Celebrating Students

Student Employment Appreciation Week is April 13 - 17, 2026! During this week we ask that you celebrate your students and make them feel valued for all of the hard work they do!

We encourage Supervisors of Student Workers to recognize Student Workers and engage with them often.  Below are some suggestions supervisors can use throughout the year to express appreciation and recognition of Student Workers.  Please keep in mind that these are suggestions and all departments are subject to providing recognition opportunities that meet their departmental budget.

• Simply write a thank you note addressing the student worker personally and mentioning specific contributions that have helped the department.  This could be hand written on stationery or through an email.
• Prepare "care packages" during finals time to give to your student workers to let them know you care.  Care Packages do not have to be extravagant.  They could include: popcorn, pens, pencils, sticky note pads, granola bars, Dr Pepper, etc.
• Invite your student workers to your departmental, staff, or team meetings and recognize them in the group.
• Decorate their work space on their birthday or just because.  Ideas could include a designed birthday or thank you poster that each person in the office signed, bringing them a cupcake, or setting out some desk supplies in a basket.
• Take student workers out to lunch once a semester at one of the residential dining halls or the SUB on campus.
• Have a small gathering if your student workers are graduating at the end of the semester to acknowledge their achievement, wish them well, and thank them for their support.  Cake and punch go well at these!
• Create a snack basket or drawer that student workers can come to during their workday for a quick respite.
• Have your own award certificate in your own department that students can achieve.  Ideas for this include "Fastest Data Entry," "Outstanding Customer Service," "Takes Initiative Award."  Get creative and use a certificate template to create and print your internal awards.
• Also, just saying the words "thank you" to student workers everyday or when you can really means a lot!

All supervisors of student workers are encouraged to thoughtfully consider and submit nominations for their dedicated student workers whose exceptional service demonstrates leadership, teamwork skills, excellence in communication, reliability, quality of work and impact within the department along with uniqueness of their contributions. Student Employment Award winners will receive a certificate of recognition during the spring semester.