Employees of the month

Kevin Mies

March University support staff employee of the month

Started at KU: 2001.

Current title: Supervisor in the emergency communications division of the Public Safety Office.

What that means: Mies’ duties include staff training and scheduling, emergency medical dispatch coordination, technical support for numerous dispatch systems, quality assurance and more.

Quotable: One of Mies’ staff wrote, “Kevin is a wonderfully fair and unbiased supervisor in dealing with eight full-time employees. He understands that we all have lives, and he has covered shifts working long hours or numerous days in a row to accommodate requests for time off. Kevin expects a lot from his staff and himself.”

Notable: Mies helps others in the Public Safety Office with technical problems outside his job description and in addition to his assigned duties. His position also requires him to maintain a good working relationship with off-campus area agencies, such as the Lawrence/Douglas County Fire and Medical.

Precious Porras

March Unclassified employee of the month

Started at KU: 2005.

Current title: Program associate for the Sabatini Multicultural Resource Center. What that means: Porras oversees multiple diversity and cultural education programs. She joined the university staff as a program assistant and assisted with the center’s move into its new facilities in.

The MRC director commented that her attention to detail allowed the move to occur without any interruption in the services provided to KU students. She organizes and presents multiple programs, such as the Tunnel of Oppression and events for Black History Month, advises student groups, facilitates diversity training and designs publications and promotions for marketing the Center.

Notable: Porras raised the student membership standards for the Diversity Peer Education Team, which resulted in better presentations across campus. She helped the SOAR tutoring and mentoring program to grow from serving fewer than 100 students to helping more than 250 per academic year.

Many of the events she is involved in require collaboration among multiple campus offices, and she contributes to successful diversity programs of the Housing Department and others. Her influence even reaches beyond the Lawrence campus, as Porras helped establish the Tools for Social Justice conference in Kansas City, co-sponsored by the American College Personnel Association.