Yakeshia "YaYa" Jenkins, a web developer, has been named employee of the year by the U of A Global Campus. Jenkins won the award for her part in developing a groundbreaking system that manages non-credit courses, provides online registration and supports an internet portal that looks like an e-commerce website.

Jenkins was recognized for her outstanding service by Cheryl Murphy, vice provost for distance education and head of the Global Campus, during a July staff meeting.

"It's an honor to be recognized for work that I genuinely love doing. I'm proud to be part of a team that's making a real impact," Jenkins said. "It feels great to know our work is making education more accessible and experiences more seamless."

Jenkins served on a multi-departmental team that developed a new Slate instance for non-credit education. This system powers a new public website, registration system and connection to a learning platform for courses offered through U of A's Professional and Workforce Development. Slate now integrates processes previously handled across multiple systems and manual processes. It has revolutionized the campus' ability to promote non-credit educational offerings, register learners, seat learners in courses and simplify reporting.

"YaYa helped the team overcome some complex challenges with her exceptional coding skills and her can-do attitude," said Leonard Ridley, manager of web design services and Jenkins' supervisor. "She has the rare ability to embrace both the creative and technical aspects of the project. We're proud to have her on the team."

Jenkins helped develop wireframes and handled complex data queries, demonstrating her professional versatility and precision, Ridley said. Jenkins' ability to meet critical deadlines and provide thoughtful, data-driven solutions was key to positioning the project for a successful launch.

Jenkins' regular job duties primarily involve improving and maintaining Global Campus websites and addressing back-end software issues that filter, sort, hide and show information, and developing dynamic landing pages that provide a customized interface for the users. She also assists with email marketing, where she designs and builds email templates used to communicate with online students, primarily through Slate—a tool that helps manage student data and outreach—and collaborates with other Global Campus departments on email messaging. She is also self-trained in Salesforce Marketing Cloud, which is being implemented campus-wide for official communications. Moving forward, Jenkins will design and manage promotional email campaigns for online alumni using this system.

In addition to email creation, Jenkins generates reports that track engagement data such as open rates and link clicks. These insights help Global Campus identify trends and make smarter, data-driven marketing decisions.

Jenkins has worked part time for various colleges across the U of A campus since becoming a student in 2013. She started as a part-time web designer at Global Campus in September 2019 and moved into a full-time position in March 2020. She was first named employee of the quarter at the Global Campus in 2021 then again in 2025. She received her Bachelor of Arts in computer science at the U of A in 2020 and her Master of Science in network technology with a concentration in web technologies from East Carolina University in summer 2024.

In addition to her Global Campus awards, Jenkins was named an employee of the quarter by the U of A Staff Senate in the fourth quarter of 2024-2025.

The Global Campus employee of the year is chosen from among the four employee of the quarter recipients who remain employed with Global Campus through the end of the award year. The award recognizes outstanding achievements and accomplishments that relate to the unit's goals and the U of A mission. The award recipient receives a commemorative certificate and a monetary award.

Two other candidates qualified for Global Campus employee of the year 2024-25. They were:

• David Anderson, learning technology specialist, Learning Technology team
• Brandy Mendoza, data analyst, Innovation & Online Student Experience team

The Global Campus supports U of A academic colleges and schools in the development and delivery of online degree programs and courses and workforce development programs. This unit provides instructional design services, learning technology support, media production services and assistance with financial administration, recruitment and marketing.

The Global Campus also supports the W.E. Manning Memorial Scholarship, which is open to undergraduate and graduate students studying in online degree programs.