Meet September's Employees of the Month

Bart Redford 

September Unclassified Staff employee of the month

Started at KU: January 2005

Current title: Assistant to the Director for the Center for Russian, East European and Eurasian Studies

What that means: Redford is responsible for programming and logistics for 80-plus CREES events per year. These include setting up and promoting a number of film series; running the Tuesday noon talk series known as the CREES Brown Bag; arranging for the visits of 15-plus visiting speakers per year and organizing logistics for single-day and multiple-day conferences. Currently Redford writes most press releases for the Center and the press copy for two CREES newsletters yearly. On his own initiative he finds grant opportunities and writes small grant proposals, as well as doing routine grant reporting for the large Title VI National Resource Center grant.

Notable: In the last 12 months Redford has excelled in two ways—in program planning and execution and in grant writing. In August 2010 he coordinated and executed the weekend events commemorating the 50th anniversary since the founding of CREES. In summer 2010 he took the initiative to apply for and win two Open World $8,000-plus grants from Congress to bring two groups of Russians to Northeast Kansas and to KU to study various aspects of American civil society.

Maria S. Thompson

September University Support Staff employee of the month

Started at KU: 1986

Current title: Administrative associate senior, Provost Office

What that means: Thompson’s principal duties as office manager/secretary for the BMFS, which reports to the Vice Provost for Administration & Finance, includes general office management responsibilities, working with Administrative Overhead collections, tuition assistance payments and waivers, budget transfers and other financial matters, as well as assisting with job searches for new or changing staff.

Notable: Thompson assisted with the Changing for Excellence efficiency study. Among the many ways she helped with that still ongoing process was to coordinate the time-sensitive scheduling of more than 50 interviews between the consultants and the KU community. Maria rose to the challenges of the C for E initiative and demonstrated her reliably positive attitude. She has been instrumental in the smooth progression of this project. Nearly concurrent with that, Maria served a key role in the reorganization of the Budget Office staff that saw many of her co-workers move to another building and also brought several new officemates into the Strong Hall space.