‘Rookie Award’ winner Dunn-Harris rocks BGSU

The University is definitely happy that Marie Dunn-Harris has joined its ranks, and Administrative Staff Council has presented her the Rookie of the Year Award. In the 11 months since Dunn-Harris joined the Office of Marketing and Communications, she has made incredible strides in creating buzz and engaging current and prospective students and the BGSU community through social media, said her nominator Dave Kielmeyer, senior communications director.

“She not only always agreed to any requested task or idea, she was always thinking of new ideas that created more work for herself, such as the University’s 'Happy' video that she posted online within a week of thinking of the idea,” Kielmeyer said. “She scheduled hundreds of people, worked with WBGU students to film, and edited the film all while managing her ‘regular’ duties.”

The Rookie of the Year Award recognizes an administrative staff member who has played an integral part in implementing an idea, program or procedure designed to enhance or improve one or more of the following student recruitment, retention and engagement — all of which Dunn-Harris has done.

Dunn-Harris is “sharing her creativity, energy, positive attitude and incredible work ethic with her alma mater,” Kielmeyer said. “She has connected with this most wired of generations with multiple posts that cover every area of student engagement, from helping them stay on track with academic deadlines; sharing information about vital campus resources; building excitement and attendance for athletics, arts and community events; and connecting students with alumni in their fields. Photos are always fresh, commentary timely, energy apparent and effectiveness unparalleled.

“Under her leadership. the number of ‘likes’ on the main BGSU Facebook page has increased by 5,000. Twitter followers for @BGSU have also increased by 5,000.

In addition to her social media duties, as a writer, Marie contributes stories and content for the BGSU homepage, news releases and Zoom News. She also took over management of the critical but tedious, time-consuming task of reviewing and distributing the daily Campus Update for the University.

“In addition these regular duties, Marie volunteered to manage the entire alumni affairs social media presence during another staff member’s leave. She replicated the University social media growth numbers while also completely reconfiguring the Alumni Association’s LinkedIn strategy to provide alumni with the services they desired.

This enormous workload has never fazed her.

“This rookie has made BGSU rock!”