President’s Exceptional Effort Awards

Chris Powell - ATUS

Chris Powell has held several IT positions during his 24 years of employment at Western. In his current role as Canvas Admin, Chris has built his approach on the conviction that relationships create the context for excellent customer service and collaborative skill-building. Chris strives to serve the faculty and staff in a way that takes their stress, their priorities, and their work/teaching style into consideration. He has found, especially during the COVID-era transition to remote learning, that empathy, listening, and creative problem-solving move the conversation beyond simple tech Q & A and instead be a resource to faculty as they explore online curriculum, transition to online teaching modalities, and use the Canvas LMS in ways they never have before.

During the past year with the pandemic, Chris has responded to over 13,000 email requests in a timely, helpful, and friendly manner. He has also provided over 240 consultation hours to encourage new ways of using Canvas and to improve the user experience for faculty, students, and staff.  He also assisted 28 University departments with developing non-academic Canvas courses to communicate information and content in a way students can easily access it, and post announcements to students’ Canvas dashboards with timely reminders. 

Debbie Arthur - Marine & Coastal Science

Debbie is currently the department manager for Western’s new Marine and Coastal Science (MACS) Program but was nominated for this award for her administrative contributions to the Sociology Department, Fairhaven College, and the MACS Program. She supported the Sociology Department through the transitions between three chairs and served as the temporary operations manager for Fairhaven College. In MACS, she has been instrumental in launching the new program by recruiting and coordinating the first student cohort and establishing financial and administrative program structure. She co-championed the programs’ first fundraising campaign which raised $15K of scholarship funds.

Debbie has been with WWU for 2.5 years. Her previous 30 years of professional experience includes working as a research chemist and leading outerwear design and development teams in the Outdoor Industry. Debbie believes in "doing the right thing" and strives to eliminate barriers for those that she supports. She constantly looks downstream at the “big picture” to develop efficient, long-term processes that will continually yield positive outcomes. Debbie is an active Bellingham community where she serves on the board and plays in the Bellingham Symphony Orchestra, volunteers regularly with the Bellingham Schools, and can be found at swim meets as a USA Swim official.

Jeniene Bengtsson - University Advancement

Jeniene Bengtsson has worked in University Advancement for more than 15 years and is a 2004 graduate of Western, following her family’s Viking tradition. Throughout her tenure, she has consistently brought integrity, innovation, and professionalism to her division from her previous roles as administrative assistant, then office manager, and her current role as the Associate Director, Alumni and Constituent Relations, Western Engaged. Western Engaged is revolutionizing not only alumni engagement at WWU, but is seen as a model in the Advancement/Alumni Relations profession nationally, raising the stature and visibility of Western. Jeniene enjoys and excels at collaborating and partnering with colleagues across campus in strategic efforts to keep Western alumni engaged throughout the University. Due to COVID-19, Jeniene creatively pivoted from in-person to remote events including managing dozens of Western Insight and CFPA, Huxley, and CHSS webinars to bring thousands of attendees and dollars to support the Racial and Equity Fund and the Student Emergency Fund.

When not working, Jeniene enjoys spending time with her husband and two boys outdoors and finding new places to explore.

Kathy Thompson - Human Resources

A proud South Carolinian, Kathy Thompson holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance, Insurance, and Economic Security from the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. She met her husband, John Thompson, who works in Western’s Office of University Communications, while she was in college. He persuaded her to move west in 2012, and she started working in Western’s Human Resources department in 2013. Kathy’s work as the Assistant Director of Benefits & Operations allows her the opportunity to interact with Western employees throughout their tenure at Western – from onboarding to the day they retire, which she finds particularly rewarding. In 2020, the coronavirus brought the addition of multiple new federal and state programs to her already full plate. All of these programs were complex, required a thorough understanding of every aspect of how they would impact the university, and so many hours of research were needed. Kathy embraced this with a commitment to ensure these programs were instituted quickly, accurately, and with support for all the campus. Kathy was, and continues to be, a key HR representative -- responsible for development, implementation, monitoring, and communication. Her genuine and sincere kindness is reflected in every interaction she has with employees. 

Laural Ballew - American Indian/Alaska Native and First Nations Relations

Laural Ballew serves as the university's first-ever Tribal Liaison. An enrolled member of the Swinomish Tribe, Ballew has lived on the Lummi reservation with her husband of 43 years, Timothy Ballew Sr. She received a bachelor’s degree, with a major in American Cultural Studies and a minor in Native American Studies, from Western in 2002. She earned a master’s degree in Public Administration, from The Evergreen State College, and is studying for a doctorate in Indigenous Development and Advancement from Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiārangi, in New Zealand.

Laural has led the effort to establish a traditional Coast Salish longhouse on Western's campus, including legislative advocacy that led to the project being prioritized for funding in the Governor's proposed 21-23 biennial budget. She has worked with Enrollment & Student Services on new requirements for Native students to verify tribal enrollment and descendancy; and she has created ongoing Government to Government training between Western and local tribal governments.

Her advocacy has a direct impact on Native American students, families, and communities and her work to enhance and encourage the development of Indigenous programs, events, seminars and activities has helped to educate the campus community and increase our capacity to serve American Indian, Alaska Native, and First Nation communities.

Richard Henderson - University Residences

Richard Henderson, M.Ed, is an Assistant Director for Residence Life. He supervises the full-time staff in the South area of campus serving approximately 1100 students. He leads the efforts for student staff training, curriculum development, Residence Hall Association and Pride Housing. Two of Richard’s biggest projects has been the creation of Black Affinity Housing and a virtual student staff training experience. Richard led the committee in shifting a typical two-week full-time training schedule all in-person to online, including CANVAS courses, videos and an online workbook that takes staff through all their priorities for the year.

The Residence Life staff team has been discussing the topic of racial injustice due to the heightened awareness of racism, specifically, the summer 2020 months. