The entire Division of Student Affairs has a chance to get together several times a year for an All-Call event. The most recent All call was held in October, and hundreds of Student Affairs staff members gathered in the Arkansas Union Verizon Ballroom to hear about divisional updates, have some food, visit with each other, and to recognize staff members who have won awards.
Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Jeremy Battjes started the meeting by welcoming everyone sitting at round tables in the ballroom enjoying a lunch provided by Chartwell’s Ozark Catering.
Recognitions and Awards
The Division started an employee recognition program to recognize staff members for doing great work. The “Top Hogs” awards recognize staff members in various areas: Willingness to Learn, Collaboration, Creativity Assessment/Research, Collective Success/Committee, Work Spirit/Lifting Up Others, & Consistency/Reliability. The Division has given out 4 Top Hog awards.
Top Hogs for July were Mackenzie Payton, hall director, and C.J. Mathis, director of retention outreach.
Payton coordinated both junior and senior band camps for more than 800 students and exemplified unwavering reliability and dependability. Her planning and proactive approach ensured a smooth delivery of each logistic detail, fostering a positive environment for learning and growth.
Mathis recently chaperoned a group of students on a graduate school visit trip to Washington D.C., and their travel was significantly impacted by the recent global technology issues – to the point that a group of 20 that was supposed to arrive all together ended up arriving at three different times across 24 hours and 5 flights. He did a wonderful job dealing with all these problems.
Top Hogs for August were Jess Claire, case manager in Student Accountability, and Robyn Williams, associate director of engineering career engagement.
Claire forged tremendous partnerships and helped to significantly grow the collaborative relationship between Student Accountability and UA Cares, which benefitted many students. She demonstrates tremendous empathy and compassion for students and works tirelessly to ensure the accountability cases are handled through a CARE lens. We featured Claire in a recent Staff Q&A.
Williams has been leading the effort of helping Engineering Career Connections gather data around student participation in internships and research. She held meetings with each department to identify the best way to gather this information and collected information on more than 230 students’ experiences and has the infrastructure in place to collect even more throughout the semester.
Debbie Ritter, employee relations coordinator for Career Connections, was recognized for being named by Staff Senate as employee of the year for professional/non-faculty-administrative award for 2023-2024.
“So much of what Debbie does could go unnoticed because she is so efficient at what she does and rarely, if ever, needs help,” said Kaylee Simmons, director of career events and Ritter’s supervisor. “Debbie personally vets hundreds of posted jobs and employers weekly and is the sole approver for 95 percent of jobs posted and employer approvals at the University of Arkansas on Handshake.”
Nigel York, assistant director of events for the Arkansas Union, was recognized as the staff senate employee of the 4th quarter 2024-2025 in the technical/professional category. York has been at the Union for three years and earned two promotions in that time due to his “outstanding dedication, inventiveness and leadership,” Battjes said. “His initiatives have expanded the event operations team and enhanced live performance capabilities in the Union.” We featured York in a past Staff Q&A.
Two programs received funding for their projects from the Women’s Giving Circle:
Mental Health First-Aid Training for Higher Education received $19,550. This project will provide the U of A campus with training related to Mental Health First Aid for Higher Education. This skill-based training course teaches early intervention techniques and equips the campus community with mental health literacy to understand, identify and respond to signs and symptoms of mental health and substance use challenges.
Veterans Impact Program and Orientation received $18,450. This project will provide a small, cohort-style experience for the U of A’s veteran students, meeting weekly throughout the fall semester. Participants will learn about campus resources, best practices for using their VA education benefits, build career-oriented skills and knowledge, and be paired with a faculty, staff or returning student veteran on campus for mentorship.
Three staff members received awards from the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA) Region IV-West at the Regional Conference in Albuquerque, NM held Oct. 21 to 23. NASPA is a professional association for student affairs practitioners.
AnReckez Daniels, assistant director of the Multicultural Center, Adrain Smith, director of the Multicultural Center, and Trisha Blau, associate director for programming for Student Involvement and Leadership picked up awards at the conference. We have that full story in this issue of the Bulletin.
In other awards and recognitions, Mary Wyandt-Hiebert, director of the Sexual and Relationship Violence Center, and her “What Were You Wearing?” program won the Tadini Bacigalupi Jr. Award from the National Organization for Victim Advocacy (NOVA). We had a story about “WWYW?” in a previous issue of the Bulletin.
“Your unwavering dedication to assisting and empowering victims and survivors of crime is an inspiration to us all,” Battjes said. “Most significantly, your extraordinary compassion, leadership and ingenuity in your work has helped countless victims and survivors begin to heal in the aftermath of a crime.”
Carissa Kelly, associate director of Greek Life, was recognized for winning the Resilience in Leadership Award from BERG (Building Excellence, Resilience, and Growth) hosted by the U of A Black Resource Group. This award recognizes someone who embodies the spirit of resilience, showing unwavering commitment and adaptability in the face of challenges. They inspire others, leading by example and ensuring that their team or organization thrives. We featured Kelly in a past Staff Q&A.
Senior Advisor to the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Erin Butler, was accepted in the 38th class of the Leadership Fayetteville with the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce. The goal of the program is to produce a continued stream of concerned, motivated, and educated individuals of diverse talents and interests eager to pursue and assume leadership roles and volunteer opportunities within the Fayetteville community.
We’ve made progress in our divisional priorities and heard about two of those: Priority 1: Student Access, Well-being, & Belonging; Priority 2: Post-Graduation Success.
The Well-being task force was created out of Priority 1: Student Access, Well-being & Belonging. And that group, led by Josette Kline, director of Counseling and Psychological Services, has completed its work and using the information it gathered has created recommendations for enhancing and adding resources needed to support student well-being on this campus.
The committee found that mental health is the first area students think about for well-being, followed by physical and emotional. Their well-being is comprised of many interconnected areas in their lives, and they have a generalized anxiety around identifying when they may need help.
Some of the task force recommendations include creating a one-stop platform for student well-being resources and defining a system for well-being resources management; to strengthen communications channels to cultivate a culture of well-being.
The task force recommends moving to a centralization of services and contacts rather than silos, which currently exist. Developing a single Well-being landing page for students on the web that is holistic and has specific and timely resources linked from various programs and units across campus.
The office of Career Connections has created “Career Readiness Language and Badging” for Priority 2: Post-Graduation Success. The eight Career Ready Skills identified at the U of A were developed from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) Career Readiness Competencies Framework. The eight skills are Career & Self Development; Leadership; Professionalism; Critical Thinking; Communication; Equity & Inclusion; Technology; and Teamwork.
This Career Readiness Badge program on HogSync is an initiative aimed to equip students with essential competencies sought after by employers while also fostering increased engagement in co-curricular activities. This campus-wide badge assesses students’ career readiness and provides a comprehensive roadmap of opportunities offered by departments and student organizations to practice and develop career-ready skills.
Career Connection encourages all programmers listing events on HogSync for students to attend. To earn the badge, students must engage in at least five events aligned with each of the eight career-ready skills or reflect on competency-focused campus activities. Upon completion, students must submit a final reflection showcasing their ability to articulate how they have utilized these skills throughout their experiences.
We will have more updates about progress of our Advancing Student Affairs Strategic Plan in future issues of the Bulletin.
