{"id":135462,"date":"2018-03-21T07:10:52","date_gmt":"2018-03-21T11:10:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/?p=135462"},"modified":"2018-03-21T12:43:07","modified_gmt":"2018-03-21T16:43:07","slug":"spirit-award-winners-honored-contributions-community-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2018\/03\/spirit-award-winners-honored-contributions-community-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Spirit Award Winners Honored for Contributions to Community"},"content":{"rendered":"

Honorees in the fourth annual employee recognition program, the UConn Spirit Awards<\/a>, received their awards at a ceremony March 20.<\/p>\n

The annual tradition recognizes the efforts of employees, especially staff; building community; and promoting civility. The Spirit Awards program is the result of a survey conducted by the Something’s Happening Committee, which found a significant correlation between supportive interactions among colleagues and productivity on the job.<\/p>\n

“It is a clich\u00e9, but it is also true that a happy workplace is a more productive workplace. When we feel our contributions are appreciated by our peers, we work harder and put more of ourselves into the job,” said Tysen Kendig, vice president of communications, and chairman of the Spirit Awards Committee. “The year since our last ceremony has been an eventful one, and one that crystallized to many of us here the importance of telling the story of our university to the wider world.”<\/p>\n

This year’s winners were:<\/p>\n

\"Stacey
Stacey Stearns, Extension, recipient of the Unsung Hero Award. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Unsung Hero Award
\n<\/strong>Winner:\u00a0\u00a0Stacey Stearns, Extension<\/p>\n

Finalist:\u00a0\u00a0Micki Bellamy, Physics<\/p>\n

Finalist: Brandon Murray, Office of the Provost<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\"Bianka
Bianka Horvath, Off Campus Student Services, recipient of the Rising Star Award. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Rising Star Award<\/strong>
\nWinner:\u00a0\u00a0Bianka Horvath, Off Campus Student Services<\/p>\n

Finalist:\u00a0\u00a0Bridget Inzirillo, Office of the Provost<\/p>\n

Finalist: Christie Soltys, Honors Program<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\"Kelly
Kelly Wihbey, Office of Budget and Planning , recipient of the Outstanding Peer Award. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Outstanding Peer Award<\/strong>
\nWinner:\u00a0\u00a0Kelly Wihbey, Office of Budget and Planning<\/p>\n

Finalist:\u00a0\u00a0Bryanna Anderson, Center for Students with Disabilities<\/p>\n

Finalist: Ashlee Stone, Student Health Services<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n
\"Nadine
Nadine Brennan speaks on behalf of the Hartford Campus staff and administraton, recipients of the Team Award. (Peter Morenus\/UConn Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Team Award
\n<\/strong>Winner: Hartford Campus Staff & Administration<\/span><\/p>\n

Finalist:\u00a0Greenhouse Studios Working Group Tom Scheinfeldt, Clarissa Ceglio, Greg Colati, Brendan Kane, and Sara Sikes.<\/p>\n

Finalist:\u00a0University Events and Conference Services’ Wendy Baker, Kate Copeland, Amy Erhart, Harley Erickson, Robbin Haboian-Demircan, Anne Hill, Juliet Kapsis, Carolyn Postemski, Lauren Schaller, Cara Workman, and Karen Zajac.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

‘I think we all learn something new about our university each time we do this,’ said Tysen Kendig, vice president of communications and chair of the Spirit Awards Committee. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":76,"featured_media":135477,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,2225,2234,2233],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[175],"class_list":["post-135462","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uconn-hartford","category-uconn-storrs","category-university-life","category-university-news"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-27 16:25:27","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/76"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135462"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135462\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":135572,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135462\/revisions\/135572"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/135477"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135462"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=135462"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=135462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}