Shasta Hamilton is exemplary in all CRITERIA values. Most impressive is the way she trains our student office personnel. She helps them be very good at their jobs, but also embodies gospel methodology in the way she relates to them. She cares about their long-term wellbeing and their spiritual growth. When they struggle with personal issues, she is compassionate and supportive. When one of the student employees fell ill, she visited her in the hospital and communicated all of our support for her.
She also cares and supports the office managers in each of our departments. She works with them, especially those who are new, to adjust to their new work expectations, but also stays in touch with each of them to make sure they fell a sense Belonging in our college. She collaborates with them for a number of college initiatives, from convocation to annual socials.
Finally, she is kind and supportive of all our (sometimes eccentric) faculty members, helping them find resources they need for teaching and research, and supporting various initiatives (like conference organization, research, and college meetings). She and her student employees went above and beyond, helping transcribe work for two recent book projects and helping pay for image rights at foreign institutions.
Demonstrating her commitment to teamwork, Shasta is a full partner at every step to support the associate deans in the training of new faculty and coordinating the rank and status processes. Not only does she help with logistics, but she contributes by making the experience simpler for our faculty: she streamlined the process so faculty submit only what is required, working with our programming team to create simple online forms; she then collates documentation that faculty members can then proofread. She ensures that the various faculty committees complete their review in a timely fashion and prepares everything for the next levels of review. She thereby helps faculty members succeed and have time to be the best teachers and scholars they can be.
Shasta innovates by suggesting ways we can better help faculty meet BYU’s objectives. In addition to organizing forms for faculty promotion dossiers, she has helped change the shape of our college awards so we can better recognize contributions by faculty members in teaching, research, and citizenship. Finally, she is accountable: she quickly and efficiently completes her assignments, responds to requests professionally and in a timely way, and has the complete trust of everyone in the college, even beyond the college office.