Farewell tribute to Donna Kneule

Donna, we are so grateful that you accepted the position as a graphic designer in Lafayette’s Communications Division on Nov. 30, 1998. Throughout your tenure at the College, you were a catalyst for Lafayette touching the hearts of the members of our extended community and our ability to inspire them to support our critically important initiatives. Your dedicated service motivated our steady promotion of you. In 1999, you were named art director at Lafayette. In 2010, we promoted you to director of design services, the position you held until your retirement.

Intelligent and creative, you worked selflessly to help the Communications Division and your colleagues within and beyond the division to achieve their goals and to help Lafayette advance in achieving its strategic objectives. Every day, you concentrated masterfully on the fine details of your work, while never losing sight of the big picture and the College’s most important objectives. Your outstanding support of Lafayette’s mission, your significant contributions to the improvement of our community, and your unwavering willingness and demonstrated ability to provide sustained, high-quality service to the College motivated us to award you Lafayette’s Distinguished Service Award in 2017.

As the lead designer for the College’s flagship publication, Lafayette magazine, and for dozens of the most significant and important printed products that the Communications Division creates each year, you collaborated with your colleagues in producing our most cherished publications. You oversaw the design and printing of scores of print projects every year. All of these projects, large and small, were so valued by the Lafayette College community. We knew that we could rely on you for the on-time delivery of high-quality publications, which play an instrumental role in representing the College to alumni, prospective students, parents, and all of our other audiences.

Donna Kneule with Stephanie Hayes

Among the many positive attributes that you brought to your work and your interactions with colleagues within our division and throughout the College were your outstanding sense of responsibility, commitment, dedication, work ethic, attention to detail and accuracy, reliability, and discretion. Your design skills, organizational skills, and multi-tasking skills are excellent. You consistently exercised good judgment and asked all the right questions.

Your sense of responsibility, commitment, dedication, and reliability coupled with your tremendous enthusiasm, talent, and effectiveness truly set you apart. Everyone at the College will testify to your willingness and ability to do what it takes to help them achieve their goals. Your performance has been outstanding with respect to customer focus and resource management. You were always willing to help others and eliminate ambiguity with respect to people’s roles, responsibilities, and expectations. You were a mentor to the designers whom you supervised and helped significantly in improving their design skills and their understanding of the elements of the field that go beyond placing text and images on a page.

Donna, please know that you are missed by your colleagues. We are grateful for your extraordinary service to the College. We hope you enjoy a wonderful retirement.