Carroll receives 2009 Chancellor's Distinguished Staff Award

Matt Carroll, who runs the copy room in the ECE Publications Office, was named a recipient of the 2009 Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award. This prestigious award annually recognizes staff employees for their exceptional accomplishments and service to the University. Each year, up to eight awards are presented to University staff.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” said Carroll about the phone call he received telling him he had won the award. “I just hoped it wasn’t one of my friends with an early April Fool’s joke.”

Carroll has been with the University since 1996 and has been running the copy room in ECE since 1998. He is in charge of the production of the majority of course notes packets for ECE classes. Other large copy jobs for the ECE department are also run through Carroll’s office, including homework, exams, and numerous other material for professors, student organizations, and the administrative offices of the department.

Carroll has enjoyed his time in ECE. “Each day is so full of projects that the day goes by fast. It almost doesn’t seem like a full day’s work,” he said. He also enjoys interacting with the faculty and staff members who bring the copy jobs down to him.

“Matt has patience beyond belief,” said Janet “JP” Peters, who is the secretary for ECE’s Publications Office and who nominated Carroll for the award. “I’ve never seen a person be so patient with a challenging person or time crunch or whatever. He’s just selfless. He’s always thinking of ways to make the department look better, to make people happy, to give them what they want.”

ECE Lecturer and Chief Advisor Marie-Christine Brunetwrote one of the letters of recommendation for Carroll. “If lucky, a working place has its ‘precious’ employee, the one person who is always on top of things, very professional, and going beyond everyone’s expectations,” she said. “Simply put, the ECE Department is lucky to have Matt Carroll.”

ECE Professor Michael Loui, who also wrote a letter in support of Carroll’s nomination, noted that Carroll often offers creative suggestions to make course packets more useful for students. Some course packs were anthologies, containing no individual page numbers. For these Carroll, “recommended a single sheet of colored paper to separate the articles for consecutive weeks,” said Loui. “These colored sheets helped students locate articles rapidly.” Carroll also suggested ways of reducing the amount of paper needed for some classroom activities. “Matt's efforts make the students' experience better and the department's operations more efficient,” said Loui.

ECE Interim Department Head Andreas C Cangellaris said, “Those of us who have had the pleasure to work with and interact with Matt know that he is most deserving of this recognition. We are fortunate to have him, and we are most thankful for his dedicated service and his friendly attitude.”

Jamie Hutchinson, editor and manager of the Publications Office, simply said, “Matt is the greatest!”

Carroll is thankful for the recognition and for the people who wrote letters supporting his nomination for this award. But even more, he said, “I’d like to thank the students and professors who give me all the work so that I can actually stay here and do the print jobs for them.”

A banquet for all recipients of this year’s Chancellor’s Distinguished Staff Award will be held April 13 at the I Hotel. Previous recipients of this award from ECE include Keith Kuehl (1985), Bob Cicone (1998), and Sheryl Carpenter (1999).