If you walk with Jonathan Mercer, be prepared to pick up your feet. He walks fast. He also thinks and talks fast — and students like it a lot.

An associate professor in the Department of Political Science, Mercer has won a Distinguished Teaching award.

He specializes in international relations, doing what the best diplomats do: talk but also listen very carefully, whether one-on-one or with a class of 150 students. He listens, wisecracks and isn’t afraid to challenge.

James Harmon, a senior in economics and political science, got to know Mercer last year when he took his 400-level course in political psychology. “Mercer really opened my mind to alternative explanations  ­—  better explanations than the traditional paradigms of political science,” Harmon said.

Mercer researches the effects of emotion on international relations, a field long dominated by theories that assume perfect rationality.

Harmon sought Mercer’s counsel about graduate school. “The Ph.D. had been my dream. It helped me get through some difficult situations,” Harmon said. Between the ages of 10 and 18, he lived in 20 foster homes.

But Mercer wouldn’t let Harmon simply amble into graduate school. He questioned him closely. He issued chapter and verse about rigor, about analysis, about time and money. In crowded fields, plenty of professors make sure students genuinely want the doctorate, but Mercer is particularly probing

Harmon went away and thought hard. Eventually, though, he decided yes, he very much wants a doctorate in political science.

OK, Mercer said, and helped with applications. Harmon got accepted to several programs but decided on the UW. “I chose to stay here,” Harmon said, “largely because of the support I knew I would get from people like Jon Mercer.”

Mercer himself holds a doctorate from Columbia University. He’s drawn by the drama of international relations. “Biology doesn’t have wars,” he said. “There’s drama to international politics that makes it really easy to teach.”

But don’t be misled. Mercer does not just wander into class and spout anecdotes. In a 400-level international conflicts class this past May, Mercer worked from a detailed outline projected on a screen, quizzing students about theories of nuclear war, helping them connect theory to example. It does not pay to attend a Mercer class unprepared because he calls on students, expecting answers.

Mel Belding, a retired physician, audits the international conflicts course. “Jon is one of the finest teachers I’ve ever encountered,” he said after one of Mercer’s classes. “His lectures are extremely well organized and well presented. He’s engaging, very sharply humorous and incredibly well informed.”

“I’ve been surprised by how much I enjoy teaching,” Mercer said during an interview in his office. “Students are smart; they work hard and they put up with my bad jokes, even though I don’t put up with them coming late.”

Mercer has been a leader both in and out of the classroom.  He served as director of the political science honors program from 1999 to 2005, at the outset seeing too little sense of community and too many students fumbling with honors theses. He arranged social gatherings, involving faculty in some events and hosting some at his home. Working with faculty and staff, he also redesigned requirements and faculty advising for the thesis.

In the past eight years, Mercer has shaped at least 10 honors theses, three of them winning the departmental award for best honors thesis.

With Elizabeth Kier, an associate professor of political science, Mercer has made international relations and national security more prominent on campus. They secured external funding for the UW International Security Colloquium, the only academic forum of its kind in the Pacific Northwest. It brings leading figures from across the U.S. and Europe to the UW. Mercer and Kier also created a certificate program for undergraduates seeking to concentrate on international security.

The really revealing thing about Mercer, said Department Chairman Peter May, is the line of students outside his door during office hours. “While most of us wonder where students are,” May said, “Mercer is stretching minds, challenging them.”

Some days, May drops by for a chat, only to find Mercer talking with a student. Rather than quickly wrapping up with the student, Mercer says, “Sorry, busy – I’ll call you later.”

In talking to Distinguished Teaching Award winner Valerie Curtis-Newton, one gets the impression that her goal as a teacher would be the same regardless of what she was teaching.

“I think students should work hard,” she said, “put in all the preparation they need to tackle an endeavor, be bold enough to have ideas and believe that their ideas should be given a voice, be courageous enough to speak them or to put them into action and mature enough to accept the consequences of whatever those choices were.”

As it happens, Curtis-Newton is a professor of drama, so the ideas she’s talking about manifest themselves on a stage. But she says, “My job isn’t to make directors or actors. My job is to make really great citizens who can apply those skills to anything in life. So I think if they’ve gotten that, then I’ve done my job.”

