KU announces September employees of the month

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

University Unclassified Employee of the Month

Name: Michele Arellano

Start date: 1999

Current title: Associate director, Office of Study Abroad

What that means: Arellano oversees all information systems and student processes for approximately 1,900 students who participate in more than 130 programs each year. Her duties include oversight of policies and procedures for all stages of student application from acceptance to financial counseling, scholarships, fee payments, enrollment and grade posting; and three student department orientations per year. She also is responsible for the office’s new online StudioAbroad database that went live in fall 2011, which last year served 2,775 unique students with inquiries to applications.

Notable: Arellano exceeded her own exceptional level of service to get the new StudioAbroad database up and running, and she pulled together every aspect of the implementation. She determined how the data would be managed and negotiated with the vendor on system requirements and also coordinated approval of the contract and purchase. She has trained 60 KU faculty members on the use of the system for application review and student admission. Arellano is also a leader in the national arena and in May 2012 was appointed as a member of the Financing Education Abroad committee of NAFSA, the Association of International Educators.

University Support Staff Employee of the Month

Name: Ash Shadrick

Start date: 2006

Current title: Research technologist for the Department of Mechanical Engineering

What that means: Shadrick is involved in the production and prototyping of various senior design and research projects and parts. When he is not helping students, he works on research parts requested from faculty and undergraduates. For example, he must produce precision parts that sometimes have to be accurate to 0.0001". He also is busy training students on equipment at the start of each fall semester.

Notable: During a FSAE Formula One competition last year in Lincoln, Neb., Rochester Institute of Technology’s car had a catastrophic failure. Robert Sorem (FSAE adviser) asked Shadrick to stay late to help the team repair their car. He agreed, and the RIT team drove here to repair the car. He had to wait until nearly midnight for them to arrive, and when they did he offered any services that were available. They came down to the engineering machine shop and made the parts that they needed. Shadrick located all the tools necessary to complete those parts, adding to KU’s reputation for professionalism and hospitality.