Laura Humberger

Laura Humberger, associate vice president for financial services, has won the inaugural Firefly Award of Excellence given to an employee who holds a professional position within the university system and who has demonstrated tangible innovation, positive and broad impact on student experience, and/or leadership distinguished by role modeling in a professional capacity. The award carries a $1,500 honorarium.

Humberger was recognized for her proposal that eliminated MSU's $10 online payment fee. Humberger argued that eliminating the fee would improve service to students by encouraging online payment and eliminating long waiting lines at the cashier's office. The change improved credit card data security. The new procedure debuted fall 2012, increasing online payments 62.5 percent to approximately 10,650 and reducing manual payments by 43.6 percent, to about 5,960. The changed resulted in a secure and more efficient payment option for many students and their families. It also reduced the workload at fee payment time for the student accounts office and avoided the need to hire additional employees to serve MSU's growing number of students.