Alumni and friends who give generously of their time and talents to Maryville University as well as those whose work brings distinction to their profession are honored by the Spirit of Maryville Awards. The Awards also recognize people or organizations that provide extraordinary service to the community at large. Following are the distinguished recipients of the 2020 Spirit of Maryville Awards.
College of Arts and Sciences
LARAINE DAVIS, ’17
When Laraine Davis was growing up, she and her two brothers were the only black students at their predominantly white school. Now, Davis’s job is to ensure that her Wells Fargo Advisor’s global workplace is diverse. As vice president of next generation talent and community champion program manager, Davis helps to create a pipeline to bring more minorities into the positions of financial advisor and branch manager.
Since joining Wells Fargo in 2004, Davis has helped manage national partnerships including mitigating risk and influencing policy with those partners. While working in community relations, she led the development of the Wells Fargo Finance Education Center at Harris-Stowe State University which features a real-time trading floor. She also worked with St. Louis Public Schools to help middle schoolers learn money management skills.
Throughout her career, Davis has navigated professional challenges while also raising children and completing the bachelor’s degree that helped her land her dream job. “I see a lot of people, especially black women, who often feel defeated,” Davis said. “I hope by sharing my story, they will feel encouraged and valued.”
John E. Simon School of Business
MELISSA LENZ, ’97
In her work as an Edward Jones financial adviser, Melissa Lenz loves seeing her clients realize their dreams, from sending a child to college to embarking on a happy retirement. But her efforts to give back extend beyond the workplace.
The Maryville marketing major is past president of the Kiwanis Club of Crestwood-Sunset Hills and has worked with the Arts and Education Council of Greater St. Louis. She’s also a member of the United Way’s de Tocqueville Society Cabinet.
Lenz sees her community work as a way of paying forward the support she’s received. Her family, friends and Maryville professors, including John Lewington, PhD, retired dean and past professor of marketing and management in the Simon School of Business, encouraged her as she worked her way into her position at Edward Jones. In her role, she’s earned numerous accolades including a 2019 Spirit of Caring Award. “People have gone to bat for me,” she said. “I want to make a difference in people’s lives because so many people have made a difference in mine.”
School of Education
ROSALYN MANAHAN, ’10
When Rosalyn Manahan, EdD, was a teenager growing up in a troubled home, her Pattonville High School principal took a special interest in her. Now, as assistant principal at her high school alma mater, Manahan is following in her mentor’s footsteps by helping students set and achieve academic and personal goals.
For her efforts, Manahan was honored as a distinguished leader in the Delux Power 100 Awards and received a Beyond the Best Award from StreetScape Magazine. She is active with Maryville’s National Leadership Council through which she supports numerous campus organizations. Her work is completed in gratitude for the support she received as a student in Maryville’s Doctor
of Education program.
Manahan keeps up with the individuals she’s mentored long after their high school graduations. Now that many are adults, some with families of their own, she’s gratified to see them achieving their goals and helping others: feeding the homeless, coaching sports teams and being strong parents to their own children. “It’s pretty amazing to see that life comes full circle,” she said.
Myrtle E. and Earl E. Walker College of Health Professions
ALISON TOMPKINS COLE, ’04
Infusing joy into a person’s final days is a passion for Alison Tompkins Cole, MT-BC. A graduate of Maryville’s Music Therapy program, she works with patients and families of BJC Hospice and Evelyn’s House hospice facility to foster connections through music while also relieving patients’ pain and anxiety.
Cole’s work may begin by matching the rhythm of her guitar with one patient’s anxious breathing, gradually lulling her into a peaceful slumber. A more alert patient may request a song. In one instance, two daughters joined their dying mother to sing a rendition of “Amen,” using drums and sandwiching the words, “We love you, Mama” between repeats of the chorus.
Cole recently instituted the Heartbeat Project, a program in which a patient’s recorded heartbeat becomes part of a song their family can cherish after they’re gone. She feels fortunate that she spends her professional life in close communion with families at such pivotal moments. “I love helping people and I love music — and I can’t believe I get paid to do this,” she said.
Online Learning
TARYN DENEZPI, ’19
The ability to earn her degree online is why Taryn Denezpi, DNP, ACNPC-AG, is able to help stroke victims today. Through the flexibility of virtual classrooms, Denezpi navigated moving across the country, managing a high-risk pregnancy and caring for a new baby — all while earning a doctorate in nursing practice.
In her schoolwork, Denezpi focused on stroke patients who miss the narrow window of time for a life-changing intervention called tPA, an intravenous clot-busting drug. She wondered: might these patients benefit from another, minimally invasive procedure called mechanical thrombectomy? Denezpi was instrumental in adding this treatment for stroke patients at Lovelace Medical Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Now she’s using her expertise to help her new employer, the University of New Mexico Hospital, prepare for certification as a Comprehensive Stroke Center.
Denezpi knows how a traditional campus program, requiring her to attend classes in person, could have thwarted or postponed the education that makes her work possible. For her, online learning provided the best of both worlds, especially because of the constant support she received from Maryville. “It’s compassion you don’t get everywhere,” she said. “It’s like I always had a family keeping close tabs on me.”
Young Alumni Award
ADAM BOYER, ’10
Every day, as Adam Boyer makes sure 60,000 people have well-functioning computers and cell phones, he’s really working toward a larger goal: sending astronauts to the moon, and eventually to Mars. In his job with the information technology firm Leidos, Boyer is the senior finance and business operations manager for an almost $3 billion services contract with NASA.
