May 21, 2002  NR 10-02

Four staff employees of the University of Alaska have won the university’s 2002 “Make Students Count” awards for their outstanding service to students.

University President Mark R. Hamilton, who started the awards in 1999 to recognize staff who have provided outstanding service to students from anywhere in the UA system, will present the awards on Tuesday, June 11, at the Board of Regents’ meeting on the Fairbanks campus.

This year’s winners are Cindy Marshall of UAA, Tonya Trabant of UAF, Roxy Felkl of UAS, and Janet Johnson of Statewide Programs and Services.

Cindy Marshall has worked for UAA for many years. She has served as student advocate in the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Services, administrative assistant in the Student Development Department, administrative coordinator for the student union programs and services, and she currently serves as the student affairs manager for the UAA division of Student Affairs.

“Cindy is exactly what a student affairs professional should be,” said Mike Dingman, past president of the Union of Students of UAA. “She is working in a job making far less than she could be making elsewhere largely because she says that the satisfaction of helping students makes her job worthwhile.”

Tonya Trabant is the senior career counselor at the UAF Fairbanks campus. She is known and respected around campus for her dedication and enthusiasm in assisting students. That enthusiasm also earned her the Associated Students of UAF Outstanding Staff Person of the Year Award and the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Student Service Employee. Trabant also works with business and industry, and coordinates several employment fairs, successfully bringing students and potential employers together.

Roxy Felkl, administrative assistant for Student Activities and Housing on the UAS Juneau campus for the past nine years, is well respected on her campus. She came to UAS at half the salary she was earning at BP because she saw the university as a place where she could make a difference in people’s lives. Her involvement in student life includes clubs, activities, student housing and community interaction. One student said, “It would take two people to replace Roxy’s energy, drive and enthusiasm for her work and for the students.”

Janet Johnson is the senior lead analyst programmer for the Banner Student Information System. The university’s ability to develop and deploy a wide array of electronic student services has been successful in large part because of Janet’s dedication to students throughout the system. She is relied upon for on-line registration, transcripts, grades, the fee payment gateway, and the UA-wide distributed education gateway, among other Banner user services. She has worked on the student information system for 27 years.

“All four of these outstanding employees were nominated by faculty, fellow staffers and students,” Hamilton said. “They do the kind of outstanding work that inspires students and enables the university to make good on its promises to constantly improve services for all its students. It’s a pleasure for me to honor them.”

FOR MORE INFORMATION: Bob Miller, 907-474-6311