Every year BYU takes one week to recognize and celebrate the hard work of its student employees. This year, a junior studying illustration Nathan Hawks won Student Employee of the Year.
Hawks works as a lab assistant at the Bean Museum. He said he was honored to receive the recognition from his employer. He also explained he didn’t know he won until his wife walked him into what he thought was a couples’ finance class.
“This just makes me want to love my job more. I like my job, that is why I’ve stayed at the Bean Museum for so long. But it makes me want to live up to my nomination as well,” Hawks said.
The nomination process is open to all departments, according to Kathleen Christensen, coordinator of Student Employee of the Year. She explained that students are nominated by their employer and then a committee made up of 14 full-time campus employers judge the nomination entries. They discuss who should win and who should be runner-ups after coming down to the top seven.
“It’s not about what the job is, it’s about how they do the job, perform excellently and think of ways to make things better in their departments,” Christensen said.
The assistant manager of student employment Angie Murdock explained that because selecting one winner can be difficult, BYU usually picks a couple of runner-ups.
“We have over 23,000 student employees over the course of a year and this is an opportunity for us to recognize some of the great ones,” Murdock said.
Hawks was nominated by Kathryn Knight and then selected by two committee members. A member of the nomination committee Ellen Bahr said he stood out from the others.
“All of them were amazing employees, but the reason we picked him above the rest is because he created new programs at the Bean Museum for children. He didn’t just do his job. He found ways to implement new ideas and new programs,” Bahr said.
The two runner-ups were Kody Davis, a senior who works as an OIT-Customer Service and Support Assistant Manager, and Eduardo Villa, a senior who works at the FHSS Advisement Center.
