Each year the Student Employment team opens nominations for Student Employee of the Year. With nearly 9,000 students working in thousands of roles across campus, this represents a prestigious honor to ultimately appreciate the invaluable work completed by students each day. The impact of each of these students is tremendously important and felt by the entire campus community. In addition to acknowledging these contributions on our campus, our top nominee is also passed along for consideration to be both the Regional Student Employee of the Year as well as National Student Employee of the Year, which are programs administered by the Midwest Student Employment Association in conjunction with the National Student Employment Association.
First Place: Rachel Dyer
Suicide Prevention Graduate Assistant
University Health Services
Hometown: Lake Geneva, Wisconsin
Major: Double Major in Psychology and Neurobiology
Graduation: Current first-year Ph.D. student in Counseling Psychology
Other campus involvement: Throughout her many years at UW-Madison, Rachel has been involved in a wide array of campus life from working in dining halls, being a House Fellow, conducting research, leading a student organization, and being a Teaching Assistant.
What is your favorite part of your job? My favorite part of being the Suicide Prevention Graduate Assistant has been building relationships with the various campus and community stakeholders who are invested in preventing suicide and promoting mental health on campus.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned in your job? Through this work, I have learned more than I could have imagined – most notably, the power that people have when they come together over a shared vision to better their community.
Hometown: Chicago, Illinois
Major: Journalism (Certificates in Studio Art and African American Studies)
Graduation: May 2020
Other campus involvement: In addition to being a Chicago Posse Scholar, she is also a Ronald E. McNair Scholar and Harry S. Truman Scholarship recipient.
Co-editor-in-chief of The Black Voice, a student-run publication
What is your favorite part of your job? My favorite part of my job is working with and learning from the multicultural student organizations I aim to serve.
What is the most important thing you’ve learned in your job? Each day I learn more about how to fight inequitable systems that disadvantage marginalized students from my coworkers and supervisors.
Second Place: Shiloah Coley
Grant Specialist Intern
Multicultural Student Center
Third Place: Cait Christenson
Wisconsin Public Media and Badger Call
The Student Employment team would like to thank the campus partners who helped select the winners of this years’ competition:
- Allison Nysted, Division of Recreation & Wellbeing
- Hannah Pringle, Division of Information Technology
- Jennifer Brown, Wisconsin Union
- Kasie Strahl, Office of Student Financial Aid
- Brandon Vallina, Intercollegiate Athletics