Our dear Nicole Williams’ motto: “Teamwork makes the dream work” and “It’s not ‘me,’ it’s ‘we’.” Nicole, who is the lead on Client Services and Bursar functions, has been a part of the UConn Hartford staff for nearly 17 years. She attended UConn, was a student employee, and has been an anchoring staff member for the Hartford campus when it comes to processing student payments, scholarships, and helping them rectify the holds on their accounts. This semester, unlike any before, Nicole’s job was made more difficult by not interacting with students in person and not being able to process their documents on a daily basis. We know of a freshman student who depended on a scholarship to purchase his books and was having trouble beginning the process. A staff member directed the student to Nicole, who managed to get his scholarship deposited within a week. Nicole’s best advice to students?: “Ask questions,” she said. “No question is a stupid question! I am here to answer all your fee bill questions or at least point you in the right direction.” Having spent most of her life at UConn, we asked her what her favorite memory is. Nicole’s response was: First Nights! “I’ve attended every First Night until my son was born. I remember one of those first nights, they were shooting shirts into the crowd, and girl, I jumped up like I was rebounding a basketball, boxed my friends out, to catch that shirt, which I did.” Nicole, we know you keep all the ‘thank you’ cards you receive from students and their families in your desk drawer. By now, that drawer is overflowing. We, your colleagues, offer you another thank you for relieving students of their fee bill fears.

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