Applications for the Professional Development Award from CSU’s Commitment to Campus is now open. The deadline to apply is July 31.
Colorado State University offers financial support to assist Administrative Professional and State Classified employees seeking professional development.
Applicants may use this award to help meet professional development needs that cannot be met by their department. The proposed professional development must be related to the applicant’s current job function and duties.
To apply for the Professional Development Award, submit an online application on the C2C website. The deadline to apply is Wednesday, July 31.
Past Recipients – Spring 2019
Fifty applications were reviewed in December and 17 employees were awarded funds. Here is feedback from a few recipients on how their professional development experience has impacted and improved their skills and knowledge in their current positions.
Recipient: Erin Patchett, Campus Recreation
Activity: National Conference on Race and Ethnicity
“Each year, my professional goals always include the areas of diversity and inclusion given that these concepts connect directly into values of my unit and the Division of Student Affairs, the Principles of Community, and the University’s strategic goals. My direct job responsibilities involve supporting departmental efforts such as leading our Inclusivity Committee, conducting large-scale inclusivity assessments, and facilitating monthly diversity and inclusion training sessions. Attending NCORE directly contributed to these goals and responsibilities as I was able to attend a variety of sessions on topics such as the intersectionality of race and athletics, assessing social justice workshops, infusing diversity/inclusion throughout a department/division, white privilege, and more.”
“Without the PDA’s funding to cover the cost of the NCORE registration, I would not have been able to attend the conference this year, and the numerous outcomes noted above would not have been achieved.”
Recipient: Natalie Rolle, Occupational Therapy
Activity: APSS National SLEEP Conference
“A majority of my professional development goals here at CSU are around the sleep services I provide and am trying to expand to the CSU campus at large. Attending the 2019 APSS National SLEEP Conference supported these goals by allowing me to access the most up to date, published and unpublished, research on chronic insomnia and sleep challenges in general. This allows me to update my interventions and services with the most evidence-based literature as well as speak with these researchers about their work and thoughts on how this will change our overall evidence and service bases.”
Recipient: Megan Skeehan, College of Business
Activity: Fundamentals of Successful Project Management Seminar
“The two-day course on project management focused on the fundamentals of project management, how to set up teams, monitoring and controlling the various moving parts of a project, problem solving and troubleshooting, how to manage multiple projects, some training on technology and how to integrate it with project management, and how to create action plans. One of the most impactful parts of this seminar was that we created teams and worked on actually executing and developing an action plan based on what we had learned and workshopped the process together to learn how to use and implement the tools and skills we had acquired. Overall, this training has helped me in my role as a program assistant, and as chair of the Classified Personnel Council.”
Recipient: Debbie Rutt, Housing and Dining Services
Activity: AssetWorld Conference
“I gained a valuable new perspective on improvement processes, and have even been able to implement some of the highlights in my work. For example, because of the trainings I had the foresight to gather historical data on the number of CSU alum applying to our graduate program before implementing a marketing campaign on the CSU campus. This will help us to track whether or not our strategy had the desired outcome, and help us to make more informed decisions in the future.”
Recipient: Sue Schneider, CSU Extension
Activity: Mindfulness Meditation Teacher Certification Program
“Some of the program topics that have been most helpful to my existing teaching include working with difficult emotions (e.g., fear, anxiety), limiting beliefs, chronic pain, and trauma. I’ve benefited from in-depth training on brain science, compassion practices, and group pedagogy. I have monthly zoom meetings with a mentor and a peer group to build on the foundation that we are gaining online. I have read eight required books that have also helped me deepen my understanding of the research and science behind mindfulness. And the program has only just begun!”
Recipient: Qian Zhang, Department of Health and Exercise Science
Activity: Agilent GC/QQQ Techniques and Operation
“I wanted to attend the course because I recently assumed responsibility for operating three GC/MS instruments in the lab. Two of the instruments are single-quadrupole GC/MS systems and the third is a triple-quadrupole (QQQ) GC/MS system. I had limited experience on operating GC/MS before this transition. After brief training by the previous operator, self-learning, and help by Agilent technical support, I was able to resume routine sample running and analysis on the two single-quadrupole GC/MS systems for the lab. However, I wanted to acquire additional training on the GC/MS QQQ, which is a more complicated and advanced system. This course exactly met my needs and expectations.”
Recipient: Annette Foster, Atmospheric Science
Activity: Project Management Professional Certificate
“The Project Management Institute has grouped management activities into ten knowledge areas. In my current position at CSU, I have gained experience to some extent in all of these areas of management but my experience is quite limited in some. It was helpful to not only learn new skills but to also be exposed to the broader scope of project management and what is involved with each of these areas. The skills I gained were immediately helpful in performing the duties of my current position at CSU. I’ve been able to utilize this new knowledge to create new reports which are more informative, concise and relevant based on examples given during class, and I’ve developed better tools for managing my more complex projects to keep projects on time and on budget.”
