TLC Staff Awards Presented

Teaching, Learning and Communication (TLC) Staff Awards were presented at the retirement and service awards luncheon held Tuesday, April 19. The following recipients were recognized for their work on three campus projects (pictured left to right): Gerry Ely (Learning Resources); Gerri Daniels (Admissions); and Tony Bertucci, Jan Crawford and Karl Mulder (all of AdIT).

Ely was honored for classroom/lab teaching support. In 1998, he developed a system to allow an IBM ThinkPad computer to be quickly connected to a video projector and networking cables using a computer monitor support arm. The design of the docking stations has evolved over the years, but the basic concept has stayed the same. Ely has researched, experimented, designed, built, installed and modified docking stations throughout campus, saving NMU thousands of dollars while filling a need of faculty to utilize technology to improve teaching methods across campus.

Mulder and Crawford received the TLC award for online course evaluations. Mulder has developed a way to allow all students in any course, online or in-person, to evaluate the course through the Web. Crawford has worked to promote the system. While still in the implementation stage, the system addresses the need to conduct course evaluations for Web-based courses and convert from a legacy system of bubble sheets to a Web format. The project improves the student feedback mechanism and access to the evaluations. It also has the potential to save time and money, especially in relieving the manual workload of departmental clerical employees.

Bertucci and Daniels received the TLC award for the direct mail search process. In the past, the admissions office purchased files of name and contact information for potential students and sent them NMU materials through the mail. As recruitment efforts expanded into new markets, a way to reach more potential students without increasing costs was needed. Bertucci and Daniels developed a method to automate these processes and use e-mail when possible instead of paper mail. This allows the admissions office to send potential students information with embedding links rather than duplicating much of the information in paper form. The use of electronic information allows for the automatic populations of forms, reducing the need for staff to perform data entry. Without increasing the budget, this process has enabled the admissions office to more than quadruple its outreach to potential students.