The Excellence in Service Awards 2022

May 5, 2022

Three Grand View staff members were honored with this year's Excellence in Service Award.

• Corinna King, Executive Administrative Assistant to the President and Provost, was honored with The Excellence in Service to the University Award.

• Laurie Butz, GV Complete Completion Coach, was honored with The Excellence in Service to Students Award.

• Linda Mac Kinnon, Administrative Assistant, was honored with The Excellence in Service to the Faculty and Staff Award.

The award recognizes an outstanding staff member at Grand View University. Specifically, the award seeks to honor a staff member who:

1) Goes above and beyond their regular duties to positively impact all members of the Grand View community,
2) Performs in his/her position at an exemplary level, and
3) Shows passion, commitment, and enthusiasm for Grand View’s mission to engage, equip, and empower students and contributes to the vitality of the institution outside of required job duties.  Examples include serving on standing or ad-hoc committees, volunteering at university-wide events such as commencement or Global Vision Week, participating in events such as the Summer Institute, and attending athletic and cultural events.
 
All full- or part-time staff members are eligible to be nominated.  President’s Council and faculty members are not eligible.

Congratulations, Corrina! Her nominators had this to say about her:

In Corinna’s primary role, she flawlessly supports the president and the Board of Trustees. In recent years, she has also taken on additional responsibilities and now also supports the provost and handles many community relations duties like the community garden.

She is also a leader among her peers, providing leadership for the administrative assistants group and helping out at numerous University events.

And let’s not forget about COVID! She took on a key role during the pandemic, tracking case data, synthesizing the contact tracing information and she produced the MANY numerical reports for the campus community. She also helped athletics with their mandatory COVID reporting.

When President Henning announced his retirement, she played a critical role staffing the presidential search committee, which is no small undertaking, and is now staffing the Transition Team.

And she is also very involved on campus...the noon workout group can't keep up with her and you always see her at athletic events - not just because her daughter is on the dance team! She even made the trip to Durham to follow the football team (and dance team) to the national championship!

Thank you, Corinna for your exceptional work!

Congratulations! Laurie’s nominators had this to say:

“To highlight Laurie’s level of engagement at Grand View and the positive impact she has made on the students in her care, you only have to look around. I don’t know of a single spectator sport that Laurie has not attended at least one event of. She tries not to miss any senior nights, and has traveled to many locations to support our students, including two trips to Missouri last fall to support “her soccer boys” in their final post season games, and trips to Kentucky and North Carolina to support the football team in their chase for a national title. In addition to supporting GV’s student athletes, she also supports those in the arts by regularly attending both choir and theater events. She volunteers at almost all FAFSA events, is a regular at commencement, and participates in the Summer Institute. This past year she even joined the book club that was discussing becoming a student ready campus.

Laurie wears her love for our students on her sleeve, and will move mountains to help them get what they need when they need it. She cares for them as individuals, and wants them to be successful when they leave our doors and enter the real world.

A student who had been struggling recently found out he was going to graduate and texted this to Laurie, “Thank you so much for everything Laurie. You kept me level headed thru it all and kept me in the game!! I wouldn’t have come close to graduating without you. Appreciate you so much!! This is huge!!!!! Let’s go!!!!!!!”

She truly believes that each student can be successful here at GV if only provided the appropriate amount of resources.

Laurie, Thank you for your Excellence in Service to Students!

Congratulations! Here are a few excerpts from Linda's nomination:

“Linda routinely goes above and beyond her regular duties to benefit all of Grand View. She adapts to whatever the faculty in Jensen sign on for, making all of our lives easier.

As an example, when I took over the Directorship of the Honors Program, Linda unquestioningly took on that burden as well. With that job comes arranging for graduate presents and organizing numerous celebrations at the end of each semester. Linda is invaluable in helping me with all this planning, from ordering and wrapping grad gifts, to arranging spaces and food for celebrations. She does all this work in the true spirit of service; she truly wants to help in any way she is able.”

Another nominator said,

“All of the work Linda does is without a doubt performed at an exemplary level. If Linda is asked to do a new task, she always seeks to make sure she not only understands what is being asked, but also executes it accurately and efficiently. Early on in her time here, she was concerned she did not know enough formal grammar to help English with our department minutes. She spent the next semester reviewing grammar books. Grammar books! Do you know how boring that is? She now knows more and better grammar than most of us!”

Thank you Linda for your hard work and Excellence in Service to Faculty and Staff.