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Jan. 18, 2023
Eight distinguished members of the Northwest Missouri State University family will be honored during the annual Northwest Alumni Awards Banquet for dedicating their time, talent and service to the University as well as for accomplishments in their chosen fields.
The Northwest Alumni Association is hosting its 2022-23 banquet Saturday, April 22, at the Agricultural Learning Center, located north of the Maryville campus at the R.T. Wright Farm on Highway 71. The event begins with a social at 5 p.m., and the dinner and awards presentation begins at 6 p.m.
More information about the honorees is provided below. For more information about the Northwest Alumni Awards Banquet, including registration, visit www.nwmissouri.edu/alumni/events/.
The Northwest Alumni Association is now collecting nominations for its 2024 Alumni Association Awards. Nominations must be submitted by April 30, on forms provided by the Alumni Association. Information about each award category, including the scoring matrix, an online nomination form and printable forms, can be found at www.nwmissouri.edu/alumni/events/awards/nominations.htm. Nominators should provide as much information about the nominee as possible as the completeness of the nomination form impacts the selection process.
For more information, contact the Office of Alumni Relations at 660.562.1248 or alumni@nwmissouri.edu.
Dr. Jackie Henningsen
Henningsen began her career as a high school mathematics teacher, in addition to directing plays and coaching volleyball. However, her concerns about the impact of math avoidance by young women led her to advocacy for non-traditional career paths for women and eventually to pursue a doctorate degree in industrial and management systems engineering. In 1985, she joined the Strategic Air Command’s Office of Operations Research, applying analysis to nuclear deterrence and conventional warfighting assessments. In 1992, she was chosen to serve in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Program Analysis and Evaluation, with oversight of strategic and space launch systems, and subsequently the department’s joint campaign model development and country teams in the US/NATO Partnership for Peace Program. In 1998, she was selected by the Air Force to the Senior Executive Service. Henningsen contributed analytic leadership during all of the Department of Defense’s Quadrennial and major defense reviews from the end of the Cold War until retiring in 2014. As Air Force director for studies and analyses, assessments and lessons learned, she served as principal analytic advisor to five successive Air Force top military leaders and guided a thousand-plus member career field.
Among other awards and accolades, she was recognized in 2012 with the Presidential Distinguished Executive Rank Award, which is the U.S. government’s highest recognition of senior civilian service members for sustained extraordinary accomplishments. She also is a recipient of the Vance R. Wanner Memorial Award for lifetime professional excellence in military operations research. The Dr. Jacqueline R. Henningsen Air Force Analyst Lifetime Achievement Award is awarded by the Air Force annually in her honor.
Henningsen is a 1966 graduate of Northwest, earning a Bachelor of Science degree in mathematics education. She also has a Master of Science in mathematics education and a Ph.D. in industrial and management systems engineering, both from the University of Nebraska, where she was recognized in 2002 as a Distinguished Engineering Alumni. She served on the Northwest Foundation Board from 2015 to 2021.
Dr. Shantel Farnan
Farnan joined the Northwest faculty in 2011 and was instrumental in the award-winning redesign of the School of Education’s undergraduate curriculum. She also led the redesign of the Master of Science in Education degree program in special education, which has grown significantly under her leadership as program coordinator.
She has logged numerous scholarly contributions, including journal articles and more than two dozen professional presentations at peer-reviewed state, regional and national conferences while covering topics related to urban field and clinical experiences for teacher candidates. She also has served as a board member for state and national special education groups, including as a national liaison for the teacher education division of the Council for Exceptional Children.
Additionally, she is involved in the Maryville community and contributes her service and time to Big Brothers Big Sisters, the Regional Professional Development Center, St. Gregory Barbarigo Parish and Maryville High School as well as on campus with the Ally affinity group, Council on Teacher Education, Teacher Education Admissions Committee and Teacher Education Guidance Committee.
She is an alumna of Northwest, having earned a Bachelor of Science degree in elementary education and special education in 1995, a Master of Science degree in educational leadership and elementary education in 1999 and an Education Specialist degree in superintendency in 2008. She earned an Ed.D. in educational leadership and policy analysis from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Dr. Carol Spradling
Spradling retired in 2020 as a professor of computer science and information systems in the School of Computer Science and Information Systems after 32 years as a faculty member at Northwest. Hired as an instructor in 1988, she advanced her faculty ranking to assistant professor in 1999, associate professor in 2009 and professor in 2016. She also served as a provost fellow in 2014 and was named director of the School of Computer Science Information Systems in 2016.
