Four members of NIU’s operating staff will enjoy the spotlight this May for their hard work behind the scenes.

The Operating Staff Council Outstanding Service Award Committee has selected Patricia Ottolino, Joan Metzger, Sandra Little and Kay Shelton as the 2005 recipients of the Outstanding Service Award.

Ottolino, instructor for the Program for Hearing Impaired in the Department of Communicative Disorders, was one of four to receive the award.

“From reading the letter that three different people wrote to support this nomination, it appears that I do a whole lot more than I realized,” Ottolino said.

Ottolino, who has been at NIU since 1988, works full time at the Program for Hearing Impaired. She teaches about four different classes each day, including two weekly night classes for the College of Education.

She has been on the board of the International Visual Literacy Association since 2003, involved with the Illinois Teachers of Hard of Hearing/Deaf Individuals since 1988, the Advisory Board of Directors Access & Disability Services since 1998 and serves on the board of the Deaf/Hard of Hearing Advisory Council.

Joan Metzger, an assistant university archivist, was one of two Founders Memorial Library staff members selected.

Glen Gildemeister, director of the university’s regional history center, said he nominated Metzger for the award because she helped Habitat for Humanity build a house in DeKalb. Metzger also comes to work early to raise funds for the library by working on the Friends of NIU Libraries book sale, he said.

Metzger published a 2004 book of 114 Civil War letters, “The Griffith Letters: the Story of Frank Griffith and the 116th New York Volunteers in the Civil War.” It took years of scholarly research to get the letters into book form and she took personal vacations to travel to New York to do research, Gildemeister said.

Sandra Little, an administrative assistant who has been with NIU since 1997, said she feels she was nominated because of her everyday dedication to the university.

Little also has been involved since 2002 with the Northwestern Area Educational Foundation, which provides scholarships to high school graduating seniors. She also has served on the Kishwaukee Community College board for seven years, and is active in her church.

Kay Shelton, a program administrative assistant, completed a book this year, “Daw May Kyi Win and the Burmeses Bibliographical Collection at Northern Illinois University: Homage to a Southeast Asian Librarian,” in honor of a colleague who passed away. The book took about a year to complete and contained friends’ and colleagues’ memories of Win, Burmese materials available at the Founders Memorial Library and some of Win’s work.

Shelton also is the adviser for NIU’s Native American awareness group, NATIONS, edits a newsletter for the Illinois Lincoln Highway Association and is a Web master for the Rockford Writer’s Guild.

Shelton teaches anthropology and geography at Kishwaukee Community College and volunteers at the Creston Public Library.

Nominees are ranked on three criteria, said Nancy Schuneman, staff secretary, center for Southeast Asian studies and co-chair of the Operating Staff Council Outstanding Service Award Committee. The 16 member committee evaluates how nominees go above and beyond their job responsibilities. The committee also looks at the nominees effectiveness in dealing with university community members and their contributions to the university. Nominees also are judged by their contributions to their community of residence.

Award recipients are status Civil Service employees who must have been continuously employed at NIU for five years or more.

The awards will be presented May 6 at the Annual Operating Staff Service Awards Banquet. Each recipient will receive a plaque and $1,500, said Schuneman. The award has been given continuously since 1984.