Teachers, department directors, faculty and staff were given an employee appreciation breakfast on Tuesday Feb. 12 for the years they have contributed to the school. The event included live music along with an array of breakfast options for the honored faculty. Tables in the room held notes of contribution that ranged from ten years up. Teachers gathered at the tables that had the number of years they’ve worked.

Otilia Salmon, who taught foreign language and now education, has been employed as a professor for thirty years from 1998-2018. Salmon mentioned that the most challenging part in her years of teaching has been getting through to her students and realizing that she couldn’t all the time. She also explained her approach to changing as an educator.

“I would always embrace change because the subjects change,” Salmon said. Salmon explained that she would always try to make it easier for her students to understand her teaching methods.

Salmon hopes for the future that “[my] students will be great teachers.” She has dedicated thirty years of her life to being a teacher and wouldn’t change any moment of it because she loves what she does and has always adored her students.

Jenny Johnson, the Assistant Director of Academic Affairs, has been employed with UNF for twenty-one years. Her job is to maintain the university’s budget, in which she says that the hardest part of her job has been working in the state system and having to work with a limited budget at times.

Johnson has enjoyed being an office manager for sixteen years which led to her position as an assistant director. She only had her high school diploma when she started working as an office manager, but Johnson explained that she was able to get six free credit hours for each semester she worked at UNF and used that to work toward an bachelor’s degree in accounting and a master’s degree in accountancy.

She is now also a certified fraud examiner. Johnson said that she appreciates the time she has given to the school and what working at UNF has helped her achieve in her life.

The people who attended the event were also presented with awards. They had certificates and time clocks with their names engraved on them.

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