieve this goal. Through her outreach efforts she continues to draw alumni back to campus for events and to network with current students and this includes her management and coordination of the ECE Industrial Advisory Board. She has coordinated and written a number of marketing pieces designed to educate, inform and promote the department to potential students and employers alike. Her recommender said: “She has distinguished herself as an outstanding, highly respected professional staff member and will continue to be a valuable asset to CSU.”

Angie Nielsen
Angie is the “go to” person for anyone who has to deal with Kuali! She was instrumental in the development and implementation of the Kuali budget construction module and with no road map in place, Angie and her team developed the steps in the process and the user manuals. They collaborated with many units across campus to make the system operational and drove the implementation process through identifying and fixing numerous bugs, assisting with the development of the training scenarios, campus-wide budget coordinator training and a successful budget load and reconciliation in late July early August 2010. The entire “go live” process was over a period of about 10 months!

Stephanie Ross
Stephanie spearheaded a herculean clean-up and safety upgrade project at the Foothills campus that spanned several months and required coordination of numerous university business units, employees and external services. When a building is declared a “health hazard” Stephanie is your go to person for coordination of mitigation efforts, recycling, shredding, surplus donation and disposal of items over 4 decades. What did Stephanie discover? A video camera dating to the 1950’s, an Army airplane tail fin from WWII, research and office equipment from every era and a few mice, spiders, snakes, rabbits and a feral cat. If this was an outside clean up job the cost would have been $200,000 and by keeping it in house the cost was $50,000. Her nominated said: “Stephanie is the only staff individual we know who has the diverse skills and perseverance to complete such a monumental effort on top of her regular duties.”

Summer Shaffer
Summer is dedicated to the success of the students she manages and is evident through her supervision and professional development. She works with her student staff to ensure they have meaningful projects that allow them to develop their professional skills. The creation of the SMAC team, a group of students focused on helping The Career Center develop branding and programming needs, has given a voice to students working with an organization that is “student fee funded”. Summer works across campus with multiple organizations helping them develop and implement a brand and also works with the image of the university. The imprint program implemented in the career center allows staff members to recognize others and shows that person has made a positive impression on another’s life. Her marketing skills are used to promote career center services to students, faculty and staff alike in a creative, fun and always changing fashion.

Lorie Smith
Loire finds creative ways to share resources between departments to achieve program enhancements that benefit all employees. She was nominated and attended the Colorado Network of Women Leaders Academic Management Institute, a leadership program specifically for women in higher education. She spends time trying to understand group dynamics as demonstrated through her work with the CSU PD and the tailored training she developed for this group and others across campus. She has worked to provide tailored one-on-one training sessions for the employees at CSU who are being laid off due to budget shortfalls including helping with their resumes and job searches.

Teri Suhr
Benefits – where would we be without them? 2010 was a critical year for our benefits plan and Teri’s diligent research, effort and shear tenacity helped CSU to achieve improved plans at no increased cost to the employee or CSU! She effectively worked with many resources both in and out of Human Resources to make this happen. She helped drive the effort of online benefits enrollment which reduced the amount of errors that were being made during the Paper and pencil error of enrollment selection. All this was accomplished while working with a reduced staff and training new employees as they came onboard.