Staff Performance Award

The FCSM Staff Performance Award is given for demonstrated outstanding skills in the staff member’s position, for proven ability to maintain a high-quality, efficient and effective operation, and for being an outstanding team player. This is a category where we have often given multiple awards—this has happened five times in the past, including both in 2016 and in 2017. It happened again this year, except that this time the selection committee (i.e., the FCSM chairs and program directors) went a step further than before. Presented with three nominees with very similar profiles and accomplishments, the committee declined to split hairs in order to choose between these three fine, fine staff members and instead decided to give the award to all three. Consequently, this year—for the first time, we have three winners in this most contested of categories!

Our second awardee has been a lab manager for his department for more than 30 years. During that time and as enrollments and offerings have increased, he has come to manage labs that support students across vastly disparate curricula. Moreover, his realm of support has expanded far beyond the maintenance of physical equipment and materials of 30+ years ago into the purchasing and support of wide range of computer hardware and software packages. Yet, the awardee has managed to keep his work “impeccable” and his collegiality beyond reproach. The nomination packet listed several anecdotes of superb and timely assistance to faculty teaching and research and of quick, on-his-feet problem solving. Colleagues also mentioned the recipient’s “courteous nature,” “cheerful and friendly demeanor,” and “quiet, reliable manner” and referred to him as a “hidden hero” and “superman.”

Like our first recipient, this awardee also routinely takes on tasks that are not part of his job description but are necessary to keep the department running smoothly. For example, he contributes to science outreach efforts; he provides informal tech support with faculty computers (even though that is technically OTS’s realm); he is an FYE advisor; he has long served as the departmental webmaster (and let me tell you, because I have done it: in the last few years that has been a high-stress/low-reward job). The awardee has also been willing to accept financial management responsibilities when other staff in the department have gone on leave and has been fulfilling a large chunk of the duties of a former colleague whose position has been open for more than three years. To quote from a letter in the nomination packet: “Without him, the department would grind to a halt within days.”

For an excellent work ethic and commitment to Towson, the 2018 Staff Performance Award goes to Mr. Mark Edmonston from the Department of Physics, Astronomy & Geosciences.

(As presented by Acting Associate Dean Angel Kumchev at the Fisher College of Science and Mathematics Forum on December 7, 2018.)