University System of Georgia Honors Past Year of Success
CARROLLTON, Ga. – The University of West Georgia was honored by the Chancellor of the University System of Georgia Hank Huckaby by receiving the Bronze Chancellor Service Excellence Award for Outstanding Institution of the Year and President on Friday, Oct. 10 at a ceremony held at Kennesaw State University.
“I am thrilled that UWG has been recognized as one of the top three institutions of the year,” UWG President Kyle Marrero said. “Our commitment to development of our institutional leadership and a culture of high performance as part of our Engage West! initiative has already impacted student success and is helping us become the best comprehensive university in America, sought after as the best place to work, learn, and succeed.”
The Chancellor’s Service Excellence Awards were created to honor employees who have gone “above and beyond” their normal job responsibilities, but a special award was created for the overall University which went above and beyond.
To qualify, an institution must demonstrate the ability to adopt a continuous-improvement methodology that emphasizes student and employee satisfaction as well as quality of service. The institution’s efforts must result in improved satisfaction and student retention, according to the chancellor’s office.
The university was nominated by Chair of the Psychology Department and Service Excellence Ambassador Don Rice. Rice stated in the nomination letter that the university had made great strides, and in no small part, due to the leadership of Marrero in his first year.
“He (Marrero) immediately formed a faculty and staff advisory committee that was comprised of individuals at all levels at the university that he actually met with several times a month,” Rice said in his nomination statement. “Through this committee he was able to quickly get a sense of the culture of the university, both good and bad.”
After forming the committee and getting an idea about the community, Marrero then took action to make needed changes.
“He resurrected the Strategic Plan committee and provided appropriate leadership that ultimately resulted in a new strategic plan,” according to the nomination. “While this is not unusual in and of itself, what is significant is that he held numerous ‘town hall’ meetings that gave everyone, faculty, staff, and students the opportunity to weigh in on the plan.”
Marrero also started the Engage West program to reach out to the faculty, staff and students. Part of the program was hiring an outside consulting firm, The Studer Group, to assess the level of engagement through an employee survey. After the survey, the university used the results to create a new Strategic Plan to align the “employees’ values, goals, and aspirations” with those of the institution, according to the nomination.
Marrero has also developed programs to support technological enhancements, support adult learning, encourage community enhancement and create a Leadership Development Institute retreat.
UWG also received an Honorable Mention Award in the Outstanding Process Improvement category for a program called “Business Process Redesign to Address Changes With Deliveries on Campus.” The program was developed by the Central Stores, Receiving and Delivery – It’s All in the Packaging Team, which during a four-month period reduced the amount of unidentified packages from 1.8 percent to .47 percent and the number of researched packages from 31 percent to 14.3.
Associate Director of Auxiliary Services Ely Elefante along with the Assistant Director of the Center for Business Excellence Tricia Durrough were on hand to accept the award on behalf of the team. Other team members included Manager Van Edwards, Assistant Manager Seth Cowart, Shipping and Receiving Clerk Josh Reece, Center for Business Excellence Executive Director Dan Lewis, Assistant Director of Purchasing Shelly Parker, and Director of Purchasing Paul Williams.
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Join us in celebrating University of West Georgia for being awarded the Bronze Chancellor Service Excellence Award for Outstanding Institution of the Year and President. In fact, why not celebrate with UWG’s award-winning faculty, staff, and President Marrero via their video version of Pharrell Williams’s Happy…
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Special thanks to the University of West Georgia for providing this news release (Carrollton, GA, October 30, 2014) to share with What’s Right readers. Available from UWG’s website Perspective Online here.
The University of West Georgia is the land of opportunity for approximately 12,000 undergraduate and graduate students in 86 fields of study. The university is known for its innovative approach to scholarly achievement, creative expression, and service to humanity. It is recognized by U.S. News & World Report magazine as the No. 47 public university in the South. Founded in Carrollton, Ga., in 1906, UWG also offers classes at its Newnan and Douglasville centers and online. For more information, please visit westga.edu.
Our mission at Studer Education is to help education systems achieve measurable results that produce positive outcomes in student retention and success, service excellence, employee engagement, support services, and financial efficiencies and productivity. Follow us on Twitter at @StuderEducation and visit us online at http://studereducation.com. Studer Education is a division of Studer Group, ranked for the seventh straight year on the Best Small and Medium Workplaces by Great Place to Work® and a recipient of the 2010 Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award.
Filed under: Higher Education Tagged: #EmployeeEngagement, #HigherEd, GoWest!, higher education, Leadership, Marrero, Service Excellence, University, University of West Georgia, UWG 
