Kevin van der Poel, Project Manager of the ‘Erasmus Preparatory Year’ and the web team of Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences (ESSB) are the winners of the Top Support Awards 2018. These awards for top support staff will be awarded during the New Year event on Tuesday 8 January 2019.
The EUR Top Support Award is an award to reward top support staff for their work for research and education at Erasmus University.
Top Support Award (Individual):
Winner of the Top Support Award (Individual) is Kevin van der Poel, Project Manager of the ‘Erasmus Preparatory Year’ within the Education & Student Affairs department. This year primarily aims to prepare refugee students for successful study in the Netherlands. A three-year covenant was agreed for this in 2018 with the Foundation for Refugee Students (UAF).
The jury speaks favourably about Van der Poel’s performance: “He has set a great example to other colleagues. Not only was he successful in realising a huge project in a short period of time, this project also focuses on a socially-relevant theme; a good example of societal impact. His approach was characterised by enthusiasm and expertise. He also sought extremely constructive links between various organisational units and with external partners, such as UAF and the Municipality of Rotterdam.”
Van der Poel wins a special commendation and a cash amount of 1,000 euro.
Rewarding top support staff for their work for research and education
Top Support Award (Team)
The jury awarded the team award to the ESSB web team (soon: ‘Learning Innovation Support Team’). This team is responsible for processes within students’ digital learning environment, recording lectures and providing support in using digital tools. The team was also responsible for the transition from x-web to the new digital learning environment, Canvas; an enormous operation that took an incredible amount of time and effort, but ran extremely smoothly.
The jury is extremely complimentary about the web team’s efforts within and outside the faculty: “As team, they are an example of what EUR understands by ‘cooperation’. Colleagues were very complimentary. The team was described as helpful, fast, proactive, involved and with a huge dose of humour and friendliness. The links with other organisational units were also very much appreciated.”
The web team wins a special commendation and a cash amount of 1,500 euro.
About the Top Support Awards
The Top Support Awards have been issued since 2014. Nominations for this edition have been assessed by a jury including Roelien Ritsma van Eck and Eddy Hus (Executive Board), Professor Hub Zwart (Dean ESPhil), Aleid Barmentlo (Chair, University Council) and Noor Lourens (HR). Criteria include delivering exceptional performance, acting as ambassador of the “top support for a top university” motto and the way in which the collective core values of EUR support staff are addressed: collaboration, result orientation and customer involvement.
