The Office of Residential Life recognized the outstanding commitment of its staff members, undergraduate advisors, area coordinators and programming coordinators in an award ceremony in Brace Commons last night.
The Outstanding UGA award, the Outstanding Senior Staff Member award, the Mary Turco Award and the Bud Beatty Distinguished Service Award were presented to four seniors.
The Outstanding UGA honor was given to Tamara Matthews '98, a UGA in Streeter residence hall.
Acting West Campus Area Director Anne Janeway solicited student input by e-mailing every freshman. About 150 replied to voice their opinion on who was an outstanding and loyal UGA, inside or outside of their residence halls.
Matthews, the winning UGA, received the highest number of votes with 12. Her skill as a quiet leader and her ability to deal with the difficulties in her hall were listed among the reasons for her overall success and popularity as a UGA.
"I was entirely overwhelmed by the number of responses I received from students in response to the blitzes I sent out," Janeway said. "It showed just how much everyone valued all the hard work and efforts of all the UGAs this year."
In planning for the first awards ceremony, the ORL staff decided to incorporate student feedback since the students are the ones directly affected by the ORL staff, she said.
The winner of the Outstanding Senior Staff Member award was given to Erica Brandling-Bennett '98, the area coordinator of the Fayerweather Resident Cluster, who received nominations from her fellow ORL staff members.
Acting East Campus Area Director Christina Carico said Brandling-Bennett was honored for her diligent recruiting of new staff members and the training and selection of UGAs.
"Often it seemed like she was the one teaching us," Carico said.
The Mary Turco Award, in honor of former Dean of Residential Life Mary Turco's 11 years of devoted work at ORL, was given to Anat Levtov '98, the AC of the Choates residence hall cluster. Levtov was chosen for qualities including a commitment to improving residential life, a strong principle of ethics and appreciation of the diversity within the cluster.
Carlo Corti '98, the AC of Massachusetts Row, received The Bud Beatty Distinguished Service Award. This award was established this year to honor the 11 years of work former Associate Dean of Residential Life Beatty also devoted to ORL before he left last year.
"The Bud Beatty Award is presented to the ORL staff member who contributed the most to improving students' residential life as a whole," Assistant Dean of Residential Life Chris Chambers said. "Carlo was there at every turn and contributed to the creation of the resident curriculum."
The recipients of the four awards were selected by a banquet planning committee, comprising area directors, ACs and UGAs, and decisions were based on qualitative observations, Janeway said.
"Together, everybody in this room has touched every single life on this campus and has made it all possible, " Carico said at the awards banquet.
"This is the first year the ORL has ever held these awards," Janeway said. "We're hoping this recognition of outstanding ORL staff members can become an annual tradition in the years to come."
