The Office of Financial Affairs created a financial innovators award known as the Financial Affairs Service and Innovation Award to recognize those throughout the university who make significant and lasting contributions to the university through bold, innovative and creative approaches to common, everyday university problems.

The award is open to any university faculty, non-faculty, academic, administrative or skilled crafts/service/maintenance employees who bring forward fresh ideas that lead to process efficiencies, cost savings and/or increased productivity. Each quarter, one employee will be selected to receive the award, and then at the end of the calendar year, an annual award winner will be selected from the four quarterly winners.

We are pleased to announce the Q2 2023 award winner as:

Katie Tracy, director of Office of Sponsored Programs Accounting

Tracy joined the U of A in November 2020 during the height of the pandemic and mere months after the go-live date for Workday, the U of A System's new human capital and financial management system. Tracy jumped in and immediately began working to resolve issues with reconciliations, effort certifications and much more, all while training her staff on Workday's many new business processes.

In October 2022, the university received notice of a federal sponsor audit. Yolanda Hardin, director of financial compliance for Sponsored Programs, said, "Katie worked what seemed like 20-hour days to pull all the information requested. Even though I knew this was a stressful time for her, she continued to have a smile on her face and a good attitude. She is always willing and available to provide training for her staff as well as to those in various departments across campus."

This past spring, Tracy demonstrated her passion for training the campus community when she participated as a presenter in the Accounting Certificate Program.

Recently, Tracy has also been the lead OSP representative assisting Huron Consulting with a comprehensive OSP operational structure and business process redesign project.

One of Tracy's colleagues said of her, "When I think of Katie, some of the words that come to mind are dedication, hardworking, determined, dependable and future driven."

Tracy's dedication to ensuring financial transaction accuracy, resolution of reconciliation issues, prioritizing OSP team development and collaboration and training with others across campus make her a deserving recipient of the Q2 2023 Financial Affairs Service and Innovation Award. Please join us in congratulating Tracy!

If you know of an employee deserving of recognition for our next FASI award, we would love to hear about them. Please email your FASI nominations to either Sandy Sturgeon at sandras@uark.edu or Susan Slinkard at svslink@uark.edu.