Her students evidently appreciate her approach, as those who wrote to support her nomination show:

“Answers never come easily in Val’s classes,” said undergraduate Elaine Huber. “She insists that students develop their ideas and discover their own answers.”

“She is able to guide students to take artistic risks, while holding them accountable to learn something if they fail,” said graduate student Alyson Roux.

Drama School Director Sarah Nash Gates, who nominated Curtis-Newton for the award, put it this way: “Val teaches by laying a pathway for a student to explore. Students are allowed and encouraged to blaze their own creative path with Val staying nearby, ready to nudge or point the way only when asked or to save a bad stumble.”

In a way, Curtis-Newton is mirroring the path that she herself took. As an undergraduate at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., she was mentored by Robyn Hunt and encouraged to find her creative voice. When Hunt moved to the UW to teach in the School of Drama, Curtis-Newton followed her and entered the master’s program in directing.

“I thought I’d go back east after I finished the MFA, start my career there,” Curtis-Newton said.

But then she fell in love, both personally and professionally. “When I first joined the faculty there was an energy that I was drawn to and possibilities represented by the work being done here that were very exciting to me,” she said.

That, together with the personal life she shares with her partner, has kept her in Seattle, where she heads the UW directing program and frequently directs at local professional theaters. She uses those outside directing gigs as stepping stones for her UW students and colleagues.

“Every time I do any work at all, there’s always at least one UW graduate or undergraduate student or alum in the project,” she said. “When I do readings I try to use that as an opportunity to introduce people from our programs to the theaters. I always have either actors or assistant directors from the UW.”

In the past few years, Curtis-Newton has been heading up an effort called the Hansberry Project through which works by African American playwrights have been brought to local stages. As an African American herself, it’s work she feels passionate about. And yet, she doesn’t want to be known as the director who does black plays.

“It’s a bit of a box,” she said. “I want to tell good stories — all kinds of good stories.”

In fact, Curtis-Newton wants to do more than tell stories.  She wants to bring people together.

“I’m really, really interested in how art intersects with community — how it builds it, how it stretches it,” she said. “And as director I get to pick the projects that I think can bring a disparate group of people together to watch and then set them loose to have conversations with each other. And that’s very exciting to me.”

Take her recent foray directing All My Sons at Intiman. The play is considered an American classic, written by white playwright Arthur Miller. Curtis-Newton chose to cast black actors in the central roles.

“It was a way to make the play feel more urgent, more relevant to a contemporary audience,” she said. “We didn’t change anything of substance. We didn’t try to ‘make it black.’ My interest as a director is in how I land the play’s intention in the heart and soul of an audience. And I felt this was a way I could do that.”

It’s a goal Curtis-Newton hopes her students take to heart.

She said, “In their exit interviews I ask students, ‘Are you a better artist than you were when you got here?’ And when they say yes, I feel a tremendous sense of satisfaction.”

More than one-third of UW undergraduates will have an opportunity to take a class designed by Stuart Reges, winner of a Distinguished Teaching Award.

Some of them may be surprised to leave the course considering a career in computer science.

About eight years ago, the UW’s Department of Computer Science & Engineering decided to follow Stanford, Berkeley, Carnegie Mellon and other universities in making coordination of the introductory programming course a specialty to be handled by an expert.

Department chair Hank Levy characterized the UW’s introductory programming class at that time as “a disaster.”

“We placed that disaster in Stuart’s hands,” Levy wrote.

The turnaround was dramatic. A chart of undergraduate enrollment in computer science at the UW shows a sharp inflection point when Reges was hired in 2004, and a steady increase ever since. In 2009, Reges became the first member of the UW’s College of Engineering promoted to the rank of principal lecturer.

“There were high numbers before,” says Reges, pointing to the dot-com peak in the late ’90s, “but we’re setting records.”

Last year more than 1,600 students took CSE 142, “Introduction to Computer Programming.” More than 500 women enrolled, which is also an all-time high.

A former student describes Reges’ lectures as “a mixture of clear concepts, useful examples, and interesting facts.” Evaluations from hundreds of students enrolled in an introductory programming course last fall were a perfect 5.0.

“Getting high student reviews for a small, advanced class is easy,” writes Richard Anderson, professor of computer science & engineering. “Doing so for an introductory class of this size, technical difficulty, and complexity is nearly unheard of.”

Among the reasons for Reges’ popularity is what he calls “nifty assignments” – coding assignments that illustrate a concept, but are also fun. One has students create a program where you can type in any name and it calculates all the words that can be formed using the same letters. Another programming assignment has users complete a standard personality questionnaire and then maps the results along four personality dimensions.

Reges has written a book on nifty assignments that’s now used in more than 100 colleges and universities across the country.

He’s a late convert to computer science who encourages others to consider all their options. As an undergraduate, Reges majored in math, but he also won universitywide awards for English and poetry. He pursued graduate research at Stanford in artificial intelligence only to discover that his real love was for teaching.

Students who flock to his class discover a passionate evangelist for his discipline.

“The reason that I want to teach 1,650 students a year is that I find the ones who are good. And then I ask them: ‘Why aren’t you considering computer science?’”

Many of the students in this category are women; nominators credit Reges for helping the department recruit and retain a record number of female students.

“Stuart is the master of captivating and organized lectures, well-scoped assignments, and fair grading,” said Hélène Martin, “but what sets him apart from other teachers is his ability to inspire students individually and develop their passions.”

She is among many former students who credit Reges with their career choice, in her case computer-science education.

Key to Reges’ success is what has been referred to as a “phalanx of undergraduate teaching assistants.” He used a similar strategy in previous positions at Stanford University and the University of Arizona; last year, almost 30 years of Stanford undergraduate TAs held a reunion.

In each case, Reges works to create a community among the TAs, holding a weekly meeting where they cover course updates, but students also share food and can discuss their different approaches to teaching the material. The TAs can decide how to run their sections and have input into the course as a whole.

Last year, the department had 98 applications for nine TA positions, and for the first time could not interview all the applicants.

On top of lecturing in huge lecture halls, Reges also holds an optional honors section, a separate class where top students meet once a week for small-group discussions.

“Over time, I’ve learned that you have to make time for your best students,” Reges said.

Sometimes that time takes him well beyond the standard workday. Reges notes that on a recent evening, he held an honors section from 7 to 9 p.m., then stayed later to talk with students.

“I was here until 11:45, and I hadn’t had dinner,” he says.

What makes it worthwhile, he says, is seeing what a difference an outstanding teacher can make.

“To be able to have this kind of impact on people’s lives is just incredible.”

“At the end of the class, I was very dissatisfied,” he recalled. He solicited help from an outside evaluator and worked to transform one-sided lectures into conversations that could engage students even in classes of more than 100.

Talbott’s Department of Philosophy colleagues attest to his success, in teaching and as an evaluator to help other faculty succeed, for which he has earned a UW Distinguished Teaching Award.

Growing up, Talbott moved often because of his father’s career with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. By late high school, the family lived in Portland and he was smitten by the beauty of the Northwest.

He earned a bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and a doctorate from Harvard University in 1976, then came to Seattle – but it was 13 years before he began his teaching career. First he focused on raising a family, as he and his wife took turns with primary breadwinner duties. During those years he was a paralegal and a computer operator for a Seattle law firm.

He landed on the UW philosophy faculty in 1989 and became a full professor in 2005.

Talbott was drawn to philosophy because, “No matter what discipline you’re in you can begin to ask questions that become philosophical.” He is on sabbatical this year and laments not being able to have a class delve into questions raised by the revolutionary atmosphere in the Middle East.

“Philosophy is not a place where everyone agrees. It’s where people find that they disagree and can explain their disagreements to each other rationally and civilly,” he said.

Student engagement, particularly in larger lecture classes, is a sign of success. Talbott said that when he started, people at the front of class were the ones routinely involved in discussions, but through the years he has adopted a variety of methods that engender much broader involvement.

Students are expected to answer a variety of questions, both written and oral, and must be able to explain abstract issues to someone who has never taken philosophy. The point isn’t to win or lose, Talbott said, but to be able to make a strong enough case that a reasonable person, perhaps one who disagrees with you, can at least understand the rationale.

“It is fear that causes people to close down and not listen. We provide an atmosphere that’s not risky, where you’re not going to get chopped down,” he said.

