Teri Grieb, senior director for research in the Medical School Office of Research, and a team from LSA and Information and Technology Services are the individual and team winners of the 2017 President’s Staff Innovation Awards.
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“One of my priorities for U-M is to celebrate all aspects of our excellence, and this year’s Staff Innovation Award nominees, finalists, and winners demonstrate that excellence manifests all across our campus in service of all aspects of our public mission,” said President Mark Schlissel in presenting the awards Thursday.
The winning and finalist innovations ranged from clinical trials research and improved test-taking to comforting babies and sidewalk de-icing.
The individual and team award winners and finalists, along with their nominators, friends and family members, and members of the Voices of the Staff program management team attended the event.
Individual Award
Grieb received the individual award for clinical trials innovation. That initiative, launched in January 2017, reviewed and fundamentally revised Michigan’s clinical trials enterprise.
“The new system will now allow our clinical research to follow the mantra of ‘more, better, cheaper, safer, faster,'” said Steven Kunkel, senior associate dean for research at the Medical School, in his nomination statement.
Kunkel also noted that external interest in the initiative has been expressed by the Association of American Medical Colleges.
Individual award finalists are:
• Agnes Soderbeck, Deaprtment of Chemistry, LSA, for a web-based chemistry events system that enables event planners to seamlessly perform all aspects of management from a single system.
• Rob Doletzky, grounds manager for Grounds Services, for experimenting with winter de-icing alternatives that have led to reductions in salt and sand use and positive impact on the environment.
• Stephanie Castaing, Michigan Medicine Unit 7A, for a tool that helps charge nurses create balanced patient assignments.
Team Award
LSA and ITS collaborators received the team award for ExamScan, which allows large classes to conduct literature-based, data-driven examinations — as opposed to multiple choice testing — efficiently and cost-effectively.
The system was piloted in two chemistry classes in 2015 and has grown to 18 classes and about 9,000 students.
The team was nominated by Sean Demonner, executive director of Teaching and Learning for ITS, and it includes Monika R. Dressler of LSA, and Jeff Dils, Victoria K. Green, Chris Mueller and MaryBeth Stuenkel of ITS.
Team award finalists are:
• The Comfort Hold Committee consisting of Raven Webster, Julie Piazza, Kimberly Dunlap, Mary Rumple, Karen Bogarin and Jennet Malone for an initiative to improve the comfort level of medical assistants and parents or caregivers during immunization, blood draws and procedures. Three specific comfort holds were developed and disseminated. A video is now available on the C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital website.
• The College of Engineering Office of Graduate Education team of Kim Elliott, Andria Rose, Tiffany Porties and Shira Washington for initiatives to enhance the CoE graduate student climate and experience through recruitment, retention and placement.
The President’s Staff Innovation Awards are presented annually to recognize individual staff members or teams whose big ideas and “outside The Cube” thinking help make the university a better, more inclusive community. The award is sponsored by the Office of the President in collaboration with Voices of the Staff.
