University announces March 2015 employees of the month


LAWRENCE — The University of Kansas has announced the March 2015 Employees of the Month. They are as follows:

Name: Vicki Palmer

Start date: December 2002

Title: Administrative associate senior for the School of Law

Vicki Palmer
Vicki Palmer

What that means: In her position as administrative associate senior, Palmer serves as the law school’s registrar. She manages record-keeping for grades, graduation and course requirements, advises students on course, certificate and degree requirements, and compiles statistics for accreditation.

Notable: Palmer is known in her department for anticipating issues and resolving problems before they happen. That is reflected in her work this past year concerning the results from the bar exam, the standardized professional test that determines whether a bar applicant qualifies to practice law in a given state or jurisdiction. Twice a year, the law school receives bar pass percentages for its graduates. This past bar result season, the bar passage results were reported as significantly lower than normal. The dean was concerned about the results and created a committee to study how to attack this unexpected problem. Palmer did not take the results at face value, taking it upon herself to double-check every KU student’s score. She then discovered a significant calculation error in the reported scores for graduates. The error Palmer uncovered demonstrated that the bar passage rates were much higher than reported.

Palmer also often assists students who are experiencing difficulty with scheduling and those who are struggling to stay on track for graduation. Students regularly leave a conversation with Palmer with their problem solved or question answered, and most importantly, knowing that Palmer and the law school care about them and their success. She is known to jump in and help with phone duties, help with orientation and truly epitomizes the “all for one and one for all” attitude in the workplace. 

 

Name: Samantha Montague

Start date: April 2010

Title: Education program coordinator for the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences

Samantha Montague
Samantha Montague

What that means: Montague is responsible for working with the dean’s project leader for Online Program Development to develop and implement online degree programs.  Her supervisor attests that without Montague’s work, the project to develop an online degree program in the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences at KU would not be a success. Montague’s responsibilities include organization of initiatives, ongoing assessment and creating all of the policies and procedures necessary for the program. She is required to perform data analysis to develop the scope of the program as well as conduct outreach to potential students to better define the program structure. 

Notable: Montague knew from the day she was hired in her position as education program coordinator that the position may be temporary. However, she has still chosen to stick with the Online Program Development project because she believes in the mission. Her extensive advising knowledge has allowed her to develop a workable course plan for the online degree program. Montague has shown she is able to anticipate problems before they develop across a breadth of situations. One of the first projects Montague tackled related to the Online Degree Program, and that was an analysis of the “need” for an online degree program to better understand who would be served by the College’s online degree. Montague began to look at former KU students who had not graduated but who may be served by the online course, then reached out to those individuals. Montague identified more than 20 students who had not graduated but who were eligible to graduate due to KU’s changing requirements; she then set out to make their graduation happen. As a result, there will be two dozen students who can list themselves as KU alumni.

Additionally, Montague serves as an ongoing adviser to students who wish to come back to KU and complete their final requirements online, and she is responsible for coordinating Haskell Exchange enrollments. Montague is also heavily involved with two other major initiatives. One of those is the Major Marketplace, which allows for incoming and current students to browse all majors available in the College. Montague has worked with each department and Marketing Communications to bring each available major “to life.” Another initiative Montague has played an integral role in is four-year plans for College majors with a bachelor’s degree option. Montague has mapped each semester covering four years of study for each major for CLAS bachelor’s degree of arts. These plans will be available to students to help them stay on track as well as show students and parents that it is possible to graduate on time.