In addition to her numerous publications, Spradling received the College of Professional and Applied Studies’ Research Award twice and its Service Award three times. She received the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Special Interest Group on Computers and Society Outstanding Service Award in 2011 as well as four Google Grants and a National Science Foundation C-Stem Grant in 2011. She also co-founded the Missouri Iowa Nebraska Kansas Women in Computing Conference and served at the highest levels with the Consortium for Computer Science in Colleges and ACM’s Special Interest Group on Computer Science Education.
Her accolades include receiving the 2012 Governor’s Award for Excellence in Education and the Northwest Alumni Association’s Distinguished Faculty Award in 2015. In 2018, she was honored by Central Exchange with a STEMMy award, a recognition of trailblazing, innovating women who set trends and break barriers in science, technology, engineering, mathematics or medicine.
Spradling completed her master’s degree in school computer studies at Northwest in 1988 and holds a Ph.D. in instructional technology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She also served as a member of the Northwest Foundation’s Board of Directors from 2016 until 2021.
Angela Moskow
Moskow is a friend and champion of Northwest, contributing time and treasure to the University. Serving on the Northwest Foundation’s Advancement Committee, she was a significant leader during the University’s highly successful Forever Green campaign and led planning efforts for its culminating celebration in 2021. Angela and her husband, Rob, also became Homesteaders during the campaign to help make the Agricultural Learning Center a reality.
In 2022, she returned to the Northwest Foundation Board of Directors after serving a term from 2015 to 2021. The daughter of Melvin and Valorie Booth, for which Northwest’s business school is named, she actively follows Northwest and exemplifies the qualities of being a Bearcat.
A resident of Gladstone, New Jersey, she dedicated her professional career for nearly three decades to the healthcare field. During 27 years in sales, marketing and corporate relations with Sanofi, an international pharmaceutical company, she was a principal in the launch and growth of Sanofi’s blockbuster analog insulin portfolio, before turning her focus to chronic disease prevention and wellness. In 2017, she founded Equity After Investment LLC, a brand marketing strategic consulting firm. Currently, she serves as the Chief Operating Officer for Booth Legacy Ventures.
Michael Faust
A generous and loyal Bearcat, Faust is a 1974 Northwest graduate who has supported the University in myriad ways. A member of the Northwest Foundation Board of Directors from 2002 to 2020, he is among the longest-serving in the organization’s history. Becoming a committee chair in his first year with the Board, he served as its president from 2008 to 2010 and was chair of the Foundation’s Advancement Committee during the University’s Forever Green campaign. During the 2015-16 academic year, he was visiting dean of Northwest’s Melvin D. and Valorie G. Booth College of Business and Professional Studies.
During the Northwest Foundation’s 2000-2006 Campaign for Northwest, Faust established an endowed scholarship that is awarded annually to incoming freshmen from southwest Iowa. Seeing a critical technology need in the School of Communication and Mass Media, he funded relocation of a classroom, now known as the Michael L. Faust Media Lab. He has been a generous contributor to many capital projects, including Bearcat Stadium, the Robert and Virginia Foster Fitness Center, the Carl and Cheryl Hughes Fieldhouse, the Agricultural Learning Center and the Bearcat football locker room renovation. In addition, he has made provisions for a testamentary gift via a charitable remainder trust. In 2016, the Suzanne & Walter Scott Foundation made a surprise $1 million gift to the Northwest Foundation in honor of Faust’s decades of service to Walter Scott Jr., the former chairman and chief executive officer of Peter Kiewit Sons’ Inc. It funded an addition to the alumni center, now known as the Michael L. Faust Center for Alumni and Friends.
Faust retired in 2015 after a 36-year career with Kiewit, a Fortune 500 construction and mining firm headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska. In addition to managing the company’s charitable foundation, he was a speechwriter to senior executives, contributing editor to the corporate magazine and an instructor at Kiewit University. He was active in community affairs, serving on many nonprofit boards, including the Greater Omaha Chamber of Commerce, United Way of the Midlands and Omaha Community Foundation.
