Jeff Thole, laboratory supervisor and instructor of geology, has been awarded the 2026 Staff Outstanding Service Award. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Macalester Vice President for Administration and Finance Patricia Langer announced the award and read from this citation:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In celebration of the mark you\u2019ve made on the Macalester community, we are proud to recognize you with the 2026 Staff Outstanding Service Award.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n A longtime member of the Geology Department, you serve as laboratory supervisor and instructor of geology. For nearly thirty years, you\u2019ve supported students, staff, and faculty, and, in the process, woven yourself into the fabric of our wider community. Your official duties and responsibilities take place in Olin-Rice, maintaining the Keck Lab and introducing geology concepts to students. But, with an unparalleled knack for relationship-building and a penchant for tackling problems with joy and curiosity, you\u2019ve made friends across the college, and moved us all forward, together.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n You\u2019re so interconnected to the broader Mac community, in fact, colleagues point out that it\u2019s \u201ctough to cross campus quickly with Jeff\u2014too many people want to stop and say hi.\u201d Colleagues attribute those slow walks to your dedication to truly getting to know those around you. You are often the first to welcome new faces to campus, and you take the time to support their creative endeavors, their research projects, and, in some cases, even their children\u2019s Eagle Scout projects. One colleague writes, \u201cHe may rival Mr. Rogers in his innate ability to make friends with people. It sounds like such a small thing\u2014but it means everything and impacts how I do my job.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n With a unique gift for teaching, you spread a love for all things earth science with students, researchers, and community members. You go above and beyond to help students understand lab materials and assist with student research. You organize department field trips and field work\u2014in the words of one colleague, \u201cmaking them not just educational, but delightful.\u201d You help visiting post-doctoral scholars with their research projects each summer, setting up labs (and often firing up the grill afterward, too). Reaching beyond campus, you bring mobile geology lessons into Twin Cities classrooms and work to welcome hobby groups like the Minnesota Geological Society into our labs. Through it all, you express endless patience and inspire contagious enthusiasm. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Year after year, your nominators notice the extra time you spend within this community and the impact it brings. A member of the Mac Entertainment Committee for two decades, you\u2019ve become a pro at providing just the right assortment of M&Ms at the annual holiday party. When Olin-Rice halls needed new mineral display cases, you jumped in to create them. Your willingness to provide support and lead projects of all sizes has earned you such descriptors as a rock and a gem\u2014high praise from geologists.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cJeff is at the heart of the Geology Department,\u201d one nominator writes. \u201cHe\u2019s the guy we can count on to help with the hard stuff\u2026and he\u2019s the guy that makes real time for everyone.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n Congratulations, Jeff. We are truly grateful for your outstanding service.<\/em><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" A longtime member of the Geology Department, Jeff serves as laboratory supervisor and instructor of geology and has been at Macalester for nearly thirty years.<\/p>","protected":false},"author":881,"featured_media":32095,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-32091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-college-newswire","tag-geology","mediatype-articles"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"fields":{"main_feature_story":"","custom_image":false,"custom_link_url":"","custom_feature_title":"","custom_feature_caption":"","custom_markup":"","custom_markup_link":"","custom_markup_title":"","custom_markup_caption":"","byline":"","article_type":[8],"post_thumbnail_style":"default","flickr_photoset_id":"","youtube_id":"","square_thumbnail":false,"press_downloads":false,"press_photos":false,"story_title":"","story_caption":"","rotations":false,"maps":false,"marker_title":"","marker_text":"","geographic_location":false,"feature_embed":"","news_icon_name":"","image_options":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/881"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32091"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32097,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32091\/revisions\/32097"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32095"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.macalester.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}