He notes that a philosophical examination of vexing questions usually provides a far more nuanced, less black-and-white view than do moral authorities such as religion, or even a personal ethics code. For example, he notes that slavery, now nearly universally condemned, once was at least tolerated by most of the world’s major religions.

Getting students to think in those terms is his biggest teaching challenge, Talbott said, but watching it happen is the biggest reward.

Philosophy chairman Kenneth Clatterbaugh cited Talbott as a department leader who founded the undergraduate writing center and helps usher in new technology. In a nominating letter, Clatterbaugh said Talbott writes “the best peer reviews in the department” and is very helpful in assessing colleagues’ course materials and classroom techniques.

In a supporting letter, Ann Baker, a senior lecturer and 2004 teaching award recipient, noted that “in a time when many faculty are assigning less writing, Bill has been assigning more.” She said students “get so caught up in the excitement of the topic … that they ask questions, offer objections, and provide alternative suggestions.”

Chris Jordan, a public affairs graduate student, was impressed by Talbott’s description of the history of philosophy “as a great conversation.”

“I never experienced a professor at the University of Washington who was able to successfully tie all the class material together in such a clear and engaging way and get students to see the complete picture,” Jordan wrote.

Talbott wants students to experience what he calls “productive engagement,” considering other opinions and recognizing that philosophers who wrote thousands of years ago have things to say that can help find answers to today’s dilemmas.

“There are always going to be more puzzles, and that’s why philosophy never ends,” he said. “It doesn’t end at the end of the course, it doesn’t end at the end of the year, it doesn’t end at the end of grad school and it doesn’t end at retirement.”

Cockrell pushes the undergraduates he teaches. He also pushes himself — hard.

For his work as a teaching assistant, Cockrell has won an Excellence in Teaching Award.

“In my 32 years as a faculty member in this department, I have never seen a TA or lead TA who has displayed Andrew’s level of initiative, enthusiasm and commitment to TA excellence,” said Peter J. May, chairman of the Department of Political Science.

Elizabeth Kier, an associate professor of political science, said two words recur in student comments about Cockrell: “enjoy” and “inspire.” Kier said: “Andrew’s sections are fun. He cleverly designs debates that encourage students to pit different theorists against each other.”

Who would think, she added, of staging a smackdown between Christopher Layne, the 21^st-century American realist, and Immanuel Kant, the 18^th-century idealist?

Cockrell is quick to credit professors such as Kier and Jon Mercer for mentoring him. He’s equally quick to credit students, both his peers and younger ones. “I went in expecting there would be smart students, but there are brilliant ones. Having a classroom full of smart, engaging students makes teaching easy,” he said.

Cockrell came to the UW with a master’s of philosophy in politics from Oxford University and a bachelor’s degreecum laude from Willamette University.

After Cockrell had been a UW teaching assistant for two years, he was assigned to teach the quarter-long training course for new teaching assistants. He redesigned the course, bringing innovation to standard things such as grading and feedback. He also brought in “celebrity guests”: experienced teaching assistants who addressed issues such as lessons plans and managing the classroom.

Joannie Tremblay-Boire, a doctoral student in political science, took the training course when she was a new teaching assistant and then became one of Cockrell’s colleagues. She noticed how, when revamping the course, Cockrell asked his peers what was working for them in the classroom. Tremblay-Boire has also noticed Cockrell greeting students by name, even when it’s been a while since they’ve been in his course.

Natalie Nguyen, who is in the section Cockrell teaches as part of  Mercer’s 400-level course in international conflict, said Cockrell has been the best teaching assistant she’s had at the UW. He’s approachable, she explained, and he helps students understand multiple perspectives on the same issue.

For his work, Cockrell won the  2010 Department of Political Science award for best teaching assistant.

But it’s not a case of gliding from success to success. Asked what he’s failed at, Cockrell talks about things he feels he should have done or said in the classroom.

During his second quarter as a teaching assistant, for example, he overheard two students joking. One of the students said, “Oh, that’s so gay,” referring to something dumb or silly. Cockrell ignored the remark but later wished he had reminded the two of the hurt that throwaway remarks can cause.

“Everyone needs to feel welcome in the classroom,” he said.

Later in the quarter, he overheard a similar conversation among other students. That time, he spoke up.

