Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi is offering bigger rewards to UC Davis STARS.

On top of the existing Staff Appreciation and Recognition Plan, or STAR, she is adding the Chancellor’s STAR Award Program to honor policy-covered MSP and PSS student and staff employees who have gone “above and beyond” in support of the campus’s core values.

Chancellor’s STAR Awards, to be awarded every fall, will be in the amount of $1,500. Nominations for 2013 are being taken until Thursday, Oct. 31.

The existing STAR program is department-based, with awards generally averaging $500.

Under the new program, nominations will go to a committee appointed by the chancellor; the committee will recommend the top nominees, and the chancellor will decide who receives awards — to be announced in Dateline UC Davis in November.

“We cannot do what we do, as a world-class univertsity, without our outstanding employees, day in and day out,” the chancellor said. “So I am eager to recognize the best of the best.”

Nominees should exhibit one or more of the university’s core values:

• Foster a bold and innovative spirit in our teaching, research and public service.

• Inspire and support excellence and success in the engagement of our students, faculty, staff and alumni to learn, experiment and achieve to their full individual and collective potential.

• Maintain the highest degree of ethical and moral conduct.

• Be courteous in responding to requests for service and strive to exceed expectations.

• Take pride in your work, the campus and the campus community.

• Affirm our abiding commitment to respect and diversity.

• Partner in economic development with those individuals, foundations, government entities, businesses and philanthropic organizations that are actively engaged in improving the economy of the region, state and nation, and the quality of life for all.

• Promote a community characterized by respect, integrity, openness and responsiveness, and by consultation and collaboration, in which we are invested in our collective welfare and the responsible, sustainable stew­ardship of our resources.

Anyone on campus may submit nominations; the form is available here (look for the link under "Nomination Process"). In submitting one, you “must focus on the core values and exceptional contributions that supported the mission of UC Davis and have set a standard of exemplary achievement.”

Nominations are due by 5 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 31. Send them by email to ChancellorSTARAwards@ucdavis.edu or deliver to Matthew Matuszak in the Human Resources Administration Building.

Follow Dateline UC Davis on Twitter.