Extra Effort Awards – April 17, 2020
Deanne Belshe, Manager Digital Communications, Business Continuity Management – Nominated by Sandra Warner
This past week Deanne quickly reorganized the COVID-19 related content in an effort to make information readily available to those supporting students during this challenging time. With all instruction and student support happening remotely, the biggest challenge has been to find the most up to date and accurate version of all of the information needed. Deanne has done a truly outstanding job keeping pace to meet the changing needs throughout the past month as JCCC made the shift to “online everything”!
Megan Casey, Assistant Bursar, Financial Services – Bursar – Nominated by Gayle Callahan
When conferences and student travel began cancelling, Megan worked with faculty and staff to process refunds. Nearly 200 refunds were processed in a very short time for various spring break trips and conferences that were scheduled this spring. During that first week off campus, Megan processed refunds, managed communications with students, worked with other campus departments to post their daily payments (refunds) and requested access for her staff to work remotely. In general, Megan kept things running even while getting lots of additional requests for refunds, reports and process changes!
Angie Claussen, Counselor, Counseling – Nominated by Alex Wells
When counseling switched our operations to online, there was a wealth of information being shared that needed to be housed in a way that was accommodating and accessible. Angie’s work creating a centralized location in Microsoft Teams was paramount to the center’s success.
Nominated by Alicia Bredehoeft
Angie initiated and continuously updates a spreadsheet with daily changes, information, resources and has made it shareable for our work group. Counseling is called upon by the community, students, faculty and staff to provide current and accurate information during this time of transition. The centralized depository of important content allows our team to be consistent, supportive and helpful to many who are confused and overwhelmed. Angie has gone above and beyond to support our work group. Angie does it with a cheerful heart and positive spirit.
Leann Eaken, Administrative Assistant, Continuing Education – Nominated by Zach Gredlics
Leann has gone above and beyond to work with our instructors in getting prepared for moving their courses online unexpectedly, including making them feel comfortable with the technology, getting rooms set up, and conducting test sessions. She also worked to help get both open enrollment and contract courses rescheduled when they could not go online, alerting students, and initiating transfers when needed. She has been a huge help in keeping the CE Business Leadership programs running during these times.
Jessica Garcia, Counselor, Counseling – Nominated by Alex Wells
Jessica’s knowledge of distance learning and counseling has been critical for the counseling center’s transition to a digital presence. Thanks to her counseling can be assured we are following the proper guidelines.
Nominated by Alicia Bredehoeft
The COVID-19 crisis has impacted our lives forever. We have students, faculty and staff who are struggling with many issues of fear, anxiety, depression and suicidal thoughts because of these abrupt and drastic changes to our everyday lives. Jessica developed an intake counseling template for ZOOM appointments. This intake questionnaire is presented before each counseling ZOOM session before a student logs in to meet with a JCCC Counselor. This intake information provides both the student and the counselor with information and expectations on how to receive the most support during the individual’s session. Jessica researched several options, tested the on-line resource, developed the template, gathered input from her colleagues and trained the counseling faculty on how to implement this form. Jessica’s efforts will save lives.
Rabeh Ghadiri, Office Coordinator, IISS, IISS – Nominated by Kim Steinmetz
Rabeh is deserving of the extra effort award. She has been working very hard to find creative ways to support incoming students as we’ve transitioned to this online environment. She is working on a project which as more than 1,000 applicants. She is working to remove admissions holds and to support enrollment for students. Rabeh has creative ways to manage this work, but also support students. Thank you Rabeh.
Karen Glenn, Financial Aid Compliance Officer Loans, Financial Aid – Nominated by Debbie Brewer
When JCCC first closed, Karen came into the office several times to run loan processes and financial aid processes while we were preparing to work from home. This prevented any delay in delivery of student’s financial aid funds. This was one major step that allowed uninterrupted financial aid services during our closure.
Michelle Heffron, Administrative Assistant, Counseling – Nominated by Alex Wells
Michelle spent a tremendous amount of time and extra work to make sure counseling and counselor’s were given access to what they needed to work from home. She came into the center when she didn’t have to in order to call students that already had appointments so they were aware of how we were operating moving forward.
Joel Hoy, Billing and Accounts Receivable Supervisor, Financial Services – Bursar – Nominated by Gayle Callahan
When the decision was made to close JCCC midway through the Spring term, Joel moved into action to update communications to students about holds, payment plan processing, returned payments, refunds and summer dates including payment deadline. Because of the financial impact on students and our absence from campus, many processes have been modified or relaxed. Joel ensured that students, staff and collection agencies understand what changes have been implemented.
Farrell Jenab, Director, Faculty Development , Faculty Development – Nominated by Ed Lovitt
Farrell has stepped forward to support faculty teaching and learning during this difficult times for both faculty and students. She is quick to brainstorm ideas and support existing offerings like the Live Zoom sessions from Megan Doyle and Valerie Mann on “Online Best Practices”. She has also taken the lead on using Podcasting as a tool to share ideas with faculty in a digital format.
