Averett Announces Outstanding Faculty & Staff Member of the Year

Posted on May 13th, 2016 by Emily Tomlinson

2016Fac_StaffawardsAverett University is pleased to announce its 2015-16 Outstanding Faculty Member and Outstanding Staff Member of the Year. The Outstanding Faculty Member of the Year is Theatre Professor Richard Breen ’81 and the Outstanding Staff Member of the Year is Kevin Lipscomb, director of information technology services. This year’s award winners were announced during a special luncheon held Thursday, May 5.

Breen was nominated by a cross-section of individuals across campus. One student described him as a “truly amazing person” … “who encouraged me to push myself and believe that I could do anything.” The student went on to say that he was not an exception because Breen “has helped so many of his students push themselves to obtain their goals.” In the nominations, a staff member recognized his extensive presence on campus including many athletic events, participating in late night breakfast and participating on many university committees.

In addition to being active on campus, Breen’s continued work to hone his craft by practicing in his field during the summer was touted. One nominator described him as “faithful and true to the gold and blue” and another said “I would have to be blind to miss how much he cares about Averett and its/his students (and even then I would probably hear the pride in his voice).”

Lipscomb, like Breen, received nominations from a diverse population of nominators. Nominators said of Lipscomb that he “always goes beyond the call of duty and doesn’t do it for the limelight or the attention,” “serves in a thankless job, but is relaxed, easy going and very knowledgeable,” “has been accessible during hours and even after hours,” “never makes you feel that they do not have the time for you” and works with little resources, but gets the job done effectively and efficiently.” One of the things that stood out to the nominating committee about Lipscomb was that he nominated each and every person from his department for the Outstanding Staff Member of the Year Award. “If that doesn’t speak to the kind of staff member he is, we don’t know what does,” said Staff Council President Sherry Phelps, who introduced Lipscomb as this year’s award winner.