Previous Texas State Quarterly Team Award Recipients

Members of the team include: from DHRL: Michelle Hernandez, Lisa Martinez, Richard Medina, Jessica Rodriguez, John Holcomb, John Doria, Jason O’Neill, Nikole Smith, Viviana Rodriguez, Diana Tristan, Nancy Beauvais, Barbara Shen, Herb Jones, Ben Underwood, Eli Trenado, Raechel Kepner, Pam Jacobs, Michael Scott Wilson, Cynthia Agold, James Cooper, Harold Bogue, CJ Hall, Augustin Cancino, Jose Garcia, Weston Warner, Pauline Calvin, Steven Schmidt, Maria Cantellano and Abigail Kemter; from Athletics: Erica Byler, Cody Thrasher, Melissa Johnson, Mackenzie Lewis, Imani Wilson, Jeffery Penning, Masyn McColl, Liam Strulovich, and Kellsie Dumas; from Parking Services:  Steven Prentice and Roberto Ramos; and from Student Affairs IT: Kevin McCarty, Chris Lehman, and Jessica Soukup.

The Department of Housing and Residential Life (DHRL), working with other university units, quickly pulled together a plan for a drive-through type event where students who live on campus provided evidence of a recent negative COVID-19 test prior to moving back into their residence hall on January 17 and January 18. Student Affairs IT staff solved data management issues involved in hosting the event in a parking lot without internet connectivity, and Parking Services staff assisted in setting up the drive through area.  Student Health Center staff and Clinical Laboratory Science students assisted by offering a rapid COVID-19 testing option for students who had been unable to obtain a test before returning to campus.  Thirty DHRL staff worked different shifts on Sunday and Monday (a holiday weekend), some starting at 7:00 a.m. and others staying until 6:30 p.m.  Traffic flowed safely, test results were verified, and exceptions were handled as needed and with compassion.  Approximately 1500 students came through each day and on average spent less than ten minutes before moving into their residence.  Students were welcomed back by DHRL staff and reminded to be diligent in the campus safety practices for COVID-19 outlined by the Texas State Roadmap.

February 2021 Honorable Mention Award Winners

• Bobcat Trace Team
• Commencement Staff Team
• Undergraduate Admissions Welcome Center Team
• Undergraduate Admissions Counseling/Recruiting Team

Team members include: Administrative Staff - Di Fontenot, Brittany Swain, Gwynne Hamer, Michelle Sanchez and Meredith Kollman. Teaching Staff - Pamela Brown, Megan Ancira, Geri Walker, Gabriela Aguero, Nathaniel Rodriguez, Sierra Herrera, Elisabeth Jones, Rachel Hamilton, Krista Gonzalez, Brittany Burns, Jennifer Guerra, Adrianna Weber, Katie Little, Tammy Potter, Latisha Rocha, Christina Smith, Gloria Hernandez, and Kasey Williams.

The staff at the Child Development Center (CDC) work together, with support from graduate and undergraduate assistants to support all children. The CDC staff serves nearly a hundred children aged 12 weeks to 5 years old each year. The parents and guardians of these children include Texas State University students, staff, and faculty members.  The team is dedicated to the following principles: “Teachers respect, value, and accept children and treat them with dignity at all times. Teachers make it a priority to know each child well. Teachers create an intellectually engaging, responsive environment to promote each child’s development and learning. Teachers make plans to enable children to attain key curriculum goals across various disciplines, such as language arts, mathematics, social studies, science, art, music, physical education, and health. Teachers foster children’s collaboration with peers. Teachers develop, refine, and use a wide repertoire of teaching strategies to enhance children’s learning and development. Teachers facilitate the development of responsibility and self-regulation in children.” Providing a high-quality childcare for students, staff and faculty allows individuals from across campus to focus on their mission. Students can study and learn without the financial and emotional stress of worrying about affordable supervision of their children. Faculty and staff benefit by having their children nearby and in an environment that support a diversity of needs. In fact, many departments use the CDC as a recruitment tool for faculty and staff. Thus, their work helps Texas State recruit and retain a top-quality workforce.

Team members include: Joe Fuller, Laura Jones, Lisa Apostolo, Rae Beth Holt and Michael Baker.

Since March 2020, this team has met with and taught over 700 faculty and staff in more than 57 training workshops and consulting sessions.  In response to the Covid-19 pandemic and to transition from TRACS to Canvas, this team created and facilitated 39 unplanned workshops, in addition to their existing projects and normal job duties, with the primary focus of helping move faculty, staff, and students to remote teaching and learning - all in a very short time frame. This team rallied and collaborated with each other as well as the Office of Distance and Extended Learning and Faculty Development to address content needs. They put in significant overtime and were dedicated to getting things completed accurately and professionally. Courses were developed in a short time-frame and were delivered morning, mid-day, afternoon, and sometimes after hours to accommodate faculty schedules. All training workshops and content (planned and unplanned) were adapted and moved to online delivery, some overnight. More classes were added weekly as registration filled up due to high demand. Curriculum was continuously revamped to address questions received by workshop attendees, as well as to address technical changes and features in modified applications. Special circumstances resulted in consultations via Zoom with departments to determine immediate solutions to immediate needs. The rush to equip faculty to teach online in an almost immediate time-frame was challenging, but exciting. Within a week’s time, the Customer Engagement Team had developed and made available a substantial number of online sessions for Zoom, Teams, Canvas, Mediaflo, and Adobe Sign to help faculty and staff prepare for the new working from home environment. Through online instruction using Zoom, the faculty were equipped with the knowledge and tools to get their courses ready for the transition, and staff were shown tools to help continue communication and collaboration with their departments.

