Congratulations to Tamara Griffin and Tiffany Parker on being recognized for their Commitment to Excellence. This staff recognition program celebrates staff who demonstrate the highest standards in their commitment to supporting our mission, vision and values. We thank all staff members who consistently demonstrate excellence in what they do for our School community. Click here for more information about the program and how to nominate a staff member.

Read their nominations below: 

"This nomination is long overdue. I nominate Tamara Griffin, social worker and case manager of the Duke Elder Family/Caregiver Training (DEFT) Center. Tamara is a remarkable employee in terms of quality of work delivered, dedication to the mission of the Center, and her interaction with the caregivers and patients we serve. In the six months that we have offered services, we have received more than 110 caregiver referrals for training. This success is partly because of Tamara’s excellent presentations in many meetings with DUHS clinical providers, her perseverance in reaching out to individual DUHS case managers, and enthusiastic energy when interacting with caregivers and patients. As the DEFT Center director, I have received many compliments from DUHS leaders on Tamara’s professionalism and unrelenting commitment to support the family and friends who are caring for their loved ones. Tamara is always the last one to leave our office going well beyond what is expected of her role. She is tenacious in her passion to assist caregivers. Our team knows, and sees how hard she works and she continues to initiates ideas for improvement. We have received so many kudos from caregivers on how they have benefited from Tamara’s assistance. It is my hope that Tamara would continue to find professional and personal fulfillment with the DEFT program as, frankly, I cannot imagine our team without her!" ~ Cristina C. Hendrix

"I would like to nominate Tiffany Parker, staff assistant, for a commitment to excellence award. I have always found Tiffany to be warm and welcoming but until recently, I had never had the pleasure of working directly with her on a specific project. Over the past year, several members of the OGACHI office have been working to develop a Sakai project site that can be used to orient and prepare students for global experiences.  The complexities of creating a site that can communicate an array of site/country specific information and the various pre-deployment requirements while meeting the needs of MSN students and ABSN clinical groups was a daunting and an iterative process. Our team made slow but consistent strides. We needed the knowledgeable, skilled and hands-on support of a Sakai subject matter expert to make the necessary refinements and take the project site to the next level.  Thankfully, Nancy Foskey and Tiffany met with us to provide guidance and suggestions.  I was struck by Tiffany’s willingness to contribute her knowledge and expertise to the project. I marveled as she navigated through the site and make small changes that for her, a seasoned Sakai administrator, were quick and easy, but for us, required a learning curve and would have taken hours. Simply stated, Tiffany was instrumental in helping us refine, finalize and make substantive improvements to our project site and we are grateful!  Tiffany is a pleasure to work with, open and willing to share her skills and talents with others in order to support the needs of the School, and embodies our School’s core values of Excellence, Respect and Collaboration." ~ Julie Cusatis