Northern Michigan University executive secretary Claudia Mankee is one of nine recipients of NMU's 2022 Excellence in Service awards. Her contributions have positively impacted the university through her 28 years of employment. She started in Admissions and progressed to International Affairs, the NMU Bookstore, and the Financial Aid Office, before returning full circle to her current position in Admissions.
Mankee came to Marquette and NMU from Lima, Peru, joining NMU in 1994 as a senior secretary. Throughout her time so far, she has built strong relationships across the university and was included on the team implementing the NMU Foundation and supported pilot Honors Program events in conjunction with Wildcat Weekend.
Makee also shares her Spanish language fluency by translating financial aid information to Spanish-speaking parents of a prospective student, providing explanations to campus visitors, and proofreading Spanish versions of a handout used in campus programming.
Her input and work related to budget, recordkeeping, communications, connections with IT and reporting and working with external vendors was integral to the success of the first program, assessment and in planning for future programs.
Mankee was instrumental in ensuring that NMU's recruitment and communications activities could continue throughout all the changes related to the pandemic. Many standard activities that are important to meeting NMU's goals could not have occurred had it not been for her ideas, organizational and implementation skills, as well as her ability to move from task to task as often as needed.
Although these activities are not part of her job description, she does them because it helps students and helps the department.