On a typical work day, it’s safe to say most aren’t worried about winning awards.

And while it may not be a worry, for Student Program Coordinator Kristine Perkins, the 2018 Women Impacting ISU Calendar is a way to recognize that women are affecting Iowa State University and its campus.

“It shows that there are a lot of different hands helping everybody,” Perkins said. “It’s such a big university and [the calendar] recognizes all the women who are making a big impact on the lives of everyone.”

Whether students, faculty or staff, the calendar aims to highlight the achievements of 12 women who are making an influence at Iowa State. Nominations for the 2018 Women Impacting ISU Calendar are now being accepted through Sept. 29. Nominees must be currently enrolled or on the Iowa State payroll. Those who wish to nominate a woman can fill out the online form here.

Som Mongtin, assistant director of the Margaret Sloss Women’s Center, believes the representation can make a difference in the lives of other women.

“If they see women doing something phenomenal, and breaking these barriers, it can really help motivate and encourage other women to say, ‘Hey, I can do that, too,’” Mongtin said.

For Director of Financial Aid Roberta Johnson, a 2017 Woman Impacting ISU Calendar honoree, the recognition came as a shock.

“It was overwhelming to take pause,” Johnson said. “Just thinking about all the women who have been honored in such a way… It was kind of a neat and overwhelming feeling to think, ‘Wow. I have contributed something to this campus.’”

For Johnson, it was a way to reflect after 35 years of employment.

“When I first started here, we had two computer terminals in the entire office,” Johnson said.

One was given to a fulltime employee who had to put reports into the machine all day long. The other was shared by all of the other employees within the office.

“It was like having 15 people trying to share the same bathroom,” Johnson joked.

After being recognized, Johnson reviewed the past years of enrollment and did some math.

“I added up all of the enrollments and got some sort of big, astronomical number of what the official enrollment was and thought, ‘You know, if I only even touched 25 percent of these people in the last 35 years, that’s still a lot of people,’” Johnson said.

Johnson remembers one student in particular. When he came to visit her about having sufficient financial aid for school, he had felt guilty about going back to college as it meant his children had to go to daycare. This stuck out to Johnson as she also had children in daycare at the time.

“I said, ‘You know, there is that impact… but on the other hand, I continue to hope that they’re developing immunities to some diseases that will actually make them stronger people,’” Johnson recalled.

Years later, when her daughter came to Iowa State to present something for school, Johnson recognized the last name and attended. There, she ran into the former student as well.

Johnson said they started talking about things and he said he remembered her comment. “‘It made me feel better, and I have never forgotten that.’”