By STEPHANIE BLAIR Staff Writer
Each year, three awards are presented to staff and faculty members of Western Oregon University and this spring will be no different as the 36th year that the Pastega Awards will be presented.
The Pastega Staff Excellence Award is one of the three awards given each year, the other two being the Pastega Award for Excellence in Scholarship and the Pastega Award for Excellence in Teaching.
The entire process is coordinated by Western’s Human Resources Department. Nominations are given by students and community members. Then, the potential recipients are then invited to submit a portfolio exemplifying their work and are considered by a committee who pass three choices on to the university president for final selection. Finally, those who are selected are presented with the award in May. The Staff Excellence Award is given at the commencement breakfast in June.
As stated on Western’s Pastega Award webpage, in 1979 the first Scholarship Award was presented to Dr. J. Morris Johnson, a biology professor who had distinguished himself through his work cloning carrot cells.
Six years later, the awards for Teaching and Staff Excellence were created and presented to Forrest Hiner and Pat Gallagher, respectively. Last year’s recipients were Ms. Sue Thompson (Staff Excellence), Dr. David Doellinger (Scholarship), and Dr. Katherine Schmidt (Teaching).
Additionally, each recipient receives a $1,000 honorarium along with the award. This is made possible each year through the generosity of Mario Pastega and his wife, Alma, who donated $40,000 in 1997, which was then matched by the Oregon State System of Higher Education.
Nominations are now being accepted for this year’s awards. An email was sent to all students on Jan.25 with the nomination forms attached. These forms can be filled out and either delivered by hand to the Academic Affairs Office or emailed to Kathy Hill, executive assistant to the vice president for Academic Affairs, at hillk@wou.edu.
For more information, please visit https://wou.edu/president/facultysenate/pastega/
