UCA employee honored for ‘administrative excellence’
UCA employee honored for ‘administrative excellence’
Miriam “Lanita” Addison is rarely at a loss for words, but she said she was “just stunned” not too long ago when she learned she had received a national award.
Addison, who will be 61 on Tuesday, is the winner of the 2019 National Collegiate Honors Council Award for Administrative Excellence. She is an administrative specialist in the Norbert O. Schedler Honors College at the University of Central Arkansas in Conway.
“I was caught flat-footed,” she said, laughing. “A whole group of people, students included, came into the office that day. I thought they just needed some sugar. She has bowls of candy on her desk.
“Tricia (Patricia Smith, dean of the Honors College) came in with a bowl of Halos (mandarin oranges). … There were cookies and brownies, too,” Addison recalled. “I had just received a really nice gift from her for Secretaries Day, and I wondered, ‘What in the world is going on?’
“They had all come to congratulate me,” Addison said.
The National Collegiate Honors Council gives this award annually in honor of Administrative Professionals Day. Each year, members of the NCHC are invited to nominate the administrative professionals that support and sustain their honors programs and colleges. Smith nominated Addison for the award.
Addison will receive recognition on NCHC’s website, along with the other 2019 award nominees. She will also be invited to attend NCHC’s 2019 annual conference in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November, to receive her award at the annual awards ceremony.
“You can ask any single one of our students who the heart and soul of the Schedler Honors College is, and the answer will always be ‘Lanita,’” Smith said.
“Having been around NCHC for over a decade, I know how important it is for programs to have competent and friendly administrative professionals, and I have to say, we hit the jackpot when we hired Lanita eight years ago,” Smith said.
“Lanita continues to exceed the expectations for the position she was hired to do. She continues to successfully be able to balance requests from faculty, students, administrators and other staff, and to get a read for the level of importance, balancing which task needs to be accomplished first,” Smith said. “Lanita has a tremendous work ethic and is always concerned with the quality of her work.
“During our busiest time of year, Lanita will work tirelessly, staying late and skipping lunch in order for us to get quick responses to our worried student applicants. She stays late for student events without question and never expects anything in return.”
Addison started working at UCA in October 2001 and worked for 11 years in the UCA registrar’s office, then moved to the Honors College.
“I was happy at the registrar’s office, but this job opened up, and I thought it sounded interesting,” she said. “I applied for it on the last day, never expecting to get it. Tricia called me. … She was director of students then and offered me the job. She was my direct supervisor. She is now dean of the college and still my direct supervisor.”
Smith said she remembers when Addison first interviewed for the position.
“It was clear to us within a few minutes of being with her that she is sharp, witty and has a great sense of humor,” Smith said. “We were looking for someone to replace Glenda Middleton, an administrative assistant who had been with the department for 24 years.
“Students had considered Glenda their ‘mom away from home,’ so we knew those would be hard shoes to fill. Lanita quickly won us all over, and we knew she’d be an uplifting force in the lives of our students. Given how fast-paced the office can be, having someone with a positive attitude who always has a kind word to share makes all the difference.”
Addison said she just does “whatever needs to be done.”
“The best part of my job is dealing with the students,” she said. “I am here to help them. I enjoy talking to them. They drop in. … I keep candy here on the desk.”
Addison was born in Memphis but grew up in Corinth, Mississippi. She is a daughter of the late Cliff and Nelda Parrish and has one sister, LuAnne Parrish, who still lives in Corinth.
Addison graduated from high school in Corinth and attended Ole Miss (the University of Mississippi), where she studied archaeology. It was there that she met her husband, Stephen Addison, a native of Swansea, Wales, United Kingdom. He had come to the United States to pursue his education in physics. He is now a physics professor and dean of the UCA College of Natural Sciences and Mathematics.
“We had one date, and six weeks later, we were engaged,” Lanita Addison said, smiling. “We have been married 40 years. We came to Conway when he accepted a job at UCA.”
The Addisons have three sons — Robert Addison, 33 of Conway; Chris Addison, 30, of Lubbock, Texas; and David Addison, 23, of Conway.
“I was basically a stay-athome mom before I came to work here,” Lanita Addison said.
“I did a little temp work at the UCA bookstore, especially in August and January, right before classes began. Then I was a temp in the registrar’s office for about a year before I started full time,” she said.
“It’s no surprise to faculty/ staff and students that Lanita won a national award for being great at what she does,” said Adam Frank, experimental learning coordinator and associate professor in the Schedler Honors College.
“Lanita’s everyday kindness, thoughtfulness and wonderful sense of humor really help us all turn down the heat on what can be an extremely stressful learning environment,” he said.
“I’ve seen both faculty and students approach Lanita’s desk on the verge of tears and leave chuckling or at least smiling,” said Frank, who specializes in anthropology, performance studies and Asian studies at UCA. “And I swear, it’s not just the candy.”
Addison said she looks forward to attending the event in New Orleans.
She said she has no plans to retire in the foreseeable future.
“Stephen doesn’t, either,” she said. “I want to continue to help make a difference.
“Everybody here at UCA is so willing to help fellow staff members. I can just call them up and ask. If I am stumped on how to do something, I know I can reach out, and someone will help me. It’s a real group effort here. I really appreciate that.”
Smith said she knows Addison’s “time with UCA will come to an end soon, but I cannot imagine running the Honors College without her by my side. There is no one I can think of better suited for this award than Lanita, and I have an entire Honors College full of students, faculty and staff that I know would agree.”