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Call Carolyn Sturgess and odds are you'll get a polite recording of her voice
asking you to leave a message.
It's not that Sturgess, the director of accounting services, refuses to answer
her telephone. Rather, she spends so much of her time in meetings or at other
University departments working on projects that she's often not in earshot.
That means Sturgess gets a lot of voice mail. Amid all those messages, one she
got in April stands out. Chancellor Michael Hooker told her she had won a C.
Knox Massey Distinguished Service Award.
"It's tough for even the chancellor to reach me," Sturgess said. "He told me I
sure was hard to reach and that I'd won a Massey Award."
Hooker didn't need to explain to Sturgess that this was a big honor. She had
worked with the Massey Award committee in the past. She knew the award is the
most prestigious prize given to a University employee.
"I felt it was a real honor to be picked and to be a part of that family [of
winners]," she said.
The late C. Knox Massey, a former Durham advertising executive who served 20
years as a University trustee, created the award in 1980. The program is
supported by three generations of the Massey and Weatherspoon families.
A long career of hard work
Sturgess has worked at the University for 35 years. A Chapel Hill native, her
first job in the accounting office was collecting rent from married students.
What has kept her working at the University for so many years, she said, was
that she had the opportunity to advance. Her rise through the accounting ranks
included heading the first accounts-payable section and managing trust fund
accounting.
"I've been offered opportunities to advance which has given me a lot of new
things to do," she said. "I'd be bored doing the same thing for 35 years."
She now supervises a department with 16 employees and a budget of $677,000.
Her department's responsibilities include overseeing cash management,
investment accounting, the University endowment, state and non-state funds, and
operating the computerized accounting system.
Sturgess' rise in responsibilities came for a simple reason: hard work. That's
according to no less an authority than University Controller Dennis Press,
Sturgess' supervisor.
In nominating Sturgess for the Massey Award, Press pointed out how much the
University has benefited from Sturgess' hard work and responsibility,
describing her dependability as "invaluable."
"As responsibilities and assignments mount, her response is to work even
harder to ensure that important tasks are addressed," Press said. "Her
experience, intelligence, knowledge and common sense approach enable her to
provide invaluable insights."
Praise for Sturgess' work comes not just from her boss but also from people
who have worked for her.
Betsi Snipes, payroll director, once reported to Sturgess and nominated her
former boss for the Massey Award.
"I nominated her because I thought she was one of the premier employees of
this institution," Snipes said. "She loves the University and tries to make it
a better place."
Snipes described Sturgess as not only a hard worker but also a supportive
supervisor.
"You always knew she was going to back you up," Snipes said. "She always let
me make decisions and once she'd signed off on them, she went along with
them."
Looking forward
One of Sturgess' other strengths has been developing new services and
accounting systems. For example, she was a key person in developing a new
financial records system that is accessible to more than just information
technology employees. She also served on teams establishing health insurance
for graduate students and post-doctoral trainees. She even helped streamline
the campuswide process for hiring new employees.
The Massey Award has not slowed Sturgess' efforts to keep improving the
University's accounting systems.
The largest responsibility that keeps her away from her office--and the voice
mail tape full--is her work with both the Human Resources Information System
(HRIS) Evaluation Team and the HRIS Implementation Team. The goal is to put the
massive collection of data used by the Human Resources Department in a central
source rather than have the information scattered among multiple systems.
The project is a huge undertaking and the team has been at work for two years.
And it's exactly the kind of problem-solving challenge Sturgess thrives on,
Snipes said.
"You might think as a long-time employee that she might resist change, but she
embraces new technology," Snipes said. "She's instrumental in seeing this
University to the 21st century."
Winning the Massey Award has not changed Sturgess' outlook. The Chapel Hill
native and her husband, Harris, continue to love living here. They have two
grown sons, Daniel and James. The only big change since winning the Massey
Award is the birth of their first grandchild.
On the job, Sturgess still wants to create improvements. She's on her way to
making the accounting systems as paperless as possible.
