Trent University Establishes Nancy Simmons Smith Staff Award of Excellence

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

New Award to Honour Exceptional University Staff

Friday, December 12, 2008, Peterborough

Trent University announced today the creation of the new Nancy Simmons Smith Staff Award of Excellence established to recognize staff members who excel and make a memorable difference through their professionalism, dedication and service to the University.

The award was established to honour the enormous contributions of retiring senior administrator Nancy Simmons Smith, who has served Trent for the last 25 years, including 21 of those years as University Secretary and Secretary to the Board of Governors. Ms. Smith will be retiring from the University at the end of December 2008.

“Throughout her career at Trent, Nancy expertly led the University in the development of strong governance practices and professional administrative procedures, so we wanted to honour her in a way that reflected her legacy of excellence,” said President Bonnie Patterson. “This award is particularly fitting for Nancy because she continuously advocated for the recognition of non-academic staff and their contributions to the University, ensuring they were not left out of the Trent narrative.”

The award will be bestowed annually on a staff member with a gift of $500 and a framed citation. It will be presented each year at the June meeting of the Board of Governors. To be eligible for nomination, a staff member will have to have a minimum of five years of service at Trent University and be an employee in good standing. The award can only be granted once during a staff member’s career.

To support this annual award, the University set up an endowment fund and donations toward this fund are being coordinated by the Advancement office.

In addition to the award, the Board of Governors passed a special motion that expressed its gratitude for Ms. Simmons Smith’s years of service and stated its “indebtedness to Nancy for her wise counsel over the years, for the outstanding body of governance work she undertook on behalf of the Board of Governors and the University, and for her lasting legacy of good governance practices at Trent and in the Ontario university sector.”

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For further information, please contact Brittany Cadence, communications officer, at (705) 748-1011, ext. 6185.