Employee of the Month - September 2022
Sabrina Dean - Lead, CPaCE and Special Projects Instructional Designer, Academic Technology Services
Awarded Tuesday, September 20, 2022 via Zoom Virtual celebration. Sabrina was joined by President Jane Close Conoley, Associate Vice President of Academic Technology Services (ATS) Shariq Ahmed, Director of Instructional Technology Support Services Marvin Mayo, Administrative Services Manager Jen White, numerous ATS colleagues, family and friends.
Sabrina Dean, the September 2022 Employee of the Month, is recognized for their outstanding contributions, epitomizing campus values, and in strategic planning. In the two years that Sabrina has been at ATS, their hard work and leadership skills gained quick attention which allowed them to become a lead of the College of Professional and Continuing Education (CPaCE) and the Special Projects Instructional Design Team. Sabrina is responsible for managing and working with cross-campus departments on impactful projects such as Student Orientation and Registration (SOAR), Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD), and the Student Online Learning Success course (SOLS).
Sabrina’s humbleness, passion for inspiring others, and caring nature have created a foundation in which she has built strong working relationships with her colleagues, faculty, and campus community. Regardless of how busy she is, she always makes herself available and makes it a priority to provide support at any time for anyone. Because of that, their colleagues have given them the nickname “Super Sabrina.”
“Sabrina Dean exemplifies the servant leader. They are tireless in supporting students, faculty and staff,” said Mark Lim, an Instructional Design Consultant in Instructional Technology Support Services.
“For students, their work coordinating and managing the SOLS program meant that thousands of students received immediate access and timely stipends for learning valuable skills and resources for their success. They have also helped push inclusion and accessibility in course design features, such as replacing GIFs and adding pronouns. For faculty, they pioneered development of a faculty training database and are often at the front lines of emailed and messaged needs.
“Finally, as someone who works under Sabrina, I feel genuinely supported to grow and develop in doing meaningful work. They made work easier to track by moving projects into a planner card system. It is easy to ask for help and receive direction and assistance when things get overwhelming. And there is an atmosphere of trust and autonomy towards new ideas.
“Aside from these performance impacts, they build relationships across our department that improve our teamwork. I feel that the success of the campus depends on retaining leaders like Sabrina.”
Kelly Young, a Professor in the Biological Sciences department shared, “Sabrina has been an amazing force to work with as we converted our Beach Mentor/Advancing Inclusive Mentoring course from Beach Board to Canvas. This was a complex process that involved making sure our Beach Mentors on campus receive two different badges for their work as well as ensuring that the transfer of material worked. It took multiple rounds of work and continual problem solving for Sabrina to get us up and running. Even though this was not what is typically done in a course, Sabrina never gave up- she kept sleuthing until everything worked. She could have easily told us 'it just doesn't work that way' and that was that, but she didn't.
“She even kept me in the loop when she was ill and had to take a day off in the middle of it all so I wouldn't worry about not hearing from her! (I was only worried about her not feeling well--but this just shows her level of dedication!).
“Thank you, Sabrina, for your above and beyond work, can do attitude, and superb level of expertise!”
Sabrina enjoys completing puzzles, gaming, reading, and spending time with their partner, friends, and family.