Marks of distinction

It’s no easy feat to turn one of the most iconic Harvard buildings into a Halloween weekend destination, but that’s precisely what a group of Harvard staffers did last October.

The event — dubbed Haunted Hall — lured more than 1,600 students to Memorial Hall with a costume parade, live music, candy buffet, mocktails, and pub food.

To pull it off, members of the Office for the Arts, Harvard College Office of Student Life, Harvard University Dining Services, and the Freshman Dean’s Office worked with students to organize vendors and other campus partners to ensure the event fit with the College’s philosophy of student-led, staff-supported programming.

Those efforts — along with the work of dozens of other Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) staff members — were honored last month at the annual Dean’s Distinction Awards ceremony.

“You have been called a superstar, an invaluable asset, the heart of our undergraduate program … and an outstanding University citizen,” Edgerley Family Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences Michael D. Smith told the honorees during the ceremony. “You’ve demonstrated outstanding citizenship and remarkable dedication through the many winter storms of 2015, trekking through 100-plus inches of snow to direct clean-up efforts and ensure that lab facilities continued to run smoothly so critical research continued uninterrupted in the face of Boston’s worst winter on record.

“To all of our honorees today, you are a fantastic portrait of the best of our staff. Our faculty and students are incredibly fortunate to have your ideas, your engagement, and your partnership. You make Harvard stronger. On behalf of the faculty, I extend my sincere thanks to you.”

In all, 65 FAS employees from 45 departments were recognized at the award ceremony. In addition to the Haunted Hall team, three other teams were honored for their work in the past year:

• The Title IX Coordination team worked with various FAS Title IX Committees and Harvard’s Central Office of Dispute Resolution to help finalize the University-wide Sexual and Gender-based Harassment Policy, contributed to the implementation of procedures for students, staff and faculty, and helped develop local Title IX processes that were effective for the FAS community.

• The Harvard Museums of Science and Culture Exhibition team worked across disciplines and departments to launch four major exhibitions, and generated broad collaboration across departments outside the museums to create exhibitions.

• The ABET team gathered and analyzed large quantities of data and worked with faculty and staff to organize a team visit by faculty and professionals from other institutions. The end result was virtually unheard-of: Harvard was granted continued ABET accreditation with no findings.

Among those recognized was Marlon Cummings, a lab administrator in the Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology.

“For me, having been in higher education all my career, to be recognized by my peers is a wonderful honor, and I’m very grateful for that,” Cummings said. “This is not really a job, because I love to work with the students here. This is a great acknowledgement.”

Michaela Kapp, a faculty administrator at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, called the award a surprise and an honor.

“I was actually on vacation when I learned about the award, so it was a very nice surprise,” she said. “It’s absolutely very special to get this recognition … it means so much, so I’m very honored.”

The 2016 Dean’s Distinction recipients are:

Derek Barton, SEAS Faculty and Lab Administration
Thomas Batchelder, Department of History of Art and Architecture
Megan Baugh, Division of Continuing Education
Susan Berstler, Cabot Science Library, Harvard College Library
Franklin Brown, HUIT Unified Communications
Sabinna Cappo, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Laurie Chiasson, Harvard Forest
Sarah Colgan, Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences
Kirsten Colton, Division of Social Science
Lenia Constantinou, Department of Human Evolutionary Biology
Marlon Cummings, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology
Maureen Daniels, Center for Nanoscale Systems
Jody Fanto, Division of Continuing Education
Kelly Haigh, FAS Donor Relations
Robert Hart, Department of Physics
Rudy Hypolite, Instructional Media Services
Ramona Islam, Widener Library, Harvard College Library
Michaela Kapp, SEAS Faculty and Lab Administration
Randy Kiessig, Institute for Quantitative Social Science
Ofrit Liviatan, Harvard College Freshman Seminar Program
Mary McConnell, Department of History
Christina McFadden, FAS Dean’s Office
Elizabeth Moss Levine, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Elizabeth Musser, Cabot House, Harvard College
Wendy Peiper, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Brenda Piquet, Department of Economics
Keleigh Quinn, Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology
Duane Reeves, Department of Athletics
Joan Rouse, Harvard College Dean’s Office
Kaitlyn Santa Lucia, FAS Registrar’s Office
Kathy Santoro, FAS Human Resources
Paula Soares, Department of Visual and Environmental Studies
Claudia Stearns, SEAS Faculty and Lab Administration
Thomas Tribble, Office of Physical Resources and Planning
Alexandra Vacroux, Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies
Abby Wolf, Hutchins Center for African and African American Research
Eric Wong, Harvard College Admissions and Financial Aid
Shao-Liang Zheng, Department of Chemistry and Chemical Biology

Haunted Hall Team

Pilar Fitzgerald, Harvard College Office of Student Life
Mary Lou Kearns, Harvard University Dining Services
Tina Bowen, Office for the Arts at Harvard, Memorial Hall/Lowell Hall Complex
Torey Martin, Harvard College Freshman Dean’s Office
Shelby Raglan, Harvard College Office of Student Life
Michael Ranen, Harvard College Freshman Dean’s Office
Katherine Steele, Harvard College Freshman Dean’s Office
Amy Vest, Harvard College Office of Student Life

Title IX Coordination Team

Anna Anctil, FAS Human Resources
Mary Higgins, Division of Continuing Education
Garth McCavana, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
Emily Miller, Harvard College Academic Programs
Robert Neugeboren, Division of Continuing Education
Johannah Park, Office for Faculty Affairs
Sandra Stergiou, FAS Human Resources
Kwok Yu, Office for Faculty Affairs
Jacqueline Yun, Graduate School of Arts and Sciences

Harvard Museums of Science and Culture Exhibit Department

Jennifer Berglund, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Donald Bissex, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Anthony Greaney, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Sylvie Laborde, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
William McCann, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Tristan Rocher, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture
Samuel Tager, Harvard Museums of Science and Culture

ABET Team

Anna Dunavin, SEAS Deans and Related Staff
David Hwang, SEAS Office of Academic Programs
Patrick Ulrich, SEAS Office of Academic Programs