Earlier this month, the Mizzou Academy team gathered for an enthusiastic zoom meeting. Topics ranged from programmatic celebrations, including our growing elementary program and new international interest, to more personal celebrations including family and scholarly accomplishments. As is our tradition, we also announced our summer Mizzou Academy Honor Award recipients and nominees. 

The Mizzou Academy Honor Award was launched in 2021 as part of our strategic initiatives to cultivate a culture of celebration and recognition. Since its inception, we have celebrated many deserving faculty and staff.

Recipient – Steven Turner

This quarter’s recipient is Steven Turner. Steven serves as an Instructional Technologist for Mizzou Academy. 

A recent moment at work that brought Steven a lot of joy was seeing a student he’s worked with several times through proctoring graduate. “Seeing him succeed on those exams and then watching him graduate was a real moment where I realized I was part of something bigger than just my job.” 

Steven holds a bachelors in Criminal Justice Administration and a Masters in Educational Technology. Prior to joining Mizzou Academy, Steven served for 15 years as a police officer. When asked about his time with the police force, he shared that he “tremendously enjoys helping people.” His Mizzou Academy nominations attest to this.  

While humility, expertise, and humor were all mentioned in reference to Steven, his helpful nature was the strongest theme across his nominations. One nominator wrote, “Steven helps all of us and yet, whenever he is helping me with something, he gives his full attention in such a way that, if I didn’t know better, I would think I was the only one he was helping.” 

Not only does Steven excel at his work, he also genuinely enjoys it. Steven says, “I enjoy every single aspect of my work and being part of Mizzou Academy.  From the humdrum to the stimulating, I sincerely enjoy being in the position to serve both students and staff with whatever they need.”

While he loves his work at Mizzou Academy, Steven shares that “first and foremost, I’m just a dad, doing dad things.” These things include coaching his sons’ basketball, soccer, and baseball teams, and playing outdoors. Steven enjoys running, kayaking, and hiking, and he is currently training to summit Pike’s Peak. 

Nominees – Tanya Jarvis and Caitlyn Maxwell

In addition to celebrating Steven’s accomplishments, we were also proud to recognize Tanya Jarvis and Caitlyn Maxwell for their honor award nominations. Tanya Jarivs serves as our Support Service Coordinator. In this capacity, she works directly with families and students.  While presenting the awards, Executive Director Kathryn Fishman-Weaver told Tanya, “Knowing that proctoring continues to be highly sought after and that student (and family) emotions are high this time of year, thank YOU for managing this service with such steady leadership.  Tanya, you are a voice of reason and calm, leading this newest and growing service in our Mizzou Academy operation. Thank you for all you do to support our students and their families.”

Cailtyn Maxwell is a Support Service Representative working primarily in the transcript department area with Jean Zenner. When reading the award nominations, Business Director, Tami Regan, told the team, “Oh my goodness, I can’t even count the ways that [Caitlyn] helps me specifically and our team overall!  She has jumped in on emergency projects with gusto and has tackled more routine matters with an efficiency that rivals superheroes. She is a wonder and many do not realize she is in the background helping our students in so many ways!  When you see all the transfer credits – Caitlin is responsible for over 95% of the entries…that’s saying a lot with how many transcripts and entries we do per year.”

A Commitment to Excellence

As in every school system, it is the exceptional talents and dedication of our staff that keep things moving forward. Congratulations to Steven, Tanya, and Caitlyn. We are grateful for all you do!