Brown Alumni and Friends Honored at Annual Awards

Eight alumni and friends of the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis were recognized March 6 at the 34th annual Distinguished Alumni Awards ceremony in the Clark-Fox Forum in Hillman Hall. The awards honor Brown School graduates and supporters who work in diverse ways for positive change around the globe.

“We could not be more proud of these remarkable individuals,” said Mary M. McKay, Neidorff Family and Centene Corporation Dean of the Brown School. “They exemplify a passion and commitment for improving the lives of people by putting into action the research-based tools of social work and public health.”

This year’s awardees included:

Distinguished Alumni

Nikki Doughty, MSW ’14
Chief Operating Officer, City Academy
St. Louis, Missouri

Nikki Doughty is the chief operating officer at City Academy, an independent private school that provides 100 percent of enrolled families with scholarship support. She previously served as the school’s assistant director of development and director of admissions and placement.

She enrolled as a full-time student at the Brown School while maintaining her full-time executive position within City Academy. During her second year, she was asked to assist Washington University trustee Mary Stillman in the opening of the Hawthorn Leadership School for Girls, Missouri’s first all-girls charter school focused on STEM.
“My passion is to help others, whether it’s children or families or organizations, to be their best so our communities can be healthy and thriving,” she said. “Once you realize that there’s nothing you can’t do, the whole world opens up to you.”

Carl. E. Josehart, AB ’84, MSW ’87
CEO, TIRR Memorial Hermann and Senior Vice President, Memorial Hermann Rehabilitation Network & Post-Acute Care
Houston, Texas

Josehart is an experienced healthcare executive who began his career as a clinician in social work and then moved into leadership positions in acute care hospitals, rehabilitation and ambulatory care. Josehart joined TIRR Memorial Hermann as chief executive officer in 2006. It is a national leader in medical rehabilitation and research, and a model for interdisciplinary rehabilitation services, patient care, education and research. He has played a leading role in reducing hospital re-admissions and making healthcare cost-effective while increasing its quality.
 
“One of the things that drew me to social work was the philosophy of empowering the clients that we work with,” he said. His education at the Brown School taught him “to not look at the challenges people face as being flaws within themselves, but a reaction to their environment.”

Evan M. Krauss, MSW ’09
Director, East Side Aligned, United Way of Greater St. Louis
East St. Louis, Illinois

At East Side Aligned, Krauss leads a collective impact movement to align policy, practice and investment to improve the lives of children and youth in the East St. Louis area. He previously served as the director of faith community mobilization and administered programs to cultivate the next generation of philanthropists. He has also worked professionally within city government, public education and various diversity and anti-oppression organizations.

“I can’t remember a time when I didn’t have my eyes open to injustice,” said Krauss, the first recipient of the Richard A. Gephardt public service scholarship. “The work I’m currently doing is not a concept, it is a movement.”

Kathy Meath, MSW ’80
Retired President/CEO, St. Louis Arc
St. Louis, Missouri

Meath has been a lifelong advocate for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. She retired as president and CEO from the St. Louis Arc after 34 years of service. Starting as a social worker in 1981, she served as director of residential services before taking the helm of the organization in 1999.
 
Throughout her years with the St. Louis Arc, Meath worked to protect and increase funding for services for people with disabilities and their families and to end service waiting lists. Most notably, she advocated to better integrate people with disabilities into their communities.

She advises today’s students to be a persistent force for change. “You must have tenacity, you must have passion and you must have an educational framework that allows you to develop answers and solutions to problems,” which she says she received at the Brown School.

Gwendolyn Packnett, MSW ’80
Retired Assistant Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs, University of Missouri-St. Louis
St. Louis, Missouri

As a graduate of the Brown School and the president of the Women’s Society at Washington University, Packnett is an engaged member of the WashU community. At the University of Missouri-St. Louis she was the inaugural director of the Office of Multicultural Relations, an innovative center for developing and implementing strategies for a culturally diverse student body. She has been recognized on a national level for admission, retention, and graduation of minority and international students.

“I’m passionate about people and the well-being of our society,” she said. “I’m preoccupied with wanting to make an impact.” She remembers well an address from Dean Shanti Khinduka when she arrived at the Brown School: “He said the profession that you have chosen will serve you well, but it’s more important that you serve it well.”

Jean Cathcart Schultz, MSW ’46
Retired Director of School Social Work, Wyandotte County Special Education
Overland Park, Kansas

Schultz retired in 1992 at the age of 70 after working 46 years in the field of social work. Her career began as the chief social worker at the Washington University Clinics and Allied Hospitals Social Work Department. She went on to teach at the Brown School and at the University of Kansas School of Medicine, where she created the Department of Preventive Medicine.

From 1970-1992 she was director of the School Social Work Department for Wyandotte County Special Education, in Kansas, leading a staff of 30 MSWs covering every public school in four districts, as well as any referrals for special education services in the county.

She says of receiving the award: “It means a lot to me. It validates everything I did for those years. … People need this kind of service.”

Distinguished Volunteer Award

Henry D. Warshaw, AB ’76, MBA ’79
Brown School Campaign Committee, Olin Business School National Council, and Washington University Alumni Board of Governors
St. Louis, Missouri

The president and CEO of Virtual Realty Enterprises, LLC, Warshaw is a dedicated Washington University alumnus and an engaged member of the St. Louis community as a leader, entrepreneur and mentor. He was an original director of Citizens for Missouri’s Children, a non-partisan children’s advocacy organization, and co-chair of the development committee on the board of trustees for Crossroads College Prep. At Washington University, he served as chair of the Alumni Board of Governors and as a university trustee. In 2013 he was honored with a Founders Day Distinguished Alumni Award.

“We support scholarships through the business school and the Brown School, and we’ve also supported social entrepreneurship,” he said, adding that both he and Susan Warshaw were honored to receive the award. “It’s been a wonderful experience.”

Susan O. Warshaw, MSW ’79
Brown School Campaign Committee, Brown School National Council, and Washington University Alumni Board of Governors
St. Louis, Missouri

Warshaw’s work as a juvenile probation officer motivated her to pursue family therapy as a student at the Brown School. After providing family therapy for the St. Louis County Juvenile Court, she joined Provident Counseling, where she was a supervisor in their Family Therapy Training Program and also served as a field instructor for Brown School students. She then went into private practice.

She was invited to join the National Council of the Brown School, and most recently, was asked to be on the Alumni Board of Governors. Warshaw said her experience teaching as adjunct faculty and varied interactions at the School have continued to impress her. “Each and every time I come away thinking: Washington University is a class act,” she said.