Mary Clifford Awarded FACULTAS Award

The Facultas Award acknowledges and honors exceptional staff who provide vital, yet often unnoticed, services essential to the smooth and efficient functioning of the Villanova community. The Spring 2007 Facultas Award recipient, Mary Clifford in the VPAA office, exemplifies the spirit of service and efficiency that we rarely notice but daily depend on.

Each day Mary Clifford handles a bewildering multitude of requests for policies, lists, copies of committee minutes, schedules, meeting times, budgets, data. She assists new faculty, takes minutes at numerous meetings, and assists with the academic calendar, catalog, faculty handbook, and numerous other functions of the VPAA office.

One Faculty Congress member stated: “Whenever we need data to further an issue, we can always ask Mary and she is incredibly good at getting back to us in a timely manner.” The chair of the faculty elections says, “Whenever a faculty election approaches, I know I can ask Mary for a current list of the faculty eligible for that election, and she will almost immediately respond with the list.”

Mary Clifford’s supervisor, Dr. Johannes, has only the highest praise for her work. “Mary is an unsung hero. Mary organizes me and runs our office. She's invisible because of where she works and, in some sense, because of what she does. But without her consistent hard work, many of the communications and cooperation between ‘administration’ and ‘faculty’ would not be as smooth and positive as they are. She has no down time, yet she always goes the extra mile for the faculty.”

The retiring Associate VPAA, John Immerwahr, adds his strong endorsement, “I think one of the great unsung heroes is our own Mary Clifford. Our office handles the paperwork for all of our full-time and part-time faculty members, in addition to supporting the VPAA in all his activities, and also coordinating the administrative issues for the four colleges, Enrollment Management, VITAL, OPTIR, International Studies, and also trying to keep the rascally AVPAA under control. She does it all with efficiency, grace, and accuracy, making sure that every question or issue is addressed promptly. She is a super star.”

The Villanova faculty is humbled and grateful to be working with outstanding staff like Mary Clifford. It is our privilege to acknowledge her with the Spring 2007 Facultas Award.