I find Maryne to be persistent, productive, and action-oriented. As soon as a need is identified, she begins to investigate, question, and plan. When she learned that a visually impaired resident had barely escaped injury while crossing a street that runs through campus, she inspired action. As one of the advisors to United Students in Residence Halls (USRH), our campus RHA, she rallied the USRH Safety and Security Committee to get involved. After contacting University Police (UP), Maryne learned that in order to get pedestrian crossing lights installed, UP would need to provide convincing evidence to the city, including pedestrian traffic counts. For the past two weeks, each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, from 6:30-8:30 AM, and 4:00-6:00 PM, at least two volunteers have been stationed counting pedestrian traffic. As you can imagine, finding students to cover the 6:30 AM shift, especially during a high academic stress time, was difficult. While Maryne was able to motivate several students to volunteer, she also spent a significant amount of time with the clicker herself.

In March, a Police Officer from a nearby community (and a former UW Oshkosh Community Advisor) was fatally shot in the line of duty. Another officer and a K9 who responded to the call were also wounded. In addition to identifying ways to honor the fallen officer on campus, residents were inspired to raise funds to purchase K9 bullet proof vests for our own community. Maryne made contact with the Oshkosh Police Department to learn more about the Oshkosh K9 Unit and discuss fundraising for vests. Primarily due to Maryne’s efforts, there will be a fundraiser on campus this week involving the dogs from the unit. Maryne has been named a Friend of the K9 Unit.

Residents, student staff, and colleagues alike find Maryne to be supportive and encouraging. Maryne is the person always nominating someone for an award, sending a hand-written note or email, or helping someone manage issues by listening. She has done all of those things repeatedly in the past month. Maryne authored countless letters of support for students and peers; assisted student leaders managing anxiety about executive board elections; and covered an entire duty weekend for a colleague even though it meant she was on duty two consecutive weekends (asking for nothing in return). When a colleague, a graduate student, was very stressed about his statistic class, Maryne went as far as finding resources in text books from her graduate studies; proofreading one of his papers; and contacting a professor from her graduate program to provide feedback. Talk about a caring and compassionate woman!

Maryne strives for nothing less than excellence in all of her work. Her work with our centralized fall greeter program (called Mi Titans) demonstrates the quality, details, and vision she brings to any project. First of all, she volunteered to oversee this program; it is not an expectation of her position. The amount of time she has invested into the program this past month has been remarkable. Maryne has advised a group of 7 student leads who serve on a steering committee; held a training meeting at 9:30 pm on a Sunday evening to orient the 80+ Mi Titans; met individually with volunteers who were unable to make the centralized meeting; and has completely revamped the move-in map (color coded, zooming) to make it more user-friendly.

While there are so many more examples I could share, I hope the above text demonstrates why I believe Maryne Taute should be the April Spotlight OTM recipient.

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