Recognizing
excellence during extraordinary times
Kimberly Mishra, Chief of Staff for Vice President for Human Resources
Each fall, UWHR invites nominations to two award programs — the Thorud Leadership Award and the Distinguished Staff Awards. We always look forward to receiving the heartfelt nomination letters that detail outstanding achievements and showcase the true excellence of our colleagues from across the institution. Like the rest of 2020, this year’s awards season will be different and will reflect the pandemic as well as the surge in diversity, equity and inclusion efforts.
We want to recognize the extraordinary ways leaders and UW staff have responded to the pandemic — pivoting to remote learning and working, supporting students and each other through this unprecedented emergency, saving lives and providing compassionate palliative care, researching vaccines and cures, and stepping up to do whatever was needed as we figured things out. We have also witnessed and want to honor efforts by colleagues focused on making the UW an anti-racist organization through diverse, equitable, and inclusive policies and programs that support our greater community.
As you think about recognizing colleagues’ efforts during this truly unprecedented year, we want to call out two important award program updates:
The Thorud Leadership Award, accepting faculty and staff nominations through December 11, has updated nomination criteria to better reflect our University’s value of diversity and inclusion and to recognize leadership through uncertainty.
A much bigger adjustment was needed for the Distinguished Staff Awards program, which has historically required a lengthy and time-consuming nomination process. In an effort to make it much easier to nominate colleagues during this busy time, the Distinguished Staff Awards will be temporarily replaced by the UW Staff Together We Will Awards, open for nominations through December 31. This large-scale temporary recognition program features a longer nomination window, a streamlined nomination process that allows for both written and video nominations, online recognition of nominees and up to twenty awards of $1500.
Thank you in advance for celebrating UW employee excellence during the extraordinary challenges of 2020. If you are interested in learning about other UW award programs, please visit UW Honors & Awards.
