Student Employee Appreciation Week at St. Mike’s
During the week of April 9 through April 13, Saint Michael’s College will join hundreds of other colleges and universities in the U.S. in celebrating Student Employee Appreciation week!
Our on-campus student employment program at St. Mike’s is part of a strategic initiative, entitled Life after College: Vision 2020. This program intends to give students the opportunity to develop valuable work related skills through purposeful learning experiences, while conveniently making money on campus. At St. Mike’s, we work to ensure that our student employees do more than just menial tasks and homework, assigning more significant responsibilities to keep them involved and engaged. This approach better prepares our students to for their chosen career paths after college. We hope that they take the valuable skills they have gained, such as critical thinking, problem solving, oral and written communication, team collaboration, leadership, and use of digital technologies, with them to the workforce.
This week, we will take several measures to acknowledge the incredible impact that our student employees have on campus. Selecting seven that go above in beyond in exemplifying the traits and skills described above is just one of these measures. Out of 17 nominations from different departments, the following seven students were selected by the Student Employment Advisory Committee to receive awards for student worker appreciation week, and will be featured in a brief video on the St. Mike’s website:
Monique Gardon ’21 works in the Center for Women and Gender. A first year student, she has found work that inspires her in this setting. Monique has attended every event that the center has held, has reorganized and cleaned the space, encourages all students to use it, and has several ideas for the Center’s future.
Kyle Wentzel ’18 works in Telephone and Dispatch services in the Campus Store. Now a senior, he has worked in the store for four years, including summers. His problem solving skills and caring nature have improved the environment in the dispatch office, and his reliability and dedication will be greatly missed after he graduates.
Cierra Pierce, ’20, works in Durick Library. Cierra is a diligent, reliable employee who produces high quality work without supervision. Due to her consistent hard work, she has become one of three students to be promoted to a Tier 2 level library student assistant.
Vicky Castillo ’20 works in Academic Affairs. Vicky is diligent and dedicated, with incredible time management skills and attention to detail. Knowing her capability, the office never hesitates to assign her significant tasks like assisting with budgets, assessing databases, and working with complex excel spreadsheets.
Shawn MacNeill, ’18, works in both the biology department and the Office of Institutional Advancement. Shawn is always willing to take on complicated tasks, and completes them accurately without supervision. Both the department and the office benefit greatly from his high caliber work and dedication to efficiency.
Susie Ellicks ’18 works in the Office of Marketing and Communications. Susie started working in the office during a search for a new full time employee, and gladly took on more responsibility leading social media accounts until the position was filled. Her flexibility and reliability greatly benefit the office.
Lindsey Duquette ’21 works in the MOVE office. She mainly works on compiling MOVE’s institutional data, and consistently handles her tasks with initiative and professionalism. She has a knack for seeing the big picture, and her upbeat, amiable personality greatly contributes to MOVE.
In addition to these awards, the Career Education department will be tabling in Alliot on Tuesday the 10. Local businesses have donated gift cards to raffle off to students that enter, and students will have the opportunity to take selfies with Mike the Knight! In addition, each department that hires students is encouraged to engage in their own celebration for their student employees, so as to provide a more personalized sense of their appreciation. For example, the office of Career Education and Alumni Engagement will host a thanksgiving dinner for their students, in which the students choose what they want to eat and adult employees will cook for them. Across campus, different departments will acknowledge their students in their own unique ways!
At St. Mike’s, we are always looking for ways to improve our program to increase student successes. The current challenge, according to Renee Davitt, director of the student employment program, is to build student employment opportunities. “I would love to have more jobs available, so that any student can work on campus, and not just those that were awarded a work study as part of their financial aid package”, she says. Above all things, our vision for student employment at St. Mike’s is that all jobs will be purposeful, so that student have greater potential to grow and progress within their roles.
From the bottom of our hearts, we thank our student employees for the incredible work that they do, and we wish them the best of luck in their final stretch until the end of the spring semester!
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