Excellence in Volunteering Award

Purpose

The Jenny Whittington Excellence in Volunteering Award honors members who go “above and beyond” to promote the organization’s mission, vision, and values; contribute to its advancement; and lead its members from within. The award is reserved for nominees who have demonstrated - over a series of years and projects – their extensive commitment to the organization and who have exhibited leadership by example of service to URMIA.

Award recipients will be recognized at the next URMIA Annual Conference. Nominations may be made at any time and awards will be bestowed on an as-appropriate basis, not necessarily each year.

Selection Criteria

The Honors Committee relies upon members to call attention to individuals for consideration. Nominees must be a member of URMIA, institutional or affiliate, and their service should include a compilation (by example, not intended to be an exclusive list) of:

• Significant volunteer service commitment and/or leadership within URMIA

• Committee work

• Volunteering at conferences

• Mentorship

• Speaking at URMIA webinars and conferences and externally on behalf of the organization

• Contributions to the URMIAnetwork

• Contributing to URMIA resource documents

• Participation in special projects

As with other URMIA awards, nominees should consistently:

• Demonstrate a positive attitude and good character

• Be respected by peers, employees, managers, and others in their organization and across URMIA

• Exhibit enthusiasm for higher education risk management

• Motivate others

About Jenny Whittington

Jenny Whittington was hired as URMIA’s first full-time employee in 2005 in the Bloomington, IN location and became the organization’s executive director in 2007. She worked for URMIA for nearly 19 years, retiring in 2023.

Her tenure at URMIA saw a tremendous growth in the membership and the staff, not to mention the cadre of volunteers that helped shape the organization over the years. No one is a bigger champion of URMIA volunteers, nobody encourages them, seeks them out, or extols their virtues more than Whittington has. For those reasons, at a minimum, the organization’s Excellence in Volunteering Award was renamed to the Jenny Whittington Excellence in Volunteering Award in 2023 to honor her extraordinary efforts in recruiting, retaining, and celebrating the volunteers in URMIA.

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