Mike Shurer Honored for Outstanding Service at the 2021 Provost Unit Awards for Excellence

The University Awards for Excellence represent NC State’s highest honor for non-faculty members. Each nominee demonstrates excellence in one of the following areas: customer service, efficiency and innovation, human relations, outstanding state government service, public service, heroism, and the spirit of North Carolina.

We are honored to announce that Mike Shurer, the Assistant Director for SEVIS Compliance, has been selected as a recipient of the Provost Unit Awards for Excellence in the category “Efficiency and Innovation.” This comes with $250 and 8 hours of paid leave. Mike was nominated by his fellow colleagues in the Office of International Services.

Mike has been with the Office of International Services since July 2010, and has progressed from a temporary employee to assistant director for Student and Exchange Visitor Information System Compliance during his tenure. Since June 2020, the Office of Global Engagement has moved 50 percent of operations onto the new system Sunapsis, and expects to complete the transition within a year of the initial implementation of  the system.

The impact on efficiency for the office cannot be overstated. Now, because of Mike’s recognition that a new approach was needed, many hours of research to select a third party-software, and hard work to implement it, the office now has a system that works well for the office’s needs. International Employment will be joining Sunapsis by the end of the fiscal year, which will result in increased efficiency for another campus unit. With lnternational Employment on board, the office will be able to offer academic departments that wish to sponsor an incoming hire for a visa a single point of access for immigration sponsorship, with trackable lists including expiration dates and progress of certain steps of the process. lt will allow Export Control and Sponsored Programs and Regulatory Compliance Services (SPARCS) to conduct their analysis through Sunapsis, with single data entry from sponsoring departments. Mike’s work has facilitated all of those groups coming together to improve processes and enhance efficiencies.

Because of Mike, the office is able to leverage the new system to better track and report changes and decrease the time students must wait to receive critical and timely immigration benefits. His creative problem-solving abilities and technical expertise allow the office to tap into the robustness the system can offer.

Certificates of recognition of nomination will also be given to the other nominees including:

• Grace Cavanagh, passport services assistant, Office of Global Engagement
• Paula Cook, passport services manager, Office of Global Engagement

This article was originally published by the Provost Office.