If all goes well, Cockrell will soon begin his dissertation. The native of Vancouver, Wash. thinks that once he has the doctorate, he’d like to teach at a small college in the Pacific Northwest.

“I grew up here,” he said. “I want to stay close.”

On the day when we talk, she’s grappling with how to help two Cambodians who had been deported while coping with mental health issues. She’s trying to find them housing in Cambodia, and she’s worried what will happen if they stop taking their medication.

Harachi’s work with Cambodian immigrants in the Pacific Northwest is one of many ways that she is trying to help Cambodians recover from the brutal Khmer Rouge regime, which devastated the country and tortured and killed its citizens in the 1970s.

“There’s endless, endless work to do be done in supporting Cambodians,” said Harachi, an associate professor in the UW School of Social Work. The Outstanding Public Service Award to Harachi recognizes her role in helping a Cambodian university establish the country’s first college-level social work program. By training social workers in Cambodia, the program is a way to address the country’s ongoing problems with poverty, health issues and human rights violations.

“Should we ever doubt that one person can indeed change the world, we need only look at Dr. Tracy Harachi for evidence!” wrote Edwina Uehara, dean of the UW School of Social Work, and Dorothy Van Soest, former dean of the school and UW social work professor, in their letter supporting Harachi’s nomination for the award. “Our amazement in her efforts and commitment is compounded even more when we realize she has no intention of stopping until Cambodia’s ability to address the multiple legacies of genocide, civil war and colonization is dramatically changed,” they wrote.

Carol Rodley, U.S. ambassador to Cambodia, also praised Harachi’s efforts in Cambodia: “It is not so often that one person is able to make such a difference in the development of a country. Tracy Harachi has had a huge impact and has helped to build an institution that contributes directly to peace, reconciliation and prosperity in Cambodia.”

Harachi emphasizes that many others have contributed to developing the social work program in Cambodia. “This isn’t just about me. Other individuals have donated money and time,” she said.

Harachi visited the country for the first time in 2000. She had been helping Cambodian immigrants to the United States since the early 1980s – just after the Khmer Rouge regime ended – and her visit was a way for her to see how what was happening in Cambodia contributed to the issues she saw when Cambodians immigrated.

At the beginning of her visit, a Cambodian immigrant and friend who had survived the Khmer Rouge massacre took Harachi to see killing fields and torture and interrogation facilities. “She wanted me to see what she had been through,” Harachi said.

Many foreigners try to help by using their own ideas of what will benefit Cambodia, Harachi said, but what works better is to “support Cambodians to do their own work.”

That’s the approach she’s taken with helping the Royal University of Phnom Penh, whose administrators asked her to create a social work program at their university in 2004. Since then, she has advised on curricula, mentored new faculty and fundraised to get the program off the ground. She makes about four trips to Cambodia each year.

The first phase of the program was for Cambodian students to come to the UW School of Social Work: one Cambodian student came to UW from 2006 to 2009, four more from 2007 to 2009 and another will attend from 2011 to 2013.

After finishing their master’s degrees in social work at UW, the students returned to Cambodia to help form the new social work program. They serve as faculty in the new social work department in Cambodia, whose students do fieldwork focused on sex traffic victims, HIV survivors, disabled citizens and others. Sixty-four students are enrolled in the Royal University of Phnom Penh social work program, and the first class of 21 social workers will graduate next year.

“They want to be change agents. They’re the generation who will make their country more democratic and more just,” Harachi said. “They inspire me to do the work that I do and offer me hope for Cambodia’s future.”

“But when I started teaching I found I really loved it,” Jones said. “I love when you go into a class and you get some positive energy back from the students — they’re engaged, they’re laughing, they’re relating the material to their own lives.”

That discovery led her to first consider a career in academia. It also brought her to the doctoral program in the UW’s Department of Human Centered Design and Engineering, formerly known as Technical Communication, which this year nominated Jones for an Excellence in Teaching Award given to outstanding TAs.

Although technical communication might sound like a dry subject — and, indeed, many of the students enroll in the course only because it’s a required for an engineering degree — Jones presents the material in a manner that’s anything but boring.

