On May 19, MIT Human Resources held its annual Infinite Mile Award ceremony to acknowledge exceptional individuals and teams whose contributions help fulfill HR's core mission to advance a vibrant and diverse work community where individuals thrive and contribute to MIT's excellence.
Lorraine A. Goffe, vice president for human resources, presented the awards to the 2017 HR Infinite Mile Award recipients in the categories of Initiative and Customer Focus, Everyday Leadership, Collaboration and Community Building, and Innovating and Improving.
The award recipients are listed below, along with excerpts from their nominations.
Pauline Dowell, for Initiative and Customer Focus: “Pauline is a problem solver, an emergency fixer, a go-to resource and colleague known for her ability to get things done. She is always willing to help with time-sensitive projects and always goes the extra mile in anticipating issues before they arise, taking care of her colleagues in HR and beyond.”
Raquel Irons, for Initiative and Customer Focus: “Raquel is known for developing strong relationships with her clients to better understand their work, needs, and culture – which helps in building stronger departmental communities. All of her customers benefit from her grace and understanding and always kind manner.”
People Matters Conference Core HR Team (Alyce Johnson, Theresa Howell, Maura Rizzuto), for Initiative and Customer Focus: “To say this first colleague owned this project would be an understatement — she lived and breathed it from inception to months afterward. She was a wizard at aligning people to projects that played to their strengths. Another colleague was the go-to person for a slew of responsibilities that are too numerous to mention. This colleague always remained calm under pressure and was a role model for other colleagues. The third colleague provided terrific support to the team, going above and beyond, to deliver a fantastic experience.”
Maria Barrios, for Everyday Leadership: “It started with a wonderful idea for the Excellence Awards — to provide translated nomination materials, so that non-native speakers could submit nominations, and the program could be more accessible to all MIT staff. Maria offered to translate outreach materials and nominations coming back to us. She made the translation process successful, but her interest always had to do with the success of the nominators and nominees, and in making an MIT program more open to everyone.”
HR Fun Committee (Dyan Madrey, Cori Champagne, Margie Ferreira, Mae Jones, Kathy Kasabula, Melissa Kavlakli), for Collaboration and Community Building: “Since its inception at the beginning of this year, the team has played a prominent and vital role in building and strengthening our HR community. I am appreciative of this group’s efforts to generate positive energy and good feeling around the office. They are wonderfully creative, and have come up with a variety of events.”
Marlene Lewis, for Innovating and Improving: “Her many years in private industry allowed her to come to HR and apply some of their experience (aka problem solving expertise) to create new and successful approaches, which greatly benefited the disabilities services team. She is innovative, efficient, energetic, a collaborator, committed, and customer-oriented.”
Scott Rolph, for Innovating and Improving: “Scott’s efforts have required creative problem-solving, innovative thinking, risk-taking and navigating a diverse set of stakeholders. He developed and delivered a comprehensive training program for the customer service team at the new Atlas Center; re-vamped the content of a huge number of the training workshops, and created a Career Planning Guide that will be used to promote career development.”