Dixie Johnson, Administrative Assistant, Emergency Management – Nominated by Alisa Pacer
Dixie Johnson goes above and beyond for Emergency Management, especially during this crisis. She was charged with setting up the college Emergency Operation Center (EOC) in RC 255 for incident management purposes and did so quickly. Dixie has had a continuously positive attitude in doing simply anything that is asked including a lot of research, information comparison, transfer of data, and always being available. She maintains the college master incident log tracking activities, decisions, and assigned tasks during the COVID-19 event. She has helped maintain and document activities and communications for the college Virtual Emergency Operations Center since March 15. Dixie also tracks and maintains a master list of essential personnel and the daily footprint of who is on campus every day. These crisis duties are critical for many aspects of this incident. Thank you Dixie!
Chris Leeson, Technical Support, IT – Nominated by Valerie Jones
During this stay at home time, I have had to call upon Chris on more than one occasion. This past Monday, my co-worker and I had a deadline to meet submitting a report, but we were having some technical issues. I texted Chris to see if he was available for a conference call. He immediately said yes, walked us through some steps and helped get us on track. Chris is always pleasant and helpful.
Vickki Jo Powers, Bursar Accountant, Financial Services – Bursar – Nominated by Gayle Callahan
In the first week of the campus closing, Vickki Jo jumped in to help respond to student emails answering a myriad of questions students had about the impact. One big change we made immediately was to allow students to postpone their 3rd spring payment plan installment that was scheduled to come out on March 16. Vickki Jo was very instrumental in communicating with students and pulling those payments out upon students’ request. She also processed refunds to students who had placed financial aid funds on their ID card for use in Dining so they could use that money off campus.
Aaron Swift, Administrativei Assistant, Police Department – Nominated by Alisa Pacer
Aaron Swift has been Chief Russell’s right hand for support and assisted with critical Emergency Management activities. He has helped test equipment, conference bridge lines, video management, and zoom calls for activation processes. Aaron also assisted in set up the Emergency Operation Center in RC 255 with anticipation of activation. Aaron coordinated the supply of critical personal protective equipment with Johnson County Emergency Management for the Police Department. This allows our first responder police officers to have the critical equipment they need to keep the campus safe and secure. Thank you, Aaron, for being such a supportive resource during this crisis.
Mariquita Taylor, Administrative Assistant , Counseling – Nominated by Alex Wells
Mariquita spent extra time coming into the center to reach out to students that had appointments with counselors to make sure they were aware of changes to our system.
Amy Warner, Counselor, Counseling – Nominated by Alex Wells
During Counseling’s transition to strictly an online presence, Amy has been an invaluable. Her technology skills and ability to multitask people and projects made all the difference in the center being operational.
Nominated by Alicia Bredehoeft
Amy Warner initiated ZOOM access for all Counseling Faculty on Thursday, March 12th. Amy implanted, trained and assisted every counselor in updating their laptop to be prepared for ZOOM appointments with students. Amy was instrumental in working with the Counseling Administrative Team to ensure accurate information and access for communication to students regarding ZOOM Counseling Sessions. The Counseling Faculty were “up and running’ by 8:00 a.m. Monday, March 16th with student appointments on the first day of sheltering in place. We have engaged with over 900 students since we left campus. Amy has continued to train counseling colleagues on MS TEAMS and navigated ZOOM updates. Our delivery of service to students, faculty and staff has essentially been seamless during the COVID-19 pandemic with Amy’s dedication and strengths.
Sandra Warner, Exec Dir Bus Continuity, Business Continuity – Nominated by Leslie Quinn
Sandra Warner has been heroic in all of her efforts to help us navigate these uncharted waters. She has been so graceful in stepping in to help in any way she can. I know she is juggling so many things right now but she has been a massive help in fostering clear communication, documenting decisions, and helping teams work through their business continuity issues. We are so very blessed to have her on our campus.
Alex Wells, Faculty Chair, Counseling and Advising, Counseling and Advising – Nominated by Casey Buchanan
As chair of a department of 30 faculty members and six administrative staff responsible for the daily operations of a Counseling Center with thousands of student contacts per week, Alex has shown exceptional leadership in transitioning that operation to a completely virtual delivery system in the span of 2 days. With his guidance, hard-work, and collaboration with other stake-holders, the Center saw zero interruption in service to students, including continuation of services during Spring break. He continues to manage, tweak, and improve delivery of services in the virtual environment while relaying frequent updates vital to student concerns in this transition. Taking a Counseling Center from face-to-face to virtual is no small task were we given a semester to do so, this was done over a 2 day period. Alex has done, and continues to do, an amazing job of utilizing the strengths of everyone in the department to make this seamless transition possible. The conversations he has had with people from every department across campus and within our own department to make this happen speak to his leadership and his care for students. The transition was not perfect, but it was as close to seamless as possible, and largely in part to the efforts of our chair.
Nominated by Alicia Bredehoeft
Alex has lead our team and brought us together during this crisis. Alex has increased communication 110% so that we all are in the loop and up to date on the most current information for students. He represents counseling faculty and student development in branch and institutional ZOOM meetings to provide student advocacy during these unprecedented times. Alex is concerned for each person’s mental health and well being. He maintains a sense of humor and creates a calm and confident environment for the Counseling Center to be able to perform our roles as seamless as possible. He has been an exceptional leader during this time of uncertainty.
