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Students honored for on-the-job excellence and leadership
By David J. Craig
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Student Employee of the Year Ciara LaVelle (COM’04) (seated) works for Amy Marcott, senior assistant director of communications in the Office of Admissions. Photo by Vernon Doucette |
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For young people considering applying to BU, perhaps the most convenient way to get an impression of life on the Charles River Campus is to read the student profiles on the Office of Admissions’ Web site.
Many of those profiles, which introduce applicants to typical BU students, for the past three years have been written by Ciara LaVelle (COM’04). An aspiring magazine journalist, she was hired by the Office of Admissions as a work-study student two years ago, primarily to fold letters, file, and run errands. She quickly took on a more creative role, however, writing content for the office’s Web site and helping to organize and edit it.
Lavelle writes the profiles from surveys completed by students interested in being featured on the site. The dozens she has penned are marked by her lighthearted and sensitive descriptions of students’ passions, aspirations, and pastimes.
“In their applications, students frequently tell us that the Web site was instrumental in helping them make their decision to apply to BU,” writes Amy Marcott, senior assistant director of communications in the Office of Admissions, in a recent letter nominating LaVelle for Student Employee of the Year. “In particular, they mention the profiles of students to whom they can easily relate. Ciara deserves credit for bringing much of our Web site to life and for helping to recruit some top students from around the world.”
For her exemplary efforts in the job, LaVelle recently was named BU’s 2004 Student Employee of the Year. She was recognized at an April 15 awards luncheon in the GSU Faculty Dining Room, where she received a $500 savings bond and a plaque. In addition, LaVelle’s nomination has been forwarded to a statewide competition sponsored by the Northeast Association of Student Employment Administrators.
LaVelle says that writing about her peers has been a “fun way to stay connected to what’s going on on campus,” and that she’s gained valuable writing and publishing experience through her work in the Office of Admissions. “I’ve learned to adjust the way I write to an employer’s expectations, and learning HTML is probably going to be helpful in the future,” says LaVelle, who also has completed internships at Boston magazine and the Boston alternative music newspaper the Weekly Dig, published her own literary journal, Wrights, and has written for the Daily Free Press.
What makes LaVelle an especially valuable worker, says Marcott, is that while she’s eager to take on new responsibilities, she remains upbeat about doing routine office work. “Ciara became my right-hand woman,” reads Marcott’s letter. “There are times when I’ve given her what would be a day’s work for anyone else, but Ciara is finished in less than three hours and ready for more. And when the less interesting tasks of running errands and folding letters need to be done, Ciara is always happy to oblige.”
Leader among employees
Also honored this year for their dedication to their student jobs were Vanessa Diaz and Tara Pruden. As Student Employee of the Year runners-up, at the awards presentation they received the University’s Outstanding Achievement Award, which includes a framed certificate and a $100 U.S. savings bond.
Diaz (COM’04), an advertising major who will join Procter and Gamble in May, has worked for three years in the Student Payroll Office. Her duties have included helping international students complete their complex tax forms, verifying weekly payroll data for all student employees, and training other students. Carol Gately, assistant manager of Student Payroll, says that while verifying the payroll data can be tedious, it is of vital importance to her office’s operation.
“Vanessa consistently remains focused while verifying and has often caught and corrected keying errors before anyone’s payroll was affected,” says Gately’s nomination letter. Likewise, while assisting international students to prepare tax forms, Diaz “exhibits great patience and always carefully checks each tax treaty packet that she accepts to ensure that it has been completed accurately,” Gately writes. “This is essential because even the slightest bit of missing information could result in a treaty being rejected by the IRS. Vanessa works hard to ensure that a student completing a treaty packet understands what needs to be completed and often works through language barriers to get the job done.”
Rarely absent and often willing to work long hours, Diaz is a leader among the office’s student employees, and “automatically goes from one task to the next without ever having to be told what to do,” the letter continues. She is so trusted by the office staff that she sometimes is called upon to resolve problems with student time sheets and to handle phone complaints. “Many of the calls we receive are about someone not being paid, a W-2 going to the wrong address, or an incorrect tax status,” Gately writes. “Vanessa is able to handle even the most irate caller calmly and works with them to get their problem solved as quickly as possible.”
Bravo
Tara Pruden (COM’04), an advertising major who plans to earn a master’s in psychology, for the past four years has worked for the Greater Boston Youth Symphony Orchestras (GBYSO), a music program for elementary and high school students that is in residence at CFA. As orchestra librarian, she prepares and maintains all the music for the orchestra’s performances, keeps track of attendance, schedules periodic evaluations of musicians, and makes sure the conductor has all the information and materials needed to make rehearsals and concerts run smoothly.
In addition, Pruden handles several marketing tasks for GBYSO, helps gather and process the approximately 700 applications the orchestra receives each spring, and keeps prospective orchestra members and their parents informed about auditions. “Tara is invaluable during this time, because of her knowledge of our program, her organizational skills, and her amazing ability to handle anything that comes her way,” writes Matthew Ritter, GBYSO orchestra manager, in a nomination letter. “With the number of calls and inquiries that we receive, I cannot get to every one of them. At the same time, I have to trust that they are handled professionally and correctly. With Tara, I have absolutely no doubt that this will happen every time.
“In addition to the work she does for us, it needs to be said that Tara is an amazing human being,” his letter continues. “She is certainly one of the most kind, gentle, and sincere people that I have ever met.”
The Student Employee of the Year Award is administered by the Student Employment Office, whose staff narrows the nominated candidates to 12, then circulates the nominations to 5 final judges, all of whom are full-time University employees. The award is presented in conjunction with National Student Employee Week, April 12 to 16, when supervisors are encouraged to recognize their student employees with a special show of appreciation.
16
April 2004
Boston University
Office of University Relations