Lydia Weiss: The Spirit of APSA

Lydia Weiss, July's Spirit of APSA Award winner

The MSU-APSA Executive Board, the Membership Outreach Committee is happy to announce that Lydia Weiss is the winner of July’s Spirit of APSA Award.

Lydia serves as Assistant Director in the Prevention, Outreach and Education (POE) Department, where she specializes in Climate and Response. She has been with POE for over six years and at MSU since 2013, where she previously worked in the MSU Women’s Resource Center and the WorkLife Office.

Lydia’s current role focuses on creating a university-wide network of programs, outreach and support for all MSU employees and students. In addition to directly supervising one employee, she is a member of the POE leadership group and provides guidance to the 14-person team. Her favorite aspect of her job is co-learning and brainstorming with members of the POE team and seeing the collaborative solutions that emerge.

Lydia offers a piece of advice to her fellow APSA members: “Don’t be afraid to say ‘I don’t know. Let’s think through this together.’ As a supervisor, co-creating solutions to difficult challenges with our team members makes the result so much stronger. Being a leader doesn’t mean you have to have all the answers – providing space for people’s strengths to shine is what it’s all about.”

She also encourages supervisors to be attentive to the influence they have in the workplace, especially when it comes to creating a healthy environment for their teams.

Lydia, thank you for your important contributions to our campus community and congratulations on this award! Members, remember to nominate other impressive APSA supervisors for award consideration using this form .