Vice President for Information Technology Bonnie Neas presented the second annual divisional Award for Innovation, Collaboration and Excellence to Britt McAlister from the Enterprise Computing and Infrastructure department on March 18.
McAlister received the award for working with a variety of customers to develop an efficient financial reporting Web site and report distribution process for NDSU and the North Dakota University System. This reporting solution has saved NDSU hundreds of staff hours. By tapping into official source information, discrepancies in data have been eliminated and reports are more accessible and user-friendly.
Also nominated for the I.C.E. Award were Steve Beckermann, Tammy Cummings, Blair Johnson, Jim Ross and Greg Wettstein.
Beckermann was nominated for taking a leadership role in working with NDSU Extension Service county offices to support their needs. He was creative in helping Extension offices connect to the Master Gardener program broadcast from NDSU on the state’s Interactive Video Network.
Cummings was nominated for her support and persistence in working with new faculty and teaching assistance on creating and accessing Blackboard accounts. Among her accomplishments were assisting instructors in transitioning course content to new faculty members when an instructor leaves the university.
Johnson was nominated for his enthusiasm, style of communication and trustworthiness. His primary customers in Agricultural Extension noted that he demonstrates customer service excellence to staff at NDSU and across North Dakota.
Ross was nominated for his innovative approach to customer service and team leadership during the retirement of the WebDev server in late 2009. He worked with colleagues across the campus to ensure a timely response to support the migration of Web pages to the new PubWeb system.
Wettstein, who leads the division’s research computing efforts, was nominated for his prompt and effective support to the research community. It was noted that Wettstein places a high priority on responding immediately, and is often called off-hours to respond to difficult issues. He also invests a great deal of effort into mentoring and coaching staff members.