Student Health Center Team

Team members include:  Roz Smucker, Becky Garcia, Brittany Maldonado, Carmen Patterson, Cathy Schriewer, Jennifer Ficken, Jerilyn Greenhaw, Melanie Eiland, Reanna Wyche, Rhonda Beagle, Sara Douglas, Karol Holman
Yssa Schulte, Shantel Sims, Amy Mendez, Sarah Canion, Bryant Frazier, Curtis Grey, Diane Johnston, Maria Guerra, Karan Freeman, Tina Howard, Jennifer Jones, Allison McCorkle, Amanda Zamora, Amber Trojcak, Amelia Herrera, Andrea Hankins, Anita Herrera, Cecilia Cornejo, Elsa thorn, Emilio Carranco, Eric Grey, Esther De La Torre, Gloria Rodriguez, Irma Daniella Levrie, Jennifer Babington, Jennifer S. Smith, Jennifer L. Smith, Joanna Wright, Joseph Sokal, Julie Eckert, Karen Gordon-Sosby, Katie Dash, Kelsey Banton, Kristin Schankel, Laura Greek, Lauren McEwan, Leanne Heller, Lucinda Mendoza, Maria Ortiz, Maury Martel, Melinda Marmolejo, Melissa Wile, Priti Doshi, Rick Benavides, Susi Thames, and Suzanne Zamora.

Administrative and clinical staff and the physicians at the Student Health Center have gone above and beyond to ensure that the well-being of the Bobcat community was of paramount importance during the COVID-19 pandemic. Staff implemented Zoom Virtual Visits for patients and ensured staff and patient safety while administering thousands of COVID-19 tests on-site. Because of their persistent and continued efforts in communicating with the campus community about the importance of wearing masks and social distancing, infection rates on campus remained low, allowing students, faculty, and staff to feel a level of safety while studying and working on campus.

Bobcat CARES Team

Team members include:  from Financial Aid and Scholarships -Jessica Amaral, Rebecca Bradley, Lisa Dickson, Dede Gonzales, Rafael Gonzalez, Stephanie Lopez, Jennifer Massey, Jennifer Obenhaus, Jodie Peterson, Letty Reyes, and Robyn Waddle, from Dean of Students - Glynis Christine, from Student Business Services - Maricela Cruz, Roxanne Munos, and Staci Wade, from University News Service - Yvonne Rhodes, and from Career Services -  Karen Evans.

The multi-departmental Bobcat CARES Emergency Grant team awarded approximately $15.9 million in emergency grant funds to more than 17,000 who were financially impacted by the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The funds enabled students to complete their spring 2020 semester and ultimately persist with their education into the following summer and fall semesters in many cases. The team’s work in awarding and disbursing aid to students in need helped reduce attrition and maintain enrollment in the spring semester after the university transitioned to an online education environment. The work of this team resulted in many of the team regularly working weekends, evenings, and into the early mornings to ensure that students in need were assisted as quickly as possible.

August 2020 Honorable Mention Award Winners

• Commencement Team
• Core Systems Team
• COVID-19 Public Health Awareness Signage Team
• Distance and Extended Learning Team
• Learning Spaces Team
• Network Operations Team
• University Advancement Communications Team
• University Registrar Schedule of Classes Team

Team members include:  Dr. Casey Smith, Alissa Savage, Dean Koehne, Nate England, Melvin Cruz, Karla Pizana, Kelsie Crumpton, and Professor Tom Myers of Shared Research Operations (SRO); Dr. Juan Gomez of Physics; Dr. Marcus Goss of STAR Park, Carlos Baca of Chemistry and Biochemistry; and John Ivey of the Ingram School of Engineering.  Student employee members include: Matt Candelas, Max Casares, Aaron Gonzales, Alan Martinez, Jacob Bisbal, and Renee Ness.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic this team came together and employed their diverse skillset to create conditions for a safe return for our students, faculty, staff, and external constituents.  They worked diligently on several engineering, administrative, and supplies/personal protective equipment issues.  They wrote, designed, and implemented safety protocols aimed at minimizing the risk of COVID-19 transmission.  These protocols enabled resumption of research activity in SRO lab spaces on June 2nd and were shared with the Continuation of Research workgroup for distribution to other lab managers across campus. They designed, fabricated, and distributed ~400 low-cost 3D-printed face shields and more than 3000 “ear savers” for many departments across campus.  This project utilized the resources of the Ingram Hall Makerspace. They manufactured more than 70,000 3D-printed nasal swabs for COVID-19 testing used by Sonic Healthcare, headquartered in Austin, Texas.  They modified conventional shop air blower/filters to include a high efficiency MERV filter capable of capturing airborne droplets of saliva (that may contain and transmit COVID-19) from the room.  The designed, fabricated, and installed acrylic barriers in office spaces where student workers or administrative staff interact with the public. They synthesized hand sanitizer dubbed “CoSE Clean” for use at ingress/egress points at labs, classrooms, and offices.  Production was ramped up to supply hand sanitizer campus wide, made available at more than 200 hand sanitizer stations on the San Marcos Campus with more than 500 gallons of the product produced in-house.  And they conducted complex and fast paced purchasing of materials in support of the projects.