Linda Healey has been the secretary in the Office of Graduate Studies since 1991 and a University employee since 1978. Her job requires her to maintain budget and account records as well as graduate cross-registration records, process theses and dissertations, and train and supervise work-study students. She also provides answers to questions from virtually every segment of the campus graduate community, from potential students to high-ranking faculty members and administrators.

Healey routinely advises students and keeps track of their needed degree requirements. She seems to get a particular satisfaction out of assisting incoming international students. She has made herself an expert on the rules and regulations for submission of doctoral dissertations, and established a database to simplify their processing.

She is unfailingly cheerful and sensitive to students' needs and often their bewilderment. She alleviates those problems not only with a command of accurate information, but with a unique ability to simplify the jargon of technical rules and regulations. Through her efforts, misunderstandings are tactfully avoided, and difficult news is handled with the utmost diplomacy.

Among her new cost and time-saving approaches for achieving better results have been a revised orientation program for the Computer Center, a computerized card system which assisted Center staff in preparing reference letters for student employees, and a written personnel guide for job-sharing.

On Healey's own initiative, she developed a change-of-status form, an outline of procedures governing student appointments, and a routing form for completing student appointments that earned the Governor's Productivity Award.

No doubt her expertise in the graduate studies area has been enhanced by her past record of achievement with University Libraries, Human Resources and the Computing Center. Healey has developed a wealth of how-to knowledge, as well as an endless supply of common sense, an inquiring mind, and a compassionate nature.


1997 Excellence Awards