Exemplary Service Award
David Watkins, Cornell University
David Watkins is awarded the ADEC Exemplary Service award for his twelve years of service to the consortium, first as Ag*Sat and later as ADEC. David was a leader in working through the initial Department of Commerce grants to assist the land-grant community in having a systemwide uplink and downlink system. Through his leadership in the area of media services at Cornell University, he contributed significant and important national videoconferences to the system, including topics such as women’s health and youth violence prevention in schools and communities.
David served as a charter member of the ADEC Program Panel. He provided significant leadership to development of sound financial systems and procedures, as well as early precursors to the IDEAL activities focused on improving collaborative distance education administrative processes. He contributed to all business planning efforts for the consortium.
David took major responsibility for bringing the attention of the consortium to the importance of marketing and publishing. He was responsible for planning a number of ADEC sessions focused on marketing and needs assessment, including all ADEC and PCO sessions. Through David’s leadership, his staff at Cornell designed ADEC’s logo, produced the ADEC folder and published the 10th anniversary report. David was always willing to take on talks for the consortium enthusiastically and with great, good humor. His contributions to the organization will live on.