Meredith Dittfield, Susan Wilson recognized for their service

Indiana University Kokomo celebrated the achievements of its employees of the year at the annual holiday celebration on December 10.

Chancellor Mark Canada offered congratulations to Employee of the Year recipients Meredith Dittfield and Susan Wilson, noting that both were selected from a pool of highly qualified nominees.

Dittfield, assistant director of financial aid and scholarships, earned recognition for fostering a community of care with staff, faculty, and students, and for her excellence in helping students and their families understand their financial aid. She also organizes events on and off campus to share information about financial aid.

“She truly helps people feel at ease with asking tough financial questions without fear of sounding foolish,” Canada said, reading from her nomination. “I know when I direct or take students to her office, they’re going to get all their answers and feel better about their financial situation.”

Wilson, executive assistant for academic affairs, earned commendation for restoring the 2025-2026 IU Kokomo Bulletin after it was lost during a systemwide website outage. The Bulletin is the official online publication that details academic programs, courses, degree requirements and policies, serving as a comprehensive guide for current and prospective students. She manually added each course, and forwarded a list to academic advisors, who use the Bulletin data daily.

“This work has saved data for our students, saved time for our advisors, and restored a critical document for our campus,” her nominator wrote.

Additional nominees included Amanda Bradley-Hicks, student life specialist; Terri Butler, administrative assistant; Chérie Dodd, senior instructional strategies specialist; Michelle Ennis, executive assistant; Courtney Fisher, advising assistant; Michael Gault, 21st Century Scholar success coach; Jeff Gegner, Havens Auditorium director; Blake Hopkins, IT training coordinator; Andrew Jones, student records supervisor; Cynthia Lipkin, administrative assistant; Danielle Runda, assistant registrar; and Adam Svoboda, advisor for the School of Business.