2022 President Award Honorees

Employee of the Year for Inclusive Excellence

The Inclusive Excellence Award recognizes an employee who had made a significant contribution in fostering an inclusive culture of respect, collegiality, and civility. The employee aligned actions and decisions with the University’s core value of diversity.

Makisha Glover-Hill
Center for Evaluation & Educational Effectiveness, College of Education

The 2022 honoree is Makisha Glover-Hill, Operations Analyst for the Center for Evaluation & Effectiveness in the College of Education.

As a graduate advisor for applied statistics, Makisha has recruited graduate students to assist with the CEEE’s important work, maintaining relationships with many of them long after graduation. Equally admirable is Makisha’s personal commitment to making our campus a more welcoming and nurturing environment for Black faculty, staff, and students.

Makisha gives generously of her time and skills, and her admiring colleagues note that if there is an activity or event that aims to uplift and support members of the Black community, “there’s a good chance she will be [there] front and center,” cheering them on.

Employee of the Year for Innovation

The Innovation Award recognizes an employee who had made a significant contribution in providing innovation in the delivery of services to the campus community, such as students, faculty, or staff. The employee aligned actions and decisions with the University's core values of excellence, integrity, service, creativity and innovation.

Tim Gotimer
Enrollment Services, Division of Academic Affairs

The 2022 honoree is Tim Gotimer, who serves as the Enrollment Services Communication Specialist.

If you don’t already know Tim, there’s still a good chance you’ve met his creation: the “Ask Elbee Chatbot”!

Tim was not only part of the team that created the chatbot — which helps students and staff quickly find answers to their questions, any time of the day or night — but he also has done an outstanding job of demonstrating how it works.

In fact, his colleagues say that the “tech-savvy” Tim is their go-to person for just about any kind of task or project.

Employee of the Year for Leadership

The Leadership Award recognizes an employee who had made a significant contribution in providing quality leadership in the delivery of services to the campus community, such as students, faculty, or staff. The employee aligned actions and decisions with the University's core values of excellence, integrity, and service.

Chad Robbins
University Police, Division of Administration and Finance

The 2022 honoree is Chad Robbins, a corporal with the University Police Department. Police Captain John Brockie says that Chad exemplifies the UPD’s philosophy of service to the entire campus community — which they define in the broadest possible terms.

For example, while on duty, Chad met a man living with his dog in a tent outside of Blair Field. Chad, who has a history of working with the homeless in our area, chatted with the man and learned that he had lost his home and career to heroin addiction.

Chad asked how he could help, an offer that would take both of them — and other UPD officers, as well — on a months-long journey that led to the man being reunited with his family and attending rehab in the San Diego area. After the man had been sober for 30 days, Chad drove to San Diego to have lunch with the man and his father, and Chad and the man remain in contact to this day.

Employee of the Year for Student Success

The Student Success Award recognizes an employee who had made a significant contribution in support of CSULB’s core mission of providing excellent, highly-valued educational opportunities. The employee aligned actions and decisions with the University's core value of educational opportunity.

Timurhan Vengco
Learning Center, Division of Academic Affairs

The 2022 honoree is Timurhan Vengco, Coordinator of Supplemental Instruction in Undergraduate Studies & Academic Advising.

After joining the SI team in 2018, Timurhan quickly identified opportunities for improvement and led the charge to overhaul training documents and platforms and to focus on establishing a social media presence and marketing the program as a brand on campus.

His colleagues say that Timurhan’s passion and creativity “lit a spark that took our Supplemental Instruction Program to the next level.”

But they are even more impressed by Timurhan’s dedication to doing “whatever it takes” to support SI Leaders as individuals and to create a sense of belonging among SI Leaders.

“Because of Timurhan,” says colleague Lyndsay Harrison, “our SI Program is more like family.” She concludes: “He inspires those around him to be better versions of themselves.”

Team Achievement Award

The Team Achievement Award recognizes a team of staff members who collaborated on a project, process, or other significant initiative to achieve distinctive results/solutions which positively impacted University operations, improve productivity, and/or reduce costs, and benefited a major sector of the University. The team aligned actions and decisions with the University's core values of excellence, integrity, service, creativity, innovation and educational opportunity.

American Language Institute
College of Professional and Continuing Education

The 2022 honoree is the American Language Institute (ALI), which has been serving international students for over 30 years as part of the College of Professional & International Education. ALI team members include: Janeth Mendoza, Denay Ponce, Jennifer Nolasco, Jacqueline Record

Recently, ALI submitted a five-year self-study to the Commission on English Language Program Accreditation. This massive project was almost a year in the making and required ongoing collaboration among ALI team members, and coordination between ALI and other departments, too.

This kind of work was made more difficult, of course, by pandemic-related restrictions. But the ALI team found creative ways to meet each of those challenges and emerged not only with a final report that included more than 460 documents but also with a stronger sense of who they were as individuals and as a department.