The College of Agriculture and Life Sciences has recognized two individuals and one team as recipients of its annual Excellence in Staff Support and Teamwork awards. The awards recognize staff within the College for exceptional work in the eyes of their fellow employees, supervisors and/or people they serve. Read on to learn more about this year’s recipients.  

Excellence in Staff Support Award - Celia Rainville

Celia Rainville serves as Human Resources Administrator overseeing a team of human resources professionals in CALS. Rainville was nominated by Virginia Jaquish, CALS human resources assistant, for her leadership and positive attitude, despite the gravity of her role.  

“Celia has been challenged with an ever growing and impossible workload, yet manages to complete her duties, and still has a sense of humor. When looped in, and provided information, Celia takes ownership of her responsibilities and completes tasks with efficiency and accuracy.” 

In terms of meeting the staff award criteria of creative approaches that bring positive change and/or new efficiencies, Jaquish said that, “Celia keeps her team abreast of changes and actions that need to be completed, and this helps her team to receive much needed feedback and communication from the Dean’s office and central HR. Celia also created the CALS HR guide, which is regularly updated with CALS policies for processing and completing actions; it is a repository and educational tool shared by her assistants, and it helps to ensure consistency in how HR actions are handled in the college.” 

Excellence in Staff Support Award - Peggy Manahan 

Peggy Manahan, administrative assistant in the UVM Extension St. Albans office, was nominated by colleague Rose Crossley for consistently going above and beyond to get the job done and team player attitude. Crossley cited her support for the Child Welfare Training Partnership (CWTP) as an example of Manahan’s consistent and high-quality work, stating that “Tangible improvements were made to the CWTP program thanks to her hard work and advice.” 

As her co-chair on the planning committee for EPIC, UVM Extension’s annual professional development conference, Crossley emphasized Manahan’s ability to pull everything together and keep the committee on track. “EPIC has also benefited from her leadership and strong work ethic,” said Crossley. 

“Peggy does all of the above, and more, with an amazing sense of humor and willingness to dive right in and ensure that the results of any programs or events, which she leads, or of which she is a part, are successful, outstanding, and memorable. She is an excellent colleague and a truly valuable asset to UVM/CALS/Extension.”

Excellence in Staff Teamwork Award – Northeast SARE

The Northeast Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education program (SARE) is a USDA/National Institute of Food and Agriculture program administered by UVM Extension. With an annual budget of $10 million, the program offers grants and education to farmers, educators, service providers, researchers and others to address key issues affecting the sustainability of agriculture throughout the twelve Northeast states and the District of Columbia. The Northeast SARE team at UVM consists of Vander Gac, Candice Huber, Kali McPeters, Heather Omand, Jen Pelkey, Eri Pinto, Cathy Trivieres and Lacey Ure. Dr. Vern Grubinger, director of Northeast SARE, nominated the team for their cohesiveness, partnership and support for one another.   

“The team's seamless, coordinated approach provides exceptional customer service for the six competitive grant programs we offer. Together they revise grant materials, support applicants, coordinate proposal reviews, synthesize feedback to applicants, create contracts, pay invoices, support PIs, and approve project reports,” said Grubinger. 

Grubinger listed other exceptional work from the team. For example, just this year, the team managed 448 grant applications and made 111 project awards totaling $5,945,973. He also noted the team’s diversity, equity, inclusion and justice (DEIJ) efforts. These include creating more welcoming language in calls for funding proposals, providing bias training for reviewers, adding new DEIJ criteria in calls for applications, and adoption of more flexible grant making procedures. The team is also supporting implementation of Northeast SARE's robust multi-year DEIJ plan, which will re-design outreach, policies, procedures, and allocation of resources to better serve a wider range of communities.   

"We have a long way to go, but our efforts to date have brought more diverse voices to our leadership committees, and we are seeing an increase in funding of projects that engage underserved audiences,” said Grubinger.