Dear OVC Colleagues,
I am delighted to let you know that one of our own, Dr. Lauren Pouchak, director of special projects, has received a 2024 MIT Excellence Award for Bringing Out the Best: Everyday Leadership throughout MIT.
This award is for teams and/or individuals who develop trust and credibility through communication and collaboration; provide a sense of vision for others; positively influence colleagues to be their best; and champion major change.
Lauren has done all of those things, and more. Of particular note has been her tireless work on leading the development and implementation of the Visiting Students portal; drafting or co-drafting several key reports for the Task Force 2021 effort; and contributing to the adoption of Slate for graduate program admissions.
Most profoundly, she has been instrumental in providing leadership for everything involved with the graduate student unionization process over the past few years. This includes attending all the bargaining sessions; serving as the key liaison to graduate administrators and others across MIT; and helping everyone else on the bargaining and implementation teams get their work done—all on a schedule that was intense and never-ending at times.
In her collective nomination letter (which had to be cut down from more than two-dozen pages), 29 graduate administrators wrote, “we cannot recommend Lauren highly enough. If we could demand recognition for her, we would, but that would be rude. Instead, we ask. No, we implore. Recognize and reward Lauren Pouchak for her hard work, her cheerful demeanor, her intelligence, her meticulousness, her compassion, and her dedication.”
Lily Tsai, Ford Professor of Political Science added, “Lauren also excels at creating a spirit of teamwork, collaboration, and good cheer. She facilitates and moderates discussions and meetings with skill and grace, incorporating people’s views, creating a collective vision, and using her exceptionally deft on-the-spot analyses to formulate a plan and point everyone in a common direction.”
She also had plenty of kudos from those within OVC. “Lauren just delivers: she gets things done in a way that doesn’t bulldoze through people but brings them together and rallies people around a common cause,” wrote Kate Trimble, chief of staff and senior associate dean/director, Office of Experiential Learning.
A former direct report, Kate Weishaar, senior program coordinator in the Office of Experiential Learning, perhaps said it best: “Lauren is the kind of colleague you dream about. She is super competent, easygoing, a true confidant, and in the classic MIT way, eager to get stuff done—and done well and in support of a broader aim.”
Please join me in celebrating Lauren and be sure to attend the ceremony on Wednesday, June 5th from 3-4pm taking place at Kresge Auditorium (W16) to cheer her on and her fellow winners.
(This is also a good time to remind you to nominate your OVC colleagues for an Infinite Mile Award by March 15.)
Sincerely,
Ian
