Student Employees of the Year
Punching the clock while hitting the books
For finding time in busy schedules to help peers navigate University life, Jesse Talarico and Rebecca Lufler have been named Student Employees of the Year.
Talarico (SMG’10), Undergraduate Employee of the Year, juggled an internship with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney with work as a student technology consultant and IT associate at the School of Management. Helping deliver freshman orientation material in the fall, “he welcomed each and every student, and offered his help to any one of them who might stop him in the hall as they got settled into their first semester,” wrote Greg DeFronzo, SMG’s information technology services director, in nominating Talarico for the honor.
Talarico also developed a curriculum for teaching Excel in workshops that are part of the school’s online training program. He trained other student employees as leaders as well. During the fall semester, “as if his course load and workshops weren’t enough to keep him busy, Jesse could be seen burning the midnight oil in the Open Access Lab and the library” to study for a financial analyst’s exam, DeFronzo wrote. This semester, he continues to deliver workshops and train others to lead them, while codeveloping new workshops for math and finance majors.
Med school is famously a grind, yet Graduate Student Employee of the Year Lufler (MED’10), who is working on a Ph.D. in anatomy and neurobiology, began tutoring dental students in the 2006-2007 academic year. She tutored for the next two years and became tutor coordinator for the first-year medical student course Medical Gross Anatomy.
“I did it because I love teaching and helping the students,” she says. “It was extra, not part of anything I had to do — something I wanted to do.”
Talarico and Lufler will be honored at a reception on Tuesday, April 13, along with two other students. Caleb Bliss (GRS’12) will receive the Graduate Outstanding Service Award for his work as a statistical analyst in the School of Public Health’s Data Coordinating Center. Andrea Little (COM’10) won the Undergraduate Outstanding Service Award. She is the public relations program manager in the Community Service Center.
The reception is open to all nominated students and their supervisors. Talarico’s and Lufler’s names will be sent to the Northeast Association of Student Employment Administrators for possible state, regional, or national honors.
The Student Employment Office has sponsored the Student Employee of the Year awards since 1989. This year, for the first time, federal work-study students employed at nonprofit and community service agencies off campus were eligible. A five-judge panel of BU staff from around campus chose the winners from the 50 students who were nominated.
Rich Barlow can be reached at barlowr@bu.edu.
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