Following a recommendation from the Biology Department Personnel Committee, with the endorsement of the Department Chair, the Biology Department has selected Senior Lecturer II Laura Francis as the recipient of this year's Exceptional Internal Service Award.
Laura is an outstanding departmental citizen; she has been on the Biology Department's hardest-working committee -- the Department Personnel Committee -- for nearly six years, having been elected to two consecutive 3-year terms. She is Chair of the Undergraduate Experience Committee, continually finding ways to improve the on-campus lives of nearly 1700 Biology majors. Since 2021 she has served as chair of one successful lecturer search committee and as a member of 3 others. She recently completed a 5-year term as chair of the Biology Department Workplace Climate Committee. And though this is an Internal Service award, not a University-wide service award, it helps our department that Laura is well known and well respected around the College and University, having served on 8 different College committees and currently serving the University on the Faculty Senate, the MSP Executive Board, the University Nominating Committee, and the Academic Matters Council, where she chairs the Course Subcommittee. All this is of course on top of her prodigious work as a teacher and mentor. We are very fortunate to have such an energetic and capable colleague giving us and our students and colleagues so much help.