The Human Resources Department is pleased to announce that Andrew Smith is the Canisius College Employee of Distinction for October 2021. Andy was nominated for this award by Bill Maher, who wrote the following:
“Andy Smith, Assistant Athletic Director for Sports Medicine is in his 25th year leading our Athletic Training staff that is responsible for ensuring the care and medical safety of over 500 of our varsity and club student-athletes at the College. Throughout the fall (and all of last year…) Andy has served as our department’s point person as we navigate the Covid-19 pandemic helping us work through the required protocols that are necessary to ensure our training and competition opportunities.
Andy has worked to put in place a testing program for our student-athletes, personally overseeing our 3X/Covid-19 testing and to date has conducted over 3700 Covid-19 tests for our student-athletes. Without his efforts to secure the ability to conduct these tests and his leadership in organizing and conducting the testing, our program would not have been able to meet the testing requirements necessary for our student-athletes to continue to participate.
In addition to this “new” responsibility, Andy has continued to provide the leadership and guidance to our athletic training staff to ensure they are prepared to serve each of our teams and provide for their health and safety. Often called on to cover additional practices and games while juggling staffing assignments through recent turnover, Andy always works to ensure that our teams are taken care of and have the necessary athletic trainer coverage to allow them to practice safely.
While this nomination is for his recent efforts in both testing and staffing support/coordination, his efforts over the last 18 months have been exemplary and are clearly in the category of “above and beyond”. We would not have been able to continue our program operations without Andy’s efforts.
Andy is a very deserving “employee of the month” and I very much appreciate his professionalism and dedication to our students.”
Please join the Human Resources Department in congratulating Andy on this achievement!
Submitted by: Bethany Voorhees, executive associate, President’s Office
