The President's Outstanding Professional Staff Member of the Year Award for 1996 went to Carrol Steedman and Dennis Swartzell, two long-time UNLV employees, according to Marti Ash, chair of the campus committee that selects recipients.
Funded by the office of President Carol C. Harter, the $1,000 award is given to full-time professional staff members who demonstrate extraordinary concern for their departments and for the entire university; a positive attitude toward their work and their fellow employees; excellent work; professional development; and university service. Both Steedman and Swartzell will receive $1,000 awards.
Steedman is director of credit and special interest programs in the Division of Continuing Education and associate director of Summer Term.
Swartzell is director of landscape, grounds, and arboretum.
Steedman began her career at UNLV in 1969 as a teaching assistant. She became an instructor in the departments of English and philosophy, was hired as coordinator of the Mini Term Program in 1983, and became associate director of Summer Term in 1989.
In 1995 Steedman was named chair of the UNLV Distance Education Policy Committee, which was instrumental in the implementation of SB 204, the legislation that provides funding for distance education programs throughout the state.
Steedman is a recipient of the National Research Award from the National University Continuing Education Association and is a member of Phi Kappa Phi National Honor Society, the Modern Language Association, the Western Association of Summer Session Administrators, and more the Mountain Plains Adult Education Association.
Swartzell has been a member of the UNLV professional staff for 14 years. He was instrumental in the establishment of the UNLV campus as a State Arboretum, which offers the public a large collection of local, regional, and international trees.
Swartzell has been responsible for creating a campus setting that provides a pleasant learning and working atmosphere with lush, green malls as well as water-conserving desert landscaping. The first recipient of the Bill Tomiyasu Award from the Nevada Shade Tree Council, Swartzell is a member of that group and of the Southern Nevada Arborist Group, the Western Chapter of the International Society of Arboriculture, and the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta.
