Becky Trentlage
Business Office – Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology
Becky has been in her current role within the Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology for almost 10 years. She has played a key role in identifying funding sources and strategies that have allowed the huge Department of Microbiology, Immunology, and Pathology (DMIP) to flourish. She provides vital ongoing counsel to the Department Head, Associate Department Heads, and the other 85 DMIP faculty on how to optimize use of their funds to support their students, research programs, and service efforts. Becky creates systems that improve the operational efficiency of the department, which benefit students, faculty, and staff, and, most importantly, she has fun doing it. Becky’s enthusiasm is contagious, inspiring, and has a ripple effect through the department.
Becky enjoys creating novel and effective systems and strategies to address gaps in service, meet changes in the environment or market, and seize new opportunities. She thinks about challenges as opportunities, looking for win-win solutions that will be successful and sustainable. Becky actively promotes professional development opportunities for her team. This includes taking advantage of central conferences, PDIs, Talent Development trainings, and using Employee Study Privilege. She also strongly encourages her team to look outside university training for opportunities such as conferences, workshops, and certifications in areas that interest them. Becky has set a standard of excellence for all during her extensive career at CSU. She is a role model and a leader and her impact on CSU cannot be overstated.
Jimmy Hicks
Academic Advisor and Programming Specialist – Undergraduate Programs, College of Business
What uniquely characterizes Jimmy is his drive to go above and beyond his job description and exceed his assigned responsibilities. He never just “meets expectations.” He routinely does more. He contributes new and creative ideas, improves existing policies/practices, and challenges his team to join him in endeavors. He leads by example and motivates through modeling.
One of Jimmy’s greatest accomplishments is the complete overhaul of the Business Diversity and Leadership Alliance (BDLA). Under the control of a different staff member, BDLA suffered great losses in membership. By 2020, the organization had just one student member. When the previous coordinator departed CSU, Jimmy stepped in to lead and revamp the organization. It now has eight active members.
Jimmy not only participates in professional development – he creates it! He is the architect behind a College of Business week-long DEI symposium, debuting this March. It’s called IDEAL Week (Inclusive, Diverse, Equitable, Accessible, Leadership.) Student organizations (including BDLA) will take turns hosting days, crafting immersive/interactive sessions to teach the COB community about the IDEAL values. The week ends with a case competition. Jimmy had a vision, shared his ideas with campus partners, which led to a brand new large-scale collaborative college-wide event. Jimmy represents what a student affairs professional should be.
Lauren Alessi
Research Associate III – School of Social Work
Lauren is the genuine personification of an administrative professional who demonstrates continuing meritorious and outstanding achievement in the areas of research, outreach, and service at CSU. Lauren came to CSU in 2019 as an administrative professional with a Research Associate III appointment and has since exhibited an unwavering willingness to go above and beyond in her work in the SSW, and in collaboration with community partners throughout Colorado. Lauren stands out for her unparalleled accomplishments in operational efficiency, leadership and mentoring, innovation, and principles of community.
Lauren is a natural leader and excels in mentoring students, peers, and community partners as project manager for various child maltreatment prevention, family strengthening, and juvenile justice evaluations and research studies. Lauren is incredibly student-centered in her supervision with the graduate students who power the Social Work Research Center. She generously shares her expertise of the field and the evaluation profession with them and is an active partner in helping students advance their education and careers through publications and other academic efforts.
Lauren embodies inclusion, integrity, respect, service, and social justice in her community and models and supports principles of community in the School of Social Work. In three short years, Lauren has distinguished herself as an administrative professional who truly exemplifies the land grant mission and principles of the community of CSU.
Lisa Chandler
Assistant Director – Adult Learner & Veteran Services
During Lisa’s tenure at CSU, she has served as a Student Case Manager in the office of Student Case Management and Referral Coordination and the Assistant Director of Adult Learner and Veteran Services (ALVS). Lisa stepped up to fill the Interim Director position as well as her own Assistant Director role in ALVS for over a year while the former Director served on the Pandemic Preparedness Team. She was the only full-time professional staff member for over a year, and she was able to transform many of ALVS’s programs from in-person programs to virtual programming.
She has helped build a team that has been efficiently run while drastically understaffed, which has been flexible enough to operate remotely when needed due to Covid concerns. Lisa has built relationships across campus, throughout the CSU/Ft. Collins community, and nationally. She is a wealth of resources for any issue concerning our population and her background in social work brings a ton of value to all of our students.
Lisa fully embodies the Principles of Community. Over the years that Lisa has been in this role she has been instrumental in shifting the culture of the office. Her work helped create an office that put inclusivity, integrity, respect, service, and social justice at the center of all things that they do.
Tim Kefalas
Assistant Director for Administration and Assessment – Academic Advancement Center
Tim serves as the Assistant Director for Administration and Assessment in the AAC. In this role, he has a variety of responsibilities directly tied with operational efficiency, leadership and mentoring, and innovation. Tim is also pursuing his Master of Business Administration with a specialization in Marketing and Data Analytics at CSU which has enhanced his contributions to the AAC. Tim has helped secure funding by engaging in grant writing, providing data, and conducting assessments. This funding has helped expand the AAC from one unit to three units. The securing of external funds has led to cost-saving measures for CSU which have been important in providing more student services.
Tim has also contributed to student success initiatives across the institution by being part of the Navigate implementation committee, the academic progress reports committee, the student success implementation committee, and the Division of Student Affairs assessment committee. Tim has and continues to demonstrate exemplary leadership and mentoring. He has a strong commitment to centering student’s experiences in our business and systems operations. He asks critical questions about the impact of our decisions on students and can identify barriers and provide solutions that contribute to student success.
Tim approaches his work in respectful ways including creating spaces for folks with different identities to share their experiences in higher education. He actively engages in dialogue that challenges the systems that historically disadvantage the communities the AAC serves. He approaches people and his work by leading with integrity, while also centering the humanity of others.
