Nominations Purple Crocodile Award

Who is nominated?
UU Programming Café

Nomination description:
I would like to recognize the UU Programming Café for its contribution in relieving the anxiety of beginner programmers and data scientists in all Faculties by creating a supportive community where employees at any level fell welcome, exchange skills, and build transdisciplinary communities. The team running the Programming Café has shown enormous dedication to promoting Open Science at UU and sharing the digital skills needed to open one's research. It is a perfect example of a grassroots initiative, where participants can pitch topics they are interested in and ask questions in a safe environment. Digital solutions are often shared across disciplines, so the Programming Café is a place where social scientists can find a joint interest with physicists, or geoscientists learn from lawyers, leading to truly disciplinary connections. The Programming Café is the place where a desperate soul can seek help with a code that doesn't work, with version control, or any other challenge on the bumpy path to reproducibility. This initiative contributes in equal measure to elevating the Open Science standards at UU and to creating a community of practice across all Faculties.

Nominated by:
Emilia Jarochowska

Who is nominated?
HR servicedesk: Jef van Engelenburg, Linda Vonk and Bas Meier.

Nomination description:
I want to nominate the team behind the new tool for the employment choice model (keuzemodel arbeidsvoorwaarden). In the past, we had to use Excel files that we needed to print, sign, and scan. Now we can use a digital tool. I think this saves a lot of time for all staff filing out the forms, as well as with the processing of the forms by HR. I was told the tool was a joint effort by many departments, but three people in particular were involved: Jef van Engelenburg, Linda Vonk, and Bas Meier (who has since left the UU).

Nominated by:
Martijn Huysmans

Who is nominated?
Laura van Drie (Secretary Educational Policy - Law School)

Nomination description:
Laura is an incredible help for our whole department of International and EU law (app. 150 people), if not the whole Law School (app. 450 people)! She supports our teaching activities, from A to Z so to speak - selecting new students, making schedules of courses, exams and master diploma ceremonies, uploading all the exam and theses grades in OSIRIS, collecting all the signatures and forms, supporting our 'OC' and education meetings of any kind, to name but a few. And this has been already years so and always with a smile and friendly and collaborative way! Fantastic! Laura for the win!

Nominated by:
Mira Scholten

Who is nominated?
Laura van Drie (Secretary Educational Policy - Law School)

Nomination description:
Laura is an invaluable colleague and essential to the running of our Master degrees. She is always on top of everything and takes on so much of the administrative burden to make our lives easier. She is super efficient and it is always possible to count on her to find creative ways to solve problems. Thanks to her we do not have to worry about the smooth running of our programme, because everything is always taken care of! I think Laura absolutely deserves this award, because of the dedication and enthusiasm that she brings to our university. She is truly a hero and we are very lucky to have her!
 

Who is nominated?
Roel Werelds (Key User Educational Applications - Law, Economics and Governance)

Nomination description:
Roel is a REBO lifesaver. As Key User Educational Applications'', he knows how to answer all questions about blackboard and digital testing. Not only that: he is fast, easily accessible, and anticipates problems. If anyone has made my administrative life "not more fun, but easier", then it is Roel.

Nominated by:
Alexandra Timmer

Nominee:
Arthur van Andel (Student psychologist)

Nomination description:
Arthur is one of the student psychologists at Utrecht University. As part of his Green Belt project (part of the LEAN process, see below), he is working on reducing the administrative burden for student psychologists. After an intake, psychologists must prepare a report. By designing a format and eliminating unnecessary process steps, time is saved for the team of psychologists on a daily basis. This gives them more time to see students or work on innovation and personal development. That is good news in times of workload and concerns about the well-being of students.
The Student Department of the UU's SO&O Directorate has introduced LEAN as a method to optimize work processes. In our opinion, this fits in perfectly with the purpose of the Purple Crocodile Award.

Nominated by:
Marieke De Bakker

Nominee:
Jill Briggeman (coordinator Center for Digital Humanities and team lead of the Research Software Lab)

Nomination description:
They say that changing a university is like 'moving a cemetery', and that you can't expect participation from those inside. But that does not apply to colleagues like Jill Briggeman. We would like to nominate Jill for the Purple Crocodile Award. As an integral member of the Data School, Jill tackles challenges we face when collaborating with external partners on research projects, supporting us in achieving impact. Jill values perseverance and creativity over defeat and distinguishes herself by finding solutions around university infrastructures that hinder interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary collaboration. Her efforts play a critical role in facilitating team science and debunking the outdated divide between support and academic staff. Jill's work not only enables us to do our work with external parties, but importantly, it also lays a foundation for future teams, underscoring her indispensable role in realizing the ambitions of the University. Changing a university is not an easy undertaking (but with Jill we will get there)!

Nominated by:
Karin van Es

Nominee:
Anneke Wijnalda (Department Manager Developmental Psychology)

Nomination description:
Anneke is the department manager of Developmental Psychology. She is truly a 'sheep with five legs'. She helps you with almost everything: finding a workplace, getting a contract for scientific assistants, subsidies, HR issues, financial questions, teaching schedules, workload, helping you get started as a new employee, finding a buddy to help you out, etc. There really is no other person in my academic life who has reduced the workload as much as she has!

Nominated by:
Jellie Sierksma

Nominee:
Jill Briggeman (coordinator Center for Digital Humanities and team lead of the Research Software Lab)

Nomination description:
In recent years, Jill Briggeman has made an invaluable contribution to the Center for Digital Humanities (CDH) and its various components. Jill has ensured that the various parts of the CDH work together smoothly and that all activities are well coordinated, including with partners outside the Faculty. Jill has achieved this with a unique combination of hard work, a feeling for the organization of the UU, and a keen eye for long-term goals. She also naturally leads the Research Software Lab within CDH. By doing all this in an unyielding good mood, Jill makes the work of many employees at the UU much easier and more pleasant.

Nominated by:
Hugo Quene

Nominee:
Oscar Buma (ICTO coordinator at the Faculty of Social Sciences)

Nomination description:
Oscar Buma has been working at our university for 25 years, where he supports both staff and students. In 2001 he started working in the ICT department of the social sciences. In the first years he started as a Blackboard wizard, but over time IT became more and more integrated with educational activities. Currently, Oscar (and his team) are the people to go if you need help with Blackboard, Remindo or other IT educational facilities.
Oscar is always happy to help you, even if your request is at the very last minute, is a problem that needs to be solved immediately or a question concerns very basic functionalities of the IT platforms that the UU uses. During the COVID pandemic, Oscar played an important role in helping teachers set up and troubleshoot online teaching activities and online exams. This required a lot of flexibility from him, but Oscar was always his relaxed and positive self in every online meeting, which immediately gave you the feeling that everything would be fine.
Because Oscar has been working here for so many years, he has an enormous amount of knowledge and experience, which makes him of great value to our employees. As we say in Dutch: “he knows how the hares run”. Because of his expertise, Oscar can help you quickly and efficiently and he is a valuable sparring partner who can advise you based on his previous experiences with other teachers who faced a similar problem. Moreover, he is well informed about the organizational structure of the university, so that even if he cannot directly help you with your question, he immediately knows who to contact.
All in all, Oscar has made the lives of many social scientists easier for a quarter of a century, and always with a smile.

Nominated by:
Marleen Gillebaart, Ruud Hortensius, Anouk Keizer, Angelos Krypotos and Reine van der Wal