Marla Roberts has served the Office of the Dean for 10 years and every day goes above and beyond the call of duty to help others in their work. She is an asset not only to the deans and directors of the college, but to department heads, faculty, and staff.
Her expertise in the promotion and tenure process and knowledge of the intricacies academic personnel needs are unparalleled. This year, the college received 40 promotion and tenure cases. Marla shepherded each one of them through the review process – working overtime for many weeks to provide department heads and staff with countless hours of assistance to ensure that faculty dossiers were ready for review at higher levels. She answered hundreds of emails and spent considerable time on Zoom and phone calls addressing immediate and important issues for faculty, staff, and department heads as they navigated Interfolio and various UT policies. Without a doubt, the entire tenure-track promotion review process would have been a disaster had she not been so committed to helping everyone involved to put together a set of well-organized dossiers.
Marla’s passion and commitment to the promotion process extends to everything she does, including faculty leaves, searches, and hires. She remains calm and collected throughout any issue that comes up and always has the answer to a problem or knows who to contact to get assistance. Marla approaches her work with a positive attitude that faculty, staff, and college leadership appreciate and praise. This recognition is a long overdue honor for her efforts and hard work for the College of Arts and Sciences.
–Source: Nominators comments
The Academic Support Award is awarded to a staff member who has exhibited extraordinary academic support during the past academic year. Areas of support may include curriculum, advising, scheduling, faculty assistance, etc.