Top performing staff in 2020 were recognised last Friday at the National University of Samoa’s Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Awards held at the university gymnasium.

The 2020 V.C. Excellence Awards was postponed from last year due to the state of emergency (S.O.E.) restrictions amid the global pandemic. 

N.U.S. President and Vice Chancellor, Professor Alec Ekeroma, told the Samoa Observer in an interview on Saturday that the awards recognised the effort of the staff and rewarded the top performers.

"The Vice Chancellor’s Excellence Award is an important event in the life of the university to recognize and celebrate the hard work, the commitment, the diligence and the fantastic performance of all the staff that have been identified to have achieved excellence in teaching, research and service work," Prof. Ekeroma said. "There was no V.C. Awards in 2019 and 2020, we were going to do this in December last year but because of the fear of COVID-19 transmission we postponed it."

The Minister of Education Sports and Culture, Loau Keneti Sio, was also present on the night of the awards and delivered a speech that encouraged the university’s staff as the country entered a new academic year.

Each N.U.S. faculty received an excellence in teaching as well as excellence in research awards identified by their respective deans. However, not only were there awards for the academics, but also the non-academic staff members to ensure inclusivity for all university employees.

The non-academic award was presented to Sarai Tevita of the university’s multimedia team due to her contribution in the ICT sector of the university, especially with the online learning Moodle platform. 

Prof. Ekeroma emphasised that the awardees were identified by the respective deans of the N.U.S. faculties as well as committees.

"So these awardees were actually identified by their deans so there were eight of them and that’s because there are eight faculties and so each faculty had excellence in teaching award.

“And then we had excellence in research awards and there were four awards in that category and they were selected by the committee based on the output and the amount of collaboration that the researchers did.”

As for non-academic staff, Prof. Ekeroma said the work of the university’s ICT team in getting the teaching staff to use the online Moodle platform was a major factor behind Sarai Tevita being awarded.

"We also decided to give an award for non-academic so that professional staff are not left out and we gave that award to Sarai Tevita because of the work of ICT and the innovation that they did in actually getting the moodle going and teaching the staff how to work the moodle because it was new to some staff and students as well.

“So the ICT team mobilised to get everyone onto moodle during the pandemic, also Sarai helped develop the server hence the reason why the multimedia is flourishing."

Prof. Ekeroma described the awards night as a night of celebration recognising the performance of his staff, which should be a boost to their morale as they kick off a new academic year.

"It was a night of celebration and it was a need to acknowledge those who have performed because when you recognize achievements,” he said. “It’s most likely that morale would be better and others will then strive to be better at teaching or research or whatever they do.

"It was a very successful night, and my gratitude to all those who made the night possible."