Hoos Making an Impact Finalists
Hoos Making an Impact
UVA staff have the opportunity to make a significant impact at UVA through a new annual competition, “Hoos Making an Impact,” by submitting innovative ideas that will help streamline or improve a process at UVA. The competition is hosted by the Staff Senate in partnership with the President's Office to cultivate staff success across UVA Grounds in alignment with the University’s 2030 Strategic Plan.
2022-2023
This year’s theme is sustainability. Besides making an important contribution to advancing sustainability at UVA, the winners of the competition will receive $1,000 and have their ideas implemented. In addition, they will have lunch with UVA leadership and be featured in UVA Today.
2022-2023 Winners
Ethan Heil & Patrick Clark(Facilities Management & Parking and Transportation)
Create a Commute Club Incentive Program that promotes alternative forms of commuting, and includes incentives such as financial support, points accrual, bonus-reward parking spots, reserved parking for Commute Club members, shared parking spots, and more.
Rachel Sligar & Kendyl Bilenkij (Information Technology Services)
Increase use of the DocuSign/Document Imaging integration process with advertising/promoting and teaching tools, to make processes more efficient while also reducing paper waste. This reduction in paper waste (and paper production) would lead to reduced carbon emissions, water use, wood use, and waste.
2022-2023 Finalists
Myron Ballard (Finance)
Create a sustainability leadership education program that equips staff with project management skills focused on sustainability principles. This program would provide staff with practical project management skills aimed at helping the University meet its sustainability goals.
Leslie Booren (The School of Education & Human Development)
Create a multi-faceted program that primarily focuses on the retention and professional development of restricted research staff at UVA, enabling new ways for staff to move seamlessly from research project to project, lowering turnover costs and building continual support with institutional knowledge for faculty leaders.
Anne Butz (Student Health)
Improve UVA parking options on Grounds by expanding work-from-home options (decrease demand for spots); using current parking options in unique ways (increase parking options); and generating more incentives for carpooling (decrease demand).
William Evans (Environmental Resilience Institute)
Create a comprehensive sustainability database and dashboard to display UVA's key infrastructure and natural resources. These tools would provide a source of information for sustainability initiatives going on across Grounds.
Leslie Hubbard (Contemplative Sciences Center)
Create a portal to promote sustainable behavior on and off Grounds through encouraging and rewarding participation by individuals (students, faculty, and staff) and groups and then quantifying their impact. This portal can make sustainability engagement relevant to our community environment and emphasize the collective impact that our actions can have.
Rachel Lloyd, Helen Wilson, & Rich Hopkins (Office of the Architect)
Expand biodiversity and reduce landscape maintenance demands around Grounds through a pilot Plant Diversity Project. The project would not only reduce landscape maintenance needs, but also eliminate invasive plant species, increase native plants, and improve the landscape appearance.
Ryan McCarthy (Facilities Management)
Decrease food waste and increase support for food insecure members of the UVA community by allowing free or subsidized access to on-Grounds dining facilities and vending machines, and create an app that would allow organizations to post when and where they have food available.