This week is Staff Appreciation Week. If you haven’t already seen it on social media, please take a look at the below video message we prepared to thank our staff at MSU for their hard work.

Enjoy Staff Appreciation Week events

We will honor our staff this week at two events. Both events will take place on Friday in BearFest Village — the greenspace behind (to the west of) Carrington Hall.

First, at 11:30 a.m., we will host a Staff Appreciation Picnic.

We were not able to have our annual staff awards luncheon and ceremony in January this year.

The Staff Appreciation Picnic is designed to take the place of that ceremony, and we will honor staff at this event in a much less formal, decentralized way.

Second, after the picnic, at 1:30 p.m., we will host a Float into Summer ice cream social. As we did two years ago, we will close the university from 3 to 5 p.m. May 21 after the ice cream social.

Issues related to essential personnel, time reporting and compensation for this closure are addressed in section 2.15 of the Employee Handbook. Supervisors will work with their staff on how to coordinate coverage if coverage is required.

I hope you will plan to attend both of these events.

Recognizing great contributions

During its regular meeting last week, the board approved this year’s slate of inductees into the Wall of Fame. This year’s inductees are:

• Anson Elliott
• Mike Jungers
• James Moyer
• Thomas Plymate
• Mark Stillwell

As in years past, we will have an induction ceremony honoring these individuals during Homecoming week. Due to the pandemic, we were not able to have this ceremony last year, so we will also recognize the 2020 inductees at this year’s ceremony.

Read the news release

The board also recognized the recipients of the Missouri State Foundation Awards in Teaching and Service.

Margaret Weaver and Kyler Sherman-Wilkins were selected for this year’s teaching award, and David Romano was selected for the service award.

The board also approved this year’s recipients of the Excellence in Public Affairs Award:

• Tara Benson
• David Hall
• Judith Martinez
• Gary Meints
• Caryn Saxon
• Travis Schilla

Read the news release

The board also approved commendations for Cameron Wickham (outgoing chair of Faculty Senate), Ryan Reed (outgoing chair of Staff Senate), Tara Orr (outgoing student body president) and Blake Haynes (outgoing student body vice president).

I offer sincerest of congratulations to all of these award and commendation recipients. The university and the Springfield community are better because of your leadership and service.

Thanks for all you do for Missouri State!