Devon Lee Brown
Brown joined the U.S. Department of State’s Foreign Service in 2016. In his role as an information management specialist, he enables diplomacy by advocating for the use of emerging technologies and securing information systems. He manages diverse overseas teams of information technology and management professionals while facilitating diplomatic initiatives in line with Department of State foreign policy. During his time at the Department of State he has served at multiple overseas embassies, supported presidential cabinet and congressional-level communications, served in Washington, D.C., and advocated for the recruitment of a diverse workforce that resembles the entirety of the United States by participating in nationwide recruitment events and programs.
Before joining the Department of State, Brown served in Washington, D.C., as a deployment specialist, managing enterprise services at Peace Corps Headquarters. He also served as an IT education Peace Corps volunteer in Ghana, West Africa, from 2011 to 2013. His main project focused on IT education at teacher training colleges, with secondary projects in the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, gender youth development, agriculture and community development.
Brown received his Bachelor of Science in management information systems in 2010 from Northwest and a Master of Science in information systems technology from George Washington University. He has received multiple Meritorious Honor Awards and a Superior Honor Award for his work in the Foreign Service and serves as a member on Northwest’s School of Computer Science and Information Systems Professional Advisory Team.
Dr. Leslie Doyle
Doyle began work in 2021 as the interim director of student diversity and social justice at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, her latest step in a higher education career spanning 25 years and dedicated to making communities more diverse and inclusive. At UNLV, she leads the institution’s Office of Student Diversity programs while advocating for its diverse student population and promoting student success.
She began her career in 1997 at the University of Kansas, where she was a hall director and program coordinator, and then joined Nebraska Wesleyan University in 1999 as its multicultural student coordinator. In 2005, she moved to Fontbonne University in St. Louis to become its director of multicultural affairs, and she was promoted in 2008 to director of service, diversity and social justice. In 2019, she became the inaugural chief inclusion officer at Rockhurst University in Kansas City. For her efforts, Doyle has received multiple programming awards from the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators.
Outside of her work in higher education, Doyle has served as a consultant and presenter to various organizations with a focus on equity, including healthcare providers, non-for-profits and religious institutions. Among her community service roles, she served with the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis for 13 years and was a member of the KC Scholars’ Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Committee.
Doyle earned a Bachelor of Science degree in mass communication and media studies at Northwest in 1997. She also has a Master of Science degree in higher education from the University of Kansas, a Master of Management degree in business and leadership from Fontbonne University, and an Ed.D. in higher education leadership from Maryville University.
Sharon Bonnett
Bonnett was awarded the 2021 Public Service Award but could not attend the previous Alumni Awards banquet.
She came to Northwest in 1972 and made a profound difference in public radio at the University and throughout the northwest Missouri region. She served as producer, program director and general manager of the campus radio station, KXCV. She expanded the station’s coverage area through KRNW, a repeater station in Chillicothe; provided audio reader services for the visually impaired; and launched the Bearcat Radio Network. In addition, she extended KXCV’s broadcast schedule to 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a year. She also oversaw the installation of a new tower and digital conversion project that provides digital broadcasting to northwest Missouri.
Bonnett is the recipient of several Missouri Broadcast Association awards as well as two national Corporation for Public Broadcasting awards. She retired in June 2006 after 34 years of service, but her passion for public broadcasting continues to impact listeners and future generations of student broadcasters.
With Bonnett’s assistance, the Warren Stucki Broadcast Museum was created. Located in Wells Hall, it offers visual examples of the various stages of broadcast development, including a mock-up of a 1940s era radio station.
She is an avid fan of public radio and remains proud that its tradition of public service continues, along with a commitment to student training. While remaining in contact with many of her former students, Bonnett has mentored international students, assisting them in acclimating to the American culture and staying in contact with them when they return to their respective countries.
After her 34-year career with public radio at Northwest, Bonnett immersed herself in community service. She is a member of P.E.O., a women’s education and philanthropic organization for which she has served as an officer; she is involved with patient advocacy and has devoted herself to animal rescue. She started the travel company, Travel Tails Tours, from which 100 percent of the profit or commission gained from each trip is gifted to the Maryville and St. Joseph animal shelters for the care and protection of animals.
