Nominations for Weber State University’s Outstanding Staff Awards are now open until Oct. 31.

The Presidential Outstanding Staff Awards is an annual Wildcat tradition that goes back to the 1980s. It is a combined effort by individuals across all WSU campuses and departments. Students can nominate staff who have made an impact in their educational experience for a special award.

Each winning staff member receives a $2,000 cash prize, an X Parking Permit valid for three years, two tickets for one of the WSU Browning Presents events, a commemorative plaque for their excellence in their achievements and recognition at the luncheon on Feb. 23.

To qualify for these awards, nominated staff members will need three supporting letters of recommendation by Oct. 31. Any full-time staff member with a minimum of five years of employment can be nominated.

WSU staff can be nominated as often as they want, but must wait five years before they can win the award again.

According to Cindy Reinhard, WSU’s search advocate and organizational consultant with the Human Resources Department, there are many staff who run the day-to-day operations of WSU. It is these individuals who ensure that WSU’s daily operations are up and running.

WSU’s student-body members are also eligible to receive this award.

“We have the faculty, who do the instruction of the student, but then we have this whole group of people who deal with the supporting of the student,” Reinhard said. “We have about 3,500 employees on campus with 1,500 of the 3,500 is faculty and staff, but of the 1,500, 600 are faculty, which means that 900 are the staff who keep the campus running.”

There is a committee of seven members made up of previous winners of Presidential Outstanding Staff Awards. The committee reviews all of the letters, ranks them and recommends the names of six to eight staff members that are either “exempt” or “non-exempt.”

The selected names are sent from the committee to WSU President Brad Mortensen, who selects two winners in the “exempt” and two in the “non-exempt” classifications. These winners will be awarded during the ceremony on Feb. 23.

“You spend 40 to 45 weeks at an institution,” Reinhard said. “The people become like family. We touch on that warm, fuzzy feeling when looking back on their journey here. They get to share pictures. We do a little video for each person that ends up winning.”

The Creative Arts Team at WSU puts together these videos displaying what the winners’ times have been like, the impacts they have made and why it all matters.

Marcie Palmer, administrative specialist with the WSU Human Resources department, explained that she believes each member of the Wildcat family deserves some recognition at times.

“This ceremony goes one step beyond that: This recognizes them campus-wide that this is an outstanding person,” Palmer said. “You know, we have supporting documentation, these are the reasons that we are saying this person is exceptional. We know that keeping and retaining good talent is important and so this is a small way to show appreciation to those who have had some longevity with the university.”

Mortensen also explained how hard of a decision it is to only get to award four staff members and what that is like for him.

“It does come down to oftentimes you are making a decision of, ‘Well, this person who is getting the award did something that truly was outstanding this year.”’ You try to rationalize why a person who gets an award, each year, over someone else who maybe is truly outstanding,” Mortensen said. “We are dependent upon the great work of other staff to even have an event like this. So, we probably cannot praise the staff at WSU enough.”

The nomination form can be found on the Presidential Outstanding Staff Awards page on the WSU website.