Receiving appreciation for one’s job performance is always meaningful, especially when it comes from a supervisor. Imagine, then, Sarah Wood’s reaction when she learned that her longtime supervisor, former School dean and University provost Harvey Fineberg, AB ’67, MD ’71, MPP ’72, PhD ’80, had contributed $100,000 to the Harvard Chan School to endow the Sarah K. Wood Award for Outstanding Staff Performance in her honor. “I am very humbled,” she says. “I adore Harvey and his wife, Mary Wilson, for thinking of this award. I am proud that my name is on it so other people can be recognized.” The annual award honors a staff member who demonstrates the qualities of dedication, competence, positive attitude, initiative, and ability to mentor, encourage, and inspire others, in addition to a demonstrated commitment to the School and its mission—all qualities that Wood displayed during her 21 years as Fineberg’s trusted associate. She hopes the Award will encourage faculty members and others to really get to know the staff who work with them.
Now president of the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Fineberg today still has the opportunity to interact with Wood through the China Medical Board, where he is a trustee and she serves as executive administrator to the president. “Faculty and students at the Harvard Chan School rightly garner many awards,” observes Fineberg. “Mary and I wanted to help the School recognize outstanding staff as well, and we could think of no more fitting way to do this than to establish a staff award in the name of our dear friend and exemplary colleague, Sarah Wood.”
— Jan Reiss is assistant director of development communications and marketing.