"We're now doing about one-half of the checks with paperless accounting," she
said.
And giant tasks such as the Human Resources projects give her a great deal of
satisfaction--once they are up and running well.
"To learn about a new system, be a part of implementing it and to see it used
in the manner it was designed to work--and that it actually does improve
things--is a good feeling," she said.
Researchers combine efforts to tackle skin cancer
Like effective defenders on a football field, Carolina physicians are
gang-tackling a tough opponent--skin cancer.
And, like aerial reconnaissance experts studying enemy ground movements, they
also are using new digital photography technology to track changes in skin so
that moles don't turn into a mountain of problems for patients.
"This is a UNC School of Medicine-wide initiative that involves dermatology,
surgical oncology, medical oncology, pathology and other groups," said Robert
A. Briggaman, chair of dermatology. "It's people with different forms of
expertise putting their heads together to identify melanoma as early as
possible and manage it in the most appropriate fashion.
"We collaborate more than ever because this cancer is a very complicated
disease that is probably the most rapidly increasing form of cancer humans
face. Each member of our team at our new multidisciplinary melanoma clinic does
what he or she does best."
Sometimes, treating melanoma is as simple as cutting away a small mole or
other lesion that has become cancerous, Briggaman said. Cases not caught as
early may involve tracking cancer cells from the original tumor to lymph nodes
with weak radioactive tracers and a hand-held Geiger counter. Surgery,
chemotherapy, immunotherapy or radiation therapy may follow.
Excessive exposure to the sun through working outdoors or sunbathing can cause
melanoma or the other two major forms of skin cancer--basal cell and squamous
cell carcinoma--which usually are not as deadly. Clearly, some melanomas have
nothing to do with sunlight, however, and may have more to do with genetic
inheritance or environmental exposures, he said.
Others involved in the new pigment lesion clinic--and members of the
University's Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center--include Lisa May of
dermatology, Benjamin F. Calvo and Michael Zenn of surgery and Mark L. Graham
II of medical oncology. To learn whether tumors have spread to sentinel
nodes--structures draining lymph from particular parts of the body-- Calvo
biopsies the nodes. Graham treats patients with more extensive disease with
interferon and other promising agents.
"With help from our School of Medicine photography department, we take a
series of images with a digital camera and store those images via computer on
compact discs for use when patients return for future appointments," May said.
"One of the hardest things for dermatologists to know is whether a lesion is
new since the last visit or whether it has changed in some significant way.
"This technology, which is being used like this in only a few medical centers
in the United States, also helps calm anxiety in patients who may have hundreds
of moles or who have a family or personal history of melanoma," she said.
Technicians store 36 different pictures of each patient covering most of the
body, and the resulting CD, which will last at least several decades, becomes
part of patients' permanent medical record, May said.
Unlike with conventional photographs, diagnosticians can zoom in on any given
area to examine it more closely.
Pigmented lesions are chiefly moles, but also include freckles, sun and age
spots and keratoses, she said.
"Criteria for suspecting skin cancer have been called the `ABCD' of
melanoma,'" May said. "`A' stands for asymmetry, meaning half a mole, for
example, does not look like the other half. `B' stands for a border that is
notched or that has pigment extending beyond it."
"C" represents color; doctors become suspicious of variations of color and
particularly dark browns, blacks, reds and whites. "D" is diameter, and any
lesions larger in diameter than a pencil eraser also raise concern.
"All of those warrant having a dermatologist evaluate the lesion," she said.
"The other big thing not part of the ABCD idea is change. If a mole is itching
or bleeding, growing darker, raising up or just growing, we want to take a look
at it."
People should not worry about melanoma but should be vigilant, May said. In
1935, the lifetime risk of the illness was one in 1,500, while by 1960, it was
one in 600.
"The lifetime risk is projected to be one in 75 by the year 2000, and it
already is the most common cancer among women ages 25 to 29."
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