Christal Williams, Financial Aid Director, Financial Aid – Nominated by Gayle Callahan
Christal took leadership on distributing grant money to students provided by the CARES Act. The act only provided only broad guidelines. Christal asked colleagues at other community colleges what other schools and doing. She then proposed strategies for how JCCC should distribute these funds to students with financial need resulting from JCCC’s changed operations. She developed the application for students to apply for this funding. Kudos to all financial aid staff who will be processing numerous applications and making awards to students in the upcoming weeks.
Emily Ziegler, Counselor, Counseling – Nominated by Alex Wells
Emily created support groups within counseling to help counselors have a place in which they could process current events and coping strategies. This has been a wonderful outlet for many counselors to make sure we are healthy in order to better serve students in need.
Kena Zumalt, Program Director, Veteran Services – Nominated by Donny Whitton
Kena has worked hard and put in the extra effort to drive team focus in a time of confusion. She has lead the team in thinking about how things will go forward until and after we resume campus life. She has used this time to direct us on projects to revamp standing documents, websites and procedures that has helped us stay unified as a team. Many of these procedures will remain the go to procedures even after we assumer a normal campus life.
Valerie Mann & Megan Doyle, Chair College Success / Assistant Professor, College Success – Nominated by Ed Lovitt
Both Valerie and Megan have stepped forward in providing assistance for faculty in moving face-to-face courses online. They have provided Zoom sessions on “Online Best Practices” and “Using Modules in Canvas”. These sessions have provided a faculty perspective on moving forward and have allowed faculty to ask questions about using Canvas and how to quickly use Canvas tools. Members of my team in the Ed Tech Center are excited about how faculty are sharing their approaches to online teaching and learning.
Casey Buchanan and Star Triscornia , Assistant Faculty Chairs – Counseling, Counseling – Nominated by Alicia Bredehoeft
Casey and Star are the strong, silent leaders who do a tremendous amount of work behind the scenes. Casey is an excellent sounding board and has generated creative ideas for weekly ZOOM meetings to lift our spirits and provide reality checks. Star is the ultimate in organization and details. Star works directly with our Administrative Assistants to evaluate, update and implement additional counselor support for incoming student e-mails, 50% increase in student Instant Messaging (IM) access and communicating updated staffing charts and written protocol for IM process and procedures in our new off campus home offices. Casey and Star are critical to the success we have engaging with students. Their leadership has been critical in the effective “new normal” for our delivery of services to students, faculty and staff in the past four weeks.
Michelle Heffron, Paula Gamble, Ileana Simpson, Kathy Jones, Lydia Schifano and Mariquita Taylor, Counseling Center Administrative Assistant Team, Counseling – Nominated by Alicia Bredehoeft
These women are the frontline for JCCC. They are our “first responders” who meet students where they are in their lives and educational journey. This team flipped to all e-mail access from home in less than 24 hours to connect students with counselors, admissions, registration, etc. when our campus closed. They monitor Early Alerts for crisis student referrals from faculty and staff. They scanned close to a hundred college forms and documents before we left campus so these could be accessed by counselors to respond to student needs in all virtual environment. They are my heros!
All Bursar Staff, All Bursar Staff, Finanical Services – Bursar – Nominated by Gayle Callahan
All the Bursar staff responded with a Can Do attitude as we moved to working remotely. Even though we had just begun our Business Continuity planning the week that we closed and none of the hourly staff had remote access, they all worked hard in our last couple days on campus to catch up on work and prepare for remote operations. The remote operations included many adjustments to normal processes such as relaxing payment due dates and holds and expediting refunds that all staff had to be aware of in order to assist students. As soon as they got VPN access, all staff worked to find creative ways to do their work that in the past relied on paper reports, cashiering equipment, multiple screens, etc. Notably Latonya Hood actually returned from maternity leave the first week we were closed. She, like everyone else, jumped in answering emails and processing payments, refunds, web department deposits, billing, and so on as soon as they had access.
Laura Radke, Gary Boyd, and Connor Nyberg, Senior Project Manager, Procurement Services – Nominated by Jim Feikert
For quite some time procurement has been working with the IT Dept to transition requisition and PO processing to an all-electronic format. This is not an easy task as there are lines of code that need to be written, new parameters established, and communication between Banner and Imaging. On top of that, the IT Dept has no shortage of priority projects to work on. Once JCCC went into a remote work environment, it became crucial for this to occur so that Procurement Services could keep pace with requisitions and vendors, while still maintaining the integrity and transparency of imaging the Reqs/POs. Laura, Gary, and Connor kicked things into overdrive and worked hard to accomplish this monumental feat! They even went a step further to add print parameters to a centralized email box where all procurement personnel can get eyes/ears on the various requisitions to triage them! A HUGE thanks to Laura, Gary, Connor, and anyone involved in this amazing effort! It has helped us out so much to be more nimble and flexible in serving our end-users and vendors!