|
By Tara Sharpe
An accounting whiz, a business superman, a co-op matchmaker and a dynamic software duo were honoured in December as winners of the 2008 President’s Distinguished Service Awards (PDSA).
“UVic achieves its many successes because of our incredibly talented and dedicated employees,” says UVic President Dr. David Turpin, “We congratulate this year’s winners and thank them for their exceptional efforts and their unique contributions to our success as a university community.”
The awards were created in 2002 to honour the achievements of UVic’s 4,000-plus staff members.
Arneil and Holmes. PHOTO: UVic Photo Services Stewart Arneil and Martin Holmes (Humanities Computing and Media Centre), developers of the successful software program Hot Potatoes, have won the 2008 PDSA Team Award for Innovation, which recognizes a team or group for innovations that improve an educational, administrative or other organizational process through creative approaches.
Arneil initially joined UVic as a programmer in 1992, and Holmes joined as an English language instructor in 1995. They first developed Hot Potatoes in 1998, based on some simple tools they had written for their own use in creating language exercises for the Web. The program is like having a semi-intelligent quiz that gives helpful feedback as the student works on the questions.
The duo first introduced Hot Potatoes publicly at a conference in Belgium in 1998, and now the software is on desktops of more than half a million users around the world on every continent except Antarctica.
Due to the product’s popularity, and in consultation with the dean of humanities and UVic’s Innovation and Development Corporation (IDC), Arneil and Holmes formed the independent Half Baked Software, Inc. The university owns a share of their company, and from its profits Arneil and Holmes built the endowment for a new humanities scholarship named for humanities computing’s founding director Dr. Peter Liddell. Revenue for the company comes from those users working in the commercial sector, those who do not wish to share content or who require a closed system, and those in privately funded educational institutions.
It’s not just UVic that benefits from their efforts. Every year, their company sponsors a special charity month, donating all income received from licenses for that month to several local, national and international charities. In May 2008, they raised nearly $8,000 and beneficiaries included Oxfam, the Upper Room, Canadian Cancer Society and the Mustard Seed Food Bank.
Off campus, Arneil travelled to Africa as a tourist for seven months in the mid-1990s and, upon his return, volunteered for the UVic Speakers Bureau, giving talks on his experience on that continent. Before coming to Canada in 1994, Holmes worked in Britain, Japan, Indonesia, Greece and Saudi Arabia as an ESL teacher and a teacher-trainer.
“These two employees have established a benchmark of integrity, creativity and generosity for all of us,” says Dr. Elizabeth Grove-White, acting academic director of the Humanities Computing and Media Centre.
Bligh. PHOTO: UVic Photo Services Sandy Bligh is a multi-talented individual who spends her workday piecing together numbers as if they were tiny patches on an elaborate quilt. This PDSA winner is as familiar with complex accounting calculations as she is with the societal intricacies hidden in the history of art.
Bligh is UVic’s manager of research accounting and in May received a Master of Arts (history in art) from UVic. The research accounting unit, an integral component of UVic’s accounting services department, ensures UVic’s responsibilities are met for the financial administration of all externally funded sponsored research accounts.
“When Sandy joined UVic [in 1995], sponsored research revenues were $25 million,” says UVic’s Executive Director of Financial Services Murray Griffith. “In 2007/08, research revenues exceeded $106 million, reflecting incredible growth over a relatively short period of time.”
Bligh and her hard-working team collaborate with UVic’s researchers, research centres, groups, administrators and students to help resolve complex accounting and management issues. She has also helped train scores of front-line research administrators and investigators in all faculties and disciplines across campus, playing a primary role in ensuring UVic research projects are high-quality and accountable, and helping to ensure that an extensive array of research grants, contracts and operating funds continue to be directed to the university.
“Sandy is a one-stop shop for advice across the range of issues faced in the administration of complex research projects,” says Heather Chestnutt, administrator for UVic’s Institute for Dispute Resolution.
Bligh enjoys a good game of golf, but art is her true passion. An award-winning painter, watermedia artist and quilter, she has been involved in local art groups since 1987. Bligh doesn’t pursue this passion just for herself: she also helps coordinate the Sidney Fine Art Show and has been the show designer since the juried show began in 2003. She has been the volunteer coordinator and designer for several art exhibits in the community and has donated paintings to various charities and fund-raising efforts, including the UVic United Way campaign.
“She brings her love of art to the work environment,” say members of the Research Administrative Group who helped nominate Bligh for this award. “A visit to Sandy’s office will truly inspire.”
McCutcheon. PHOTO: UVic Photo Services Dr. David McCutcheon knows exactly how to catapault UVic’s business students into their own successful career trajectories.
The efforts of this PDSA recipient extend into high schools, colleges and other universities to recruit students, faculty and staff. He has served as program director for the bachelor of commerce program for seven years and, since the summer of 2008, has acted as UVic’s academic programs director for the Faculty of Business, with oversight of both the MBA program and undergraduate programs. McCutcheon joined UVic Business in 1993 and is an associate professor in the operations management field.
McCutcheon has worked tirelessly to shape and strengthen these academic programs, particularly the undergraduate commerce program. The same strong facilitation skills, thoughtful style and commitment to quality that helped earn him the nickname “Super Dave” have also assisted in extending the faculty’s programs with the recent approval by the senate of the business PhD proposal.
Although his fine qualities are no secret on campus, McCutcheon works quietly behind the scenes on his own time to make things happen for the faculty. “Although he attends community events such as the Tourism Victoria travel auction and the Chamber of Commerce Christmas party, he is there to keep in touch with news in the downtown community,” says senior instructor and MBA Marketing Manager Heather Ranson. “He then shares that news with other faculty members and students in his classes.”
As a champion of co-operative education, McCutcheon was instrumental in adding a position in the BCom office for an experiential learning officer. This position is the link between the co-op office and the rest of the faculty, and McCutcheon’s commitment to the establishment of this position demonstrates his belief that learning in the classroom must continue in the workplace and vice versa. He also plays a crucial role in supporting the local community mentorship program that brings UVic students and Victoria business leaders together.
This isn’t the first award won by McCutcheon. He is also a three-time winner of the faculty’s annual award for distinguished service (1997, 2003 and 2006).
Poulson. PHOTO: UVic Photo Services Dr. Rozanne Poulson is a talent spotter. As the co-operative education coordinator for UVic’s biochemistry and microbiology department, she recruits students into the department’s co-op program with unrelenting enthusiasm.
And she has led the way in doing so not just at UVic, but across the province. “Rozanne became involved in this program before there were other biochemistry co-op programs in British Columbia, and she quickly cornered the market on co-op jobs for molecular biology, biochemistry and microbiology,” says the department’s chair, Dr. Robert Burke. “Other universities saw these successes and set out to emulate them. Thus, our program is not just in the top tier—it is the program at the very top, leading all others.”
Poulson’s daily activities include maintaining professional relationships with a broad spectrum of local, national and international employers who are interested in providing workplace learning environments for the scientists of tomorrow. In 2007/08, she placed nearly 200 students in biotechnology/pharmaceutical and academic research positions and within biomedical sectors in communities and agencies ranging from the BC Centre for Disease Control to positions as far afield as Wellington, New Zealand.
Christina Thomas, a student who initially didn’t intend to take the co-op program until she attended one of Poulson’s information sessions, says, “Four years later, after having completed co-op, I have found an unexpected but delightful niche for myself in research. At every step of the way, from resumé building and finding the perfect work terms, to relocating overseas and also resolving registration issues, she has been a tremendous and irreplaceable resource.”
An integral member of the co-operative education program at UVic, Poulson devotes most of her spare time to the communication of scientific knowledge. She co-founded and, for more than two decades, has served as the editor of Tree Physiology, the leading international science journal in its field, and over the past 25 years has edited science books for several international publishing houses. She also volunteers in her community and received a UVic Women’s Conference Recognition Award in 1993.
Poulson is being honoured with a PDSA not just for being a talent spotter. She also plays the role of sophisticated and inspiring cheerleader when she needs to. Co-op student Susanne Hrynuik says, “I was hesitant to leave Canada, but I felt that if Rozanne had enough confidence in me to take on this adventure, there was no way I could fail.”
General information about the annual PDSA program and past award recipients is available on UVic’s Department of Human Resources website at http://web.uvic.ca/hr/pdsa/.
|
