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Distinguished Teaching Awards
David Domke
Erika Goldstein
James Green
John Peterson
Priti Ramamurthy
Barry Witham
Carol Zander

Excellence in Teaching Awards
Chia-Hui Huang
Steve Wolfman

Distinguished Staff Awards
Brian Davis & James Boeckstiegel
Gary Ausman
Felicia Hecker
Sandra Kroupa
Keith Ward

Distinguished Graduate Mentor Award
Thomas Daniel

S. Sterling Munro Public Service Teaching Award
Sergio Palleroni

Outstanding Public Service Award
Anita Ramasastry

Brotman Diversity Award
Business Educational Opportunity Program
Student Outreach Ambassador Program

Brotman Award for Instructional Excellence
Dance Program
Research Apprenticeship Program

Alumni Association Distinguished Service Award
Geoff & Judy Vernon

Alumna Summa Laude Dignatus
Donald Baker

UW Recognition Award
ARCS Foundation, Seattle Chapter

President's Medalist
Roy Chan

Keith Ward, Copy Center
UW Tacoma

Distinguished Staff Award

Distinguished Staff Awards are given to staff who have made outstanding contributions to the mission of their unit or the University. They respond creatively to challenges, maintain the highest standards in their work, establish productive working relationships, and promote a respectful and supportive workplace.

Keith Ward’s vocabulary is pretty colorful. It includes phrases like “Sunburst Yellow,” “Fireball Fuchsia” and “Venus Violet.” He knows how to say, “How can I help you?” in about a thousand ways. Funny thing, though. He has a hard time getting his tongue wrapped around the simple word, “No.” It’s just not in him to tell a UWT Copy Center customer that a job can’t be done or can’t be done better. Ward’s work is characterized by a perfect balance of technical expertise and customer service, and for that he’s earned a UW Distinguished Staff Award this year.

On the face of it, Ward’s job running the only copy and mail center serving 2,000 students and several hundred employees might seem too repetitive to provide the challenge and variety that yield long-term job satisfaction. After all, once you have ordered a hundred reams of paper with those cleverly contrived names (“Martian Green,” “Pulsar Pink”), after you have run off a hundred thousand pages of academic materials, served as the receiving center for hundreds of packages related to campus construction, helped disabled students get their notes quickly and, for good measure, gotten the U.S. mail out on time every day, what remains? For Ward, lots remains. There’s always a way to improve service.

Never satisfied with established routine if it doesn’t make people happy, Ward takes it as his personal mission to find creative solutions for what seem to be age-old problems: Postal service bureaucracy got you down? Keith to the rescue. Worried about deliveries of live critters for your biology lab? Keith will cope. Anxiously awaiting the arrival of fragile or expensive items for your studio? Keith will calm your nerves and make a special delivery. Need guidance with copyrights related to a Coursepak? Keith will coordinate permissions.

A UW staff member since 1987, Ward says his first contact with the mechanics of publications came from his uncle, a printer, who introduced him when he was a child to the tools of the trade and the possibilities of paper. He’s been playing with paper ever since.

A resident of Puyallup, Ward took over UW Tacoma’s less-than-effective copy center in 2001 and quickly transformed its reputation by committing himself to providing superior service. UWT staff members praise his responsiveness: if they don’t happen to pick up their job right away after he calls, he’ll find an opportunity to deliver it in person.

Professors appreciate the perfectionism he brings to routine tasks and are surprised at how important his help can be for new faculty members learning the ropes: he’s been known to coach new professors on how to navigate e-reserves. Staff members with budget responsibilities are happy that they can now track their copying expenses more easily because Ward responded to a customer’s casual complaint by creating a campuswide solution.

Though the physical dimensions of the UWT copy center have not changed since it opened in 1997, the number of people it serves, the number of deliveries it processes and the volume of copies it produces have more than doubled. In winter quarter 2002, UWT opened two new buildings. The copy and mail center accommodated all the deliveries of computers, science and media equipment for the new facilities — without disrupting the normal flow of copy and mail services. Ward took it all in stride, never suggesting that the shipment work related to furnishing the new buildings was beyond the scope of his duties as copy center coordinator.

Ward’s brand of customer service is personal. Everyone who walks into the center gets personally acknowledged within 10 seconds, and a staff member always takes the time to listen to the customer explain the job. That results in fewer errors and improved quality. Background music, by design, adds a soothing, even entertaining dimension to the experience of picking up the mail or delivering a copy job.

His favorite part of the job? The people: he loves to give them just a little more than they expected. His favorite thing about UWT? Its climate of support for excellence and innovation. “Our Chancellor (Vicky Carwein) deserves credit for that,” he says. “She’s made this a place where people can be themselves and still contribute great things.”

– Jamie Martin-Almy
UW Tacoma