RIT honors the service and dedication of its employees with the Presidential Awards for Outstanding Staff ceremony. The annual awards are presented to staff members who exemplify outstanding service and dedication to the university and who exhibit a high degree of personal ethics and integrity while consistently demonstrating a strong commitment to student success.
Excellence Awards recognize staff members who excel in their duties, promote teamwork, and inspire excellence in others. This includes individuals who have demonstrated an innovative approach to their jobs, and fostered collaboration, communication, and cooperation among colleagues and university constituents, and teams that have impacted the university in an exceptional way through exemplary service, ongoing innovation, and/or creation of best practices.
Colleagues Wendy Marks, director, Finance and Administration Galleries (University Gallery and Shop One) and Maddy Schoenfeld, Shop One manager are recipients of the 2023 award.
Marks and Schoenfeld have an ability to leverage each other’s strengths, which has resulted in the streamlining of processes and the increased cultivation and recognition of Shop One artists. They have engaged more than 300 artists, designers, authors, and crafts people, all of whom represent the diversity of RIT design talent and creativity.
The team has also played an instrumental role in expanding the RIT Women’s Council Glass Pumpkin Sale and, according to a nominator, is extremely inclusive by working to generate consistent storytelling from their interpersonal skills in the shop to the way works are described in their displays. The team also works with artists to help maximize their growth and success.