In March 2007 concern regarding the increasing amounts of litter on campus was brought to the attention of the President’s Council.  As a result of these concerns and the desire to maintain Iowa State University’s reputation for having a beautiful campus a committee was formed to address the reduction of litter on campus.  In addition to her duties as Coordinator of Leadership and Service, Jennifer Garrett was charged with developing and chairing this committee.  She has taken this charge very seriously and in a short time established the Keep Iowa State Beautiful campaign.  For many, Keep Iowa State Beautiful is just the source of signs and buttons letting everyone know that “Cy says Keep it clean, keep it green:” but the actual impact of this committee’s work is much greater.  Jennifer has accomplished all of the above with no initial funding from the university.  Jennifer’s leadership of the keep Iowa State Beautiful committee has always been provided with a positive attitude and an eagerness to do whatever it takes to get the job done.

Travis Kramer
Faculty Development Specialist, Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching

In the last fourteen months a nine member team from the Center for Excellence in Learning and Teaching and Information Technology Services has been heavily involved in transitioning to the newest version of the official campus Course Management System – WebCT Gold.  Travis was responsible for planning and overseeing the process of moving over 32,000 ISU WebCT users from the older software version to the new, completely redesigned version within a one-year time frame. Travis’s positive and enthusiastic attitude throughout the year-long software upgrade, matched with his student and faculty centered approach of easing the campus into this new and sophisticated elearning environment, has had a tremendous impact on the quality of the online learning experience at Iowa State for both faculty and students. Travis deserves recognition for his unflagging dedication to successfully completing this yearlong challenge and his customer focused approach to moving Iowa State into the next generation elearning environment.

Mary Sue Mayes
Assistant Scientist, Department of Animal Science

Mary Sue Mayes has been employed at Iowa State University for 17 years in the Animal Science Department.  During this time, she has managed the College of Agriculture Microscopy Facility for two faculty directors and trained an army of graduate students across many disciplines in microscopy technique.  Despite her success, her professional life underwent a genesis during the past year.  Her position at the Microscopy Facility was eliminated due to budget revisions.  In July of 2006, she accepted a position working in the Molecular Genetics Group of the Animal Science Department.  Despite the fact that almost everything she has done in the last year is brand new to her, the impact she has had on the lab is nothing short of incredible.  A formerly fragmented lab now works as a unit, completing projects that previously pulled graduate students away from their research projects for an inordinate amount of time.  Mary Sue’s leadership and service to the department and lab will continue in the right direction