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2009 Contest & Awards
2009 Quality Fair
Poster Awards
Poster Project winners receive $500. The awards go to departments that sponsored the project and are to be used to celebrate their success.
There are six awards:
First Place, Blue Ribbon: Improving Course Scheduling and Management with Point-in-Cycle Registration Data Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs |
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Second Place, Red Ribbon: Scholarship Search and Management (and Part 2 of 2) Academic Support Resources |
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Third Place, White Ribbon: The Upper Midwest Higher Education Recruitment Consortium Office of Human Resources |
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Yellow Ribbon for Innovation: Providing and Teaching Students Sustainable Living Housing & Residential Life |
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Yellow Ribbon for Measureable Outcomes: Evaluator Training and Online Ergonomics Self Assessment Environmental Health and Safety |
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Yellow Ribbon for Data Driven: Universally Unique: Unifier (Enterprise Project Management Information System) Capital Planning and Project Management |
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Posters projects are judged on the basis of broadness of impact across the institution or potential to be replicated across the University; innovation; connection to the University’s Strategic Positioning goals; implementation or implementation plan; measurable outcomes; and use of data. The posters representing the projects are judged on how well they tell the project story and their visual appeal. The posters are judged by the Improvement Liaison Poster Committee.
The top six poster teams will be invited to present their poster to the President’s Executive Committee.
Working Smarter Ideas
Got Ideas? Big ideas or small ideas, they can make a real difference. The University is looking for ideas to provide better service, reduce costs, increase revenue, or make work more efficient.
What’s a good Working Smarter Idea? It’s relatively simple and easy to implement but provides a good return in dollars or service. It fits with the University’s mission and could be replicated across the University. It could be something that your unit is already doing or something you’ve seen done somewhere else. It’s not overly costly to implement. It’s not a big buck, wish list idea.
Examples of ideas: printing on both sides of the paper; using memory sticks instead of paper-intensive binders for conferences; developing ways to use EFS, HR, and student system reports.
Improvement Liaisons that represent more than 50 departments in the University system and the Office of Service and Continuous Improvement are sponsoring this contest. After the fair, the Improvement Liaison Steering Committee will review all the ideas. From the best ideas, the Steering Committee will select the Top 25 to receive $75 prizes and five entries will be drawn at random and will win $25 just for entering.
Winners will be announced in April. Departments will be challenged to implement the very best Working Smarter and Poster ideas in the coming months. The Office of Service and Continuous Improvement will also bring these ideas to the attention of the vice president or dean who is best positioned to help implement the ideas. By fall 2009, departments that have implemented an idea and can provide measurable, data-driven documentation can apply for $500 prizes.