Staff Outstanding Service Award 2007

The staff member selected for this award today was nominated by the faculty members in the department where she works and, independently, by her 28 student employees.

She has been at Macalester 20 years, helping lighten the burden of her department’s chairs by, for example, making sure that faculty searches run “like clockwork” and that a wide variety of lectures, dinners and other events are organized “seamlessly.”

Faculty members benefit from her accumulated knowledge of Macalester, her advice on college dynamics, and her deep generosity in helping new faculty members find out what they need to know. “When you ask her a question,” says one, “a common response is that she picks up the phone and calls whoever it is around campus that knows the answer.”

Student employees admire the way she outlines her expectations clearly and also “allows us the comfort of an honest working relationship with her.” They add that she “cultivates a relationship with all students who happen to walk through the door,” be they prospective first-years, dedicated majors, or zombie-like students requiring caffeine.

Faculty and students alike enjoy the personal touches—birthday cards, weekly home baking, and other treats—that create a warm atmosphere in the department. She is also involved more broadly in the college, for example helping colleagues in other departments and providing leadership through the Staff Advisory Committee, which she will chair next year.

For all this and more, I am pleased to present the 2007 Staff Outstanding Service Award to the Political Science Department’s Roxanne “Roxy” Fisher.

President Brian Rosenberg