Boyer is working to set up Space Bars, similar to Apple’s Genius Bars, at all 11 NASA centers, and implementing a new backup system for all of NASA’s data. He arrived at Leidos from Boeing, where he was hired after four semesters of internship, secured with the help of Barbara Petzall, PhD, past professor of management and leadership.
But Boyer’s life isn’t just about work. When he was a junior, a baseball teammate’s family lost their home in a fire. Boyer helped pass a baseball helmet around campus to raise money, collecting $1,750. They also approached the administration, and the University agreed to waive the student’s tuition for the semester. Boyer wants to make sure his career path leaves time for working for causes that are dear to his heart. “I want to be successful as an executive, but I also want to have the flexibility to be successful in other areas, like helping people.”
Heart of Maryville Award
SUZIE WEISS, ’68
Suzie Weiss’ love of Maryville runs as deep as her family legacy, which stretches back more than 100 years. Her grandmother studied at the old campus of Maryville Academy and in 1940, her mother, Kathleen Desloge, graduated from the original Maryville College. Two aunts and numerous cousins also earned degrees from Maryville.
Much of Weiss’s life’s work is focused on honoring her Maryville ties, her family and her Catholic heritage. She served two terms as board president for Villa Duchesne-City House Alumnae, and received their Alumnae Association’s Très Bien Award in 2001. She is a co-leader of Maryville’s Sacred Heart Advisory group, eager to carry out its mission of keeping alive the Sacred Heart tradition. She also serves as board secretary for Friends of the Cathedral Basilica. The group raises money to improve and maintain the century-old St. Louis landmark, located in the parish in which her grandparents lived and where her mother was baptized.
To commemorate her Maryville class’ 50th reunion, Weiss and her husband, Charles, made a substantial gift. The money was earmarked to support scholarships, the value of which Weiss can appreciate from her own experience: “Scholarships helped me get through Maryville,” she said. She first chose the University because of her mother and now, decades after her mother’s and her own graduation, Weiss feels “It’s important to give back.”
Myrtle E. and Earl E. Walker Medal
MISSOURI FOUNDATION
FOR HEALTH
The Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) works to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities most in need through partnership, experience, knowledge and funding. Since its founding in 2000, MFH has supported 1,505 organizations in 84 Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis to benefit a range of programs.
Several programs have a direct association with Maryville. In 2010, MFH awarded a four-year, $323,587 nursing retention grant to alleviate a shortage of health care professionals by helping nontraditional students complete programs in what is now Maryville’s Catherine McAuley School of Nursing.
In 2017, MFH committed to a $452,192 five-year grant to ensure that more children in North St. Louis County receive speech and language therapy sessions through the Walker Scottish Rite Clinic, a program of Maryville. Children receive these services at the Clinic’s partner site at YWCA Head Start North County Center. The grant also helps educate teachers to identify Head Start children who may be in need of services.
Investments like these not only address current health disparities but may also have wider implications. “These students and children will be our future civic leaders, championing positive changes for their communities,” said MFH senior strategist Doneisha Bohannon.
Heart of Maryville Award
SUZIE WEISS, ’68
Suzie Weiss’ love of Maryville runs as deep as her family legacy, which stretches back more than 100 years. Her grandmother studied at the old campus of Maryville Academy and in 1940, her mother, Kathleen Desloge, graduated from the original Maryville College. Two aunts and numerous cousins also earned degrees from Maryville.
Much of Weiss’s life’s work is focused on honoring her Maryville ties, her family and her Catholic heritage. She served two terms as board president for Villa Duchesne-City House Alumnae, and received their Alumnae Association’s Très Bien Award in 2001. She is a co-leader of Maryville’s Sacred Heart Advisory group, eager to carry out its mission of keeping alive the Sacred Heart tradition. She also serves as board secretary for Friends of the Cathedral Basilica. The group raises money to improve and maintain the century-old St. Louis landmark, located in the parish in which her grandparents lived and where her mother was baptized.
To commemorate her Maryville class’ 50th reunion, Weiss and her husband, Charles, made a substantial gift. The money was earmarked to support scholarships, the value of which Weiss can appreciate from her own experience: “Scholarships helped me get through Maryville,” she said. She first chose the University because of her mother and now, decades after her mother’s and her own graduation, Weiss feels “It’s important to give back.”
Myrtle E. and Earl E. Walker Medal
MISSOURI FOUNDATION
FOR HEALTH
The Missouri Foundation for Health (MFH) works to improve the health and well-being of individuals and communities most in need through partnership, experience, knowledge and funding. Since its founding in 2000, MFH has supported 1,505 organizations in 84 Missouri counties and the city of St. Louis to benefit a range of programs.
Several programs have a direct association with Maryville. In 2010, MFH awarded a four-year, $323,587 nursing retention grant to alleviate a shortage of health care professionals by helping nontraditional students complete programs in what is now Maryville’s Catherine McAuley School of Nursing.
In 2017, MFH committed to a $452,192 five-year grant to ensure that more children in North St. Louis County receive speech and language therapy sessions through the Walker Scottish Rite Clinic, a program of Maryville. Children receive these services at the Clinic’s partner site at YWCA Head Start North County Center. The grant also helps educate teachers to identify Head Start children who may be in need of services.
Investments like these not only address current health disparities but may also have wider implications. “These students and children will be our future civic leaders, championing positive changes for their communities,” said MFH senior strategist Doneisha Bohannon.