2012 Excellence in Support Services Award
Melissa Chapell, Assistant Director, Durham Tech Foundation; Coordinator, Scholarship Program; and Social Media Manager, Marketing and Communications, is the 2012 Excellence in Support Services Award recipient at Durham Tech. Melissa is known for her CAN-DO attitude and an ability to problem solve, forge relationships with key stakeholders, and give attention to detail. Her unselfish dedication to duty goes far and above normal expectations. Just a few examples follow: She has worked diligently to streamline a number of processes for the Durham Tech Foundation through the use of technology. She has created an online application for scholarship applicants that saves time for student and faculty, created a bog about scholarships, and uses Twitter and Facebook to keep students informed. She not only suggested the college participate in the Great Human Race to help fundraise for a matching grant for DreamKeepers, our emergency student loan program, she headed up the effort as you heard earlier. She takes on additional responsibilities while routinely going above and beyond in her daily duties.
The Durham TechFoundation has been converting to a new fundraising software package to better manage our donor relationships. This employee has served as the project leader for this conversion. She also took it upon herself to research viable options that enabled us to use PayPal as a temporary solution for being able to accept online donations to the Durham Tech foundation.
This employee has collaborated with Student Services and Financial Aid staff, in particular, and Business Office staff to help students receive scholarship funds directly into their accounts rather than through a check awarded once or twice a year. Also, thanks to the efforts of this employee, students no longer have to apply for each specific scholarship they are seeking, which can be a time-consuming process. One scholarship application now allow the student to be considered and possibly matched by the Scholarship Review Team with multiple scholarships. This employee recruits members of the Scholarship Review Team and then manages the scholarship recipient selection process.
For consistently applying her knowledge, skills, and abilities in so many ways to make Durham Tech a better place and to make the Durham Tech Foundation more efficient, responsive, and transparent to donors and to the faculty and staff of Durham Tech, we are pleased to recognize Melissa Chappell as the 2012 Excellence in Support Services Award recipient.