The scientific division honors staff members Jeannette Peters, Patti Schell and Deana Tanguay for having demonstrated exceptional service and dedication to the mission of the division in the past five years. The dean scientist Bryan Gaensler said that the annual exceptional staff price had been created to appear in parallel with the annual prize for annual division teachers.
The new personnel prize recognizes leadership, innovation and “invisible work”, which refers to invisible work, not assessed or undervalued despite its essential role in supporting the functioning of workplaces, families, teams and organizations.
Thanks to their tireless service over the years, Peters, Schell and Tanguay have clearly demonstrated their dedication and embodiment of the basic pillars of the division: offering students degree development experiences, producing impacting research that benefits people and the planet, and a deep commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion.
Jeannette Peters
Peters is a undergraduate advisor in the department of molecular, cellular and developmental biology. Colleagues say that she spends 100% of her time to help students navigate the difficult ways through their majors. She also undertook to improve the diversity of students as a member of the Dei Committee of the Scientific Division and strives to improve her skills as an advisor through the University Consulting certificate program.
In addition to managing a workload of more than 500 students, according to those who appointed it, Peters continuously provides detailed answers to students’ questions within 48 hours and is available to students outside the scheduled appointments.
Thanks to the numerous advice changes due to budget reductions and vacancies, Peters has maintained his commitment to provide high quality support by keeping students an absolute priority. His teammates highlight the difficulty of quantifying the amount of work that goes. But they say that the daily efforts of undergraduate advisers can have a capital impact on the university career of a student.
“I am extremely proud to receive this new exceptional staff prize and I am very grateful for people who have helped me get to this point in my career,” said Peters. “My main goal in UC Santa Cruz is to help as many students as possible to finish a diploma that fascinated them, while having fun doing it. I am proud of my ability to work closely with my peers and provide in -depth care for a lot of high students to improve their experience in this division and this university. ”
Patti Schell
Schell has been working in the scientific division since 2008, as director of the department for astronomy and astrophysics, then for chemistry and biochemistry. After his retirement in 2019, She returned for various relays as a retiree to Rehthem to help in several departmental positions and projects. Then in August 2023, she was appointed the division “Director of the inaugural department – special projects”. In this role, she replaced as Director of the Department for Oceanic Sciences, Earth and Planetary Sciences, Physics, Astronomy and Astrophysics and Chemistry and Biochemistry.
Schell’s nominators say that it applies its vast experience to two main objectives: to improve work processes to make them more effective and support the people around it. They quote how innovative it is to rationalize workflows and reduce redundancies. In one case, she led an effort to facilitate the administrative burden of the division’s reimbursement process by working with her accounting team, seeking policies on campus and UC scale, and suggesting improvements that have since been adopted and simplify approvals, reduction of documentation and, ultimately, control of duration and energy.
In terms of colleagues of support, the nominators described an example when it was a stable presence during a difficult period of the Physical Department, which at some point lost its department director and its assistant. Schell has demonstrated the sensitivity and carefully monitored the workload of the remaining staff. “If this was not the case for her, we would probably have lost another member of the staff, how the department would have been about to collapse,” they wrote.
Schell, which is on board and continues to insert new directors of the scientific division department, expressed a deep gratitude for recognition. She recalled how, as a child, she would get lost in the pages of the Scientific Library of Life of Time and the Encyclopædia BritannicaInfinitely fascinated by the world of knowledge – with a particular passion for science that has triggered its curiosity on the functioning of the world.
“My dedication to education is something that I owe to my father, who was himself an educator and has taught us the immense value of knowledge and learning,” said Schell. “Being part of a university department today, where I have the opportunity to support both teachers and students in their academic activities, is a privilege that I really appreciate.”
Deana Tanguay
Tanguay is the director general of LAMAT Instituteresearch Opportunities for undergraduate students in community colleges and four -year universities. One hundred percent of LAMAT scholarship holders obtain a baccalaureate in STEM and 80% go to higher education. His nominators say that this is motivated by the individual attention that Tanguay works with diligence and enthusiastically to provide.
They quote many personal gestures qualified as “invisible work” for the department and its inhabitants: cooking brownies for students, organizing a fire of end of summer joy, buying an international student a new pair of glasses with their own money when the ones broke. Tanguay shares his know-how to find graduates with graduate students to help them gain research funding and connects them to employees and potential former, promoting a “care community” similar to a family.
Tanguay is also the director of programs of the Center for Reimagining Leadership and serves as an essential administrative assistance supporting the astronomy research group and the Enrico Ramirez astrophysics teacher. She meticulously manages her vast calendar, always prioritizing the needs of graduate students he mentors while coordinating logistics with researchers and visiting speakers.
“I have the honor and the privilege of learning and supporting the incredible students and teachers of the UC Santa Cruz. Their radiance, their resilience and their conduct in the face of inequalities and racism highlight the need for greater representation and brings me a goal,” said Tanguay. “I am humiliated by the appointment of students and recognizing towards the visionary visionary leadership of Professor Enrico Ramirez of Latmat and the Center for the reinventure of leadership, and for the opportunity to be part of this work in the spaces of co-creation where all people belong and thrive.”
As for the price of the exceptional faculty recently given To the professor of ecology and evolutionary biology Erika Zavaleta, the exceptional staff prices awarded to Peters, Schell and Tanguay are for the year 2023-24.
The recipients of the personnel price will receive official recognition during a division meeting, their name has added to the price of the exceptional faculty price in the hall of the dean office and will be presented on the website of the scientific division.