“Natasha can turn the dullest material into a fun and engaging challenge,” writes former student Nathan Bilbao. “She made the course material relevant, useful, exciting and fun and because of this I benefited greatly from her contributions.”

Take, for example, a class on how to write proposals. Jones first introduces the three different kinds of arguments: logical, emotional and ethical. Then she asks students to give some examples from their own lives.

“All of us have had to persuade someone to do something at some point,” Jones says. “How did you do it? How did you use logical arguments, or emotional arguments? Translating those personal experiences over to what you’re doing in class helps students be more engaged.”

When someone hears the words technical communication, “people think we’re talking about computers or mobile phones.”

In fact, Jones’ dissertation will look at how an activist group, The Innocence Project, uses different forms of communication to coordinate and establish specific goals in its efforts to free wrongly convicted inmates. Her past work has investigated how to explain DNA technology to specific groups, and how child care centers communicate relevant information to parents.

“It’s everywhere,” she says. “Whenever you’re communicating complex information to a specific audience, that’s technical communication.”

Jones taught four different courses at both introductory and senior levels, helped develop curriculum, and acted as director for the Engineering Writing Center. Last year, she stepped in at the last minute to fill in to teach an evening course for working professionals. This year, she taught a professional development course offered to UW faculty staff.

In all cases, her enthusiasm, well-planned lectures and command of the subject drew praise from her students.

“The student evaluation question: ‘What aspects of this class contributed most to your learning?’ was often answered with one word: either ‘Natasha’ or ‘Jones,’” wrote department chair Jan Spyridakis in her nomination letter.

As a mentor, Jones cites Auburn University English professor Michelle Sidler, who first suggested she consider a career in academia.

Jones admires her former professor’s ability to capture students’ attention and create assignments that get them involved — both qualities that Jones’ own students have noted.

But Jones also has another, more well-known, role model: “I want to be one of those teachers that students come in and they can’t take their eyes off you, like Robin Williams in Dead Poets Society.”

The comparison is apt. Students comment on Jones’ energy, enthusiasm, humor and ability to engage her student audience.

“In a lot of ways, teaching is like a performance,” Jones says. “You put everything you have out there for an hour and a half, or two hours, and then you’re drained. It engages the academic portion of your brain, the compassionate part of your brain, it takes all of you.”

Jones moved to Seattle with her 9-year-old daughter. Her daughter has been “a trouper,” she says, putting up with her mom’s studying and frequent moves to pursue her academic goals. Students and other members of the department have been supportive, she says, scheduling her classes when possible during her daughter’s school day.

After graduation, Jones hopes to move back to the Southeast to be closer to her extended family. Ideally she hopes to find a position at a liberal arts college where she can combine her research with her passion — and her gift — for teaching.

It was the summer of 2009 and the Professional and Organizational Development office was coping with the elimination of two positions because of budget constraints, as well as the departure of two staff members who wanted to pursue new options. Another staff member was recovering after being hospitalized with a near-fatal illness.

Then, in the same week the office director made public her plans to depart, another longtime staff member suffered a heart attack and died.

“POD was in extreme crisis. Ujima not only shepherded us through an extremely difficult time with grace and compassion, she gave us a much-needed sense of security and consistency, and over the past year she has moved POD forward with her dynamic strategic vision and through her work with others at the University,” writes office member Renee Hanson about Ujima Donalson, director of Professional and Organizational Development, who has been chosen for a Distinguished Staff Award.

“Ujima truly exemplifies grace under pressure,” Hanson continues. “She stepped into a leadership position with little warning or preparation and at the absolute worst time. Yet, throughout this time of extreme crisis, Ujima was a steady, compassionate and positive presence, and she made those of us in POD feel cared for and supported. . . . POD could have fallen apart as a team. But Ujima helped to keep our team strong and cohesive and then transitioned us from a time of crisis to a new beginning.”

Profession and Organizational Development, a division of UW Human Resources, provides training and consulting on all three UW campuses. Among other things, the office conducts new-employee orientation, offers courses to hone faculty and staff skills in areas such as fiscal procedures and supervising employees, and provides help to employees as they chart their careers at the UW.

Donalson was with Professional and Organizational Development for two years when she stepped up as interim manager, later becoming the director. Long-time employee Anthony Graziano had just died and Donalson led the effort to plan a memorial service, relieving his college-age son of that burden, and helped the staff both grieve and celebrate Graziano’s life.

“The office then took the opportunity to figure out how to pull ourselves together and grow our business,” Donalson says. She suggested focusing on the activities where the office was already getting good feedback from faculty and staff. She says she asked her staff, “What are our strengths and how can we crank that up a notch? How do we move from excellent to premier?”

“Ujima has a gift for setting a strategic vision that is both practical and inspiring. She articulates a vision that we, in turn, aspire to achieve, but her vision is never simply a lofty ideal. Ujima understands what’s important to our core business (POD operates as a self-sustaining unit) and, consequently, sets solid priorities.” Hanson writes.

One change involved tightening new employee orientation from 3 hours to 2 ½, something that’s been met with an increase in approval ratings from participants. Strategic leadership courses are offered twice a quarter, instead of monthly, to free up staff so they can provide more consulting and coaching. An example of cost savings resulted when Support Professionals Staff Day — workshops for those who provide support for offices or individuals — was brought back to campus after being conducted at Bell Harbor Conference Center on the Seattle waterfront.

Donalson came to the UW four years ago after 15 years as assistant vice president for training and development with Bank of America. Although relatively new to the UW, her staff says she has forged countless relationships with leaders and other staff across the University.

One such person is Elaine Jennerich, director of organization and training for UW libraries, who wrote, “Ujima is a master trainer and teacher who is genuinely dedicated to improving the campus climate at the University of Washington. Unflappable and well organized, her straightforward approach is laudable and effective.”

Another is Ruth Johnston, associate vice president of finance and facilities (and a former director of POD’s predecessor), who wrote, “Ujima is delightful, very positive, encouraging, a fast thinker and problem solver, and incredibly collaborative. She has added confidence and expertise to the POD staff, and when taking over for the former director, slid into the position confidently and competently.”

As department administrator in political science, it’s no surprise that Ann Buscherfeld is responsible for the budget. In fact she has responsibility for more than 100 budgets, some 70 of them just within the department, when all of its programs and centers are considered.

That means keeping straight which money can be used for which types of expenses — after all, you can’t use state money to buy meals for visiting dignitaries, and different rules apply for federal funding and money raised through donations.

What is unusual, though, is how, year after year for more than a decade, Buscherfeld’s budgets have been almost exactly on target, with very little left over and never anything overspent.

She is proud of that accomplishment, but it is only one factor that brought her a Distinguished Staff Award.

“She helps us to set a tone and a standard of excellence in performance that makes us all better, individually and collectively,” department Chairman Peter May and former chairmen Stephen Majeski and Michael McCann wrote in a letter supporting her nomination for the award.

They tout Buscherfeld’s integrity, innovation, spirit of collaboration, fostering of diversity and respect, and her willingness to support faculty and students. She also has been noted for helping graduate students negotiate the research grant application process, which can be daunting even for experienced faculty.

Buscherfeld is an Iowa native who lives in Issaquah, where her family raises golden retrievers. She was an administrator at a hospital in Minnesota, and then worked as a medical secretary at a Seattle-area clinic before joining the Political Science Department in 1986. She started as department receptionist, advanced to secretary supervisor and then computer specialist before becoming administrator in 1999.

The most difficult part of her job, she said, is keeping tabs on all the different facets of the various budgets, and educating faculty and students on what types of things they can and cannot do with money from various sources.

“We are scrutinized and we know it, so we want to make sure our funds are used properly,” she said.

On any given day she has certain things she would like to accomplish but she has learned to be flexible because of the variety of needs that come up.

“There’s no typical day,” she said. “I’ve learned not to plan my day because that can just frustrate me.”

In a letter supporting her nomination, four directors of centers that Buscherfeld administers – Sharan Brown, James Gregory, Steven Herbert and Heather Pool – praised her “almost endless patience, and her inexplicable kindness to the clueless” for making their lives easier.

“We cannot imagine another staff person who does more with less and still has a smile on her face,” they wrote. “We are perpetually astounded that she can do so much, so effectively. None of us have ever seen a staff member so quietly prolific.”

Her work is so universally appreciated within the department (one nominating letter included endorsements from 62 current graduate students) that in May 2010, during an event to honor someone else in the department, Buscherfeld was called forward for special recognition. She was presented a “Husky Achievement” trophy as “The Best Doggone Administrator.”

In their letter, May, Majeski and McCann noted that she often is forced to “innovate on the spot” and that her ability to adapt quickly helps the entire department.

“Last year, we had back-to-back incidents of flooded offices in two different buildings,” they wrote. “In each case she personally rearranged schedules, offices, meetings, furniture and files while simultaneously mobilizing movers, repainting, plumbers, carpenters and electricians.”

While she takes pride in such accomplishments, Buscherfeld chalks it all up to being part of a job that she enjoys and that gives her great satisfaction.

“I just love helping people and giving them the support they need,” she said.

If you have a meeting with Tanya Eng-Aquino, grants and program manager for the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors, you may receive a reminder email the day before the meeting. The email will be friendly in tone and will contain helpful directions to locate the office, part of the Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, on 45^th Avenue in the University District.  She’ll provide the name of a back-up contact in the office in case she is not at her desk. Upon arriving at her office, she may offer you some chocolate, too.

Little gestures like the detailed email and chocolate reveal Eng-Aquino’s personal touch and thoughtful behaviors that helped land her a Distinguished Staff Award this year. Research Assistant Professor Jason Kilmer said Eng-Aquino embodies the UW’s values. “We truly could not imagine a more deserving recipient of this award,” he said, speaking for others in the department. “Tanya has helped us weather the storm of budget cuts and dwindling resources with her extraordinary resourcefulness and innovation,” he wrote in a nomination letter.

She is singled out by Kilmer and Assistant Professor Melissa Lewis, too, for creating a respectful, diverse and collaborative work environment. “She knows what ‘real world’ issues members of our team may be dealing with, and has consistently, kindly and respectfully offered to be available to talk if needed.” The list of “little things” she does for her co-workers is lengthy and includes: helps to coordinate meal preparation and delivery of food to a graduate student recovering from cancer, and follows up on reports from the UW about crime in the area to make sure people are being careful.

When asked about the safety alerts, and driving co-workers home to ensure their safety, Eng-Aquino seems to not realize that what she does goes beyond what the average staffer might do.

“We often work late nights at the center and sometimes, it’s just plain dark during the winter months,” she said. “There are police reports of muggings and assaults around our building, and I know I would be afraid to leave the office late alone.”  She goes on to describe how she has, in the past, picked up her kids from school, driven them home and then stopped by the office late at night to make sure staff and students aren’t working too late.

Eng-Aquino has worked in the department since August 2006 and has been employed at the UW since 1999. She was born at UW Medical Center and also graduated from the UW with degrees in sociology and accounting.  She said that she likes to help others succeed. “Their success is my success,” she said.

Like many UW employees, she acknowledges wearing many hats on the job, which contributes to her days being both stressful on occasion and also never boring. She likes to think outside of the box, helping to solve problems creatively, too. These skills have come in handy during the challenging budget times.

The center, she said, provides a nurturing environment. “That’s why I like it here so much,” she said. “I feel like they bring out the best in me and, hopefully, I contribute back to them as well.” (This seems to be a given, based on the praise delivered in nomination letters.) Mary Larimer, professor and the center’s director, described Eng-Aquino as the “heart and soul (not to mention frontal lobe!)” of the team. Citing the exponential growth that has taken place since Eng-Aquino joined the team, Larimer said, “We truly could not have accomplished what we have accomplished were it not for her talent, dedication and sheer unbelievable hard work.” Since Eng-Aquino joined the center, the number of faculty has increased from four to 10 and staff members have jumped from four to 22.

Dr. Richard Veith, department chair, said that Eng-Aquino is one of the most talented and dedicated staff members in the department. “Tanya consistently goes far beyond what is required of her job description, often working long hours and providing superior service despite numerous deadlines and working with a rapidly expanding team,” he wrote.

The center’s team numbers more than 60 people, including UW faculty, postdoctoral and graduate students, undergraduates, staff (research coordinators and research scientists) and volunteers. Eng-Aquino said that she works among some of the best there are at the University. “This nomination really speaks highly of them,” she said, eager to cast the spotlight in a different direction.