While the results of our quality improvement efforts are the true rewards for our hard work in striving to make the CSU better, there are those individuals who deserve special recognition. The recipients of the Quality Improvement Awards for 2009 are:

Awards Categories

QI Champion of the Year

Pictured from left to right:
Linda Hawk, CSU San Marcos (Award Winner)
Dr. Karen S. Haynes, CSU San Marcos (Presenting the Award)

Vice President Hawk has been a participant and leader of QI efforts since she came to San Marcos.  Immediately after assuming her position as Vice President, she set about engaging the leadership team in establishing a new vision for the division and instilling a culture of QI into all aspects of the organization.  To maintain the momentum of this new vision she developed a guiding principles program which is highlighted and reaffirmed throughout the organization using a variety of communication tools that disseminates via a QI approach to management to all departments.  She embraces an approach to management that models all the value that QI can bring to an organization.

Distinguished Service in QI

Abbi Stone, Sacramento State University

Over a span of nearly 10 years, Abbi has championed successful quality improvement efforts at two CSU campuses.  Her leadership was instrumental in the development of comprehensive and widely respected programs at San Marcos and Sacramento, and the active participation of both campuses in the systemwide QI programs.  She has been a pioneer in starting up new programs and the breadth of her QI efforts has made a significant impact at both campuses.

Innovative Practice

Admission, Evaluation and Selection team- Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo

The Admission, Evaluation and Selection team automated the faculty-designed comprehensive review process that is used to screen, score and select students for admission.  This effort brought together a cross functional group of experts from across the campus who collaborated on an innovative way to automate the selection process.  They used QI tools to define the problem and develop a strategic plan, which resulted in a transformation of the classical organization model in place.  One of the most significant adoptions was the multi-criteria admission selection scheme (MCA) that combines academic factors with other objective values to comprehensively review all student applicants for selection.  Applicants compete for admission against other applicants applying to the same major.  Decisions are based on the available spaces in each major, which varies from quarter to quarter.  CSUMentor, an on-line application, was utilized as the electronic admission portfolio and was integrated with CMS Oracle/PeopleSoft Student Administration Admissions Module and the MCA database.  This is a model that could be applied throughout the CSU.

QI Facilitator of the Year

Dennis Muraoka, CSU Channel Islands

Dr. Muraoka successfully used QI principles in his role as campus Accreditation Liaison Officer, which resulted in Channel Islands earning both accreditation and praise from the team and WASC.  The inclusive structure he designed for completing the accreditation process involved the entire campus and ensured broad awareness of institutional and divisional goals, each unit’s role in meeting those goals, and each employee’s responsibility for furthering the successful operation of the university.  He established a novel “bottoms up” approach for an on-going assessment approach throughout the campus, which can serve as an excellent model for other campuses.

QI Team of the Year

Environmental Health & Safety Function Team

The team led an effort to implement the first ever Customer Satisfaction survey for the Environmental Health & Safety function in the system.  They developed a survey tool that was administered at eight CSU campuses in 2008, establishing a new tool for benchmarking and nurturing a nascent culture of QI good practice in this functional area.