Claudia Etnel Receives Andrew Young School 2024 Staff Excellence Award

ATLANTA — Claudia Etnel, the administrative specialist - managerial in Georgia State University’s Department of Economics, has received the Andrew Young School of Policy Studies (AYSPS) 2024 Staff Excellence Award.

The award recognizes exemplary performance, beneficial contributions to the work environment and consistency in workplace efficiency, creativity and innovation. This year, the college honored Etnel and Nadia Borissova (M.S. ’07), associate director of the Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange.

Etnel joined the college’s Department of Economics in spring 2024 after serving as human resources coordinator in the AYSPS Dean’s Office since 2018. She was nominated by both units for her exceptional contributions to each.

In the Dean’s Office, Etnel led several initiatives to improve human resources processes, such as creating new forms and procedure manuals, providing training to the administrative specialists and holding regular meetings and online Microsoft Teams groups to keep them updated and aligned with policies and procedures, many of which she documented, creating helpful guides. She also even helped streamline the graduate and student assistant hiring processes and created a comprehensive front desk operations manual for students and office staff to reference in case of absences.

While transitioning into the administrative position in the Department of Economics, Etnel served on the recruitment committee to find her human resources replacement. She also planned out a schedule and training material for the new hire. All this while assisting her new department in a major staff restructuring, where she led efforts to hire a new academic administrative specialist and administrative specialist.

Her efforts during the department’s faculty search — one of the largest in over a decade — aided the hire of four new faculty and in retaining a visiting faculty member.

“There is simply no way we’d have been able to make these staff hires in such a timely manner without Claudia leading the way,” said Professor Jim Marton, chair of the Economics Department.

Upon joining the department, Etnel immediately stepped in and addressed several issues, including broadening its social media presence, updating the website, and updating faculty and staff portraits. In addition, she worked to better organize the department’s public spaces, update signage and generally make the space more welcoming for students and visitors. She also initiated activities to foster a stronger sense of community within the department.

“Early on, I remembered what my family taught me,” Etnel said. “A job is not just about going through the motions. It’s about making an impact. And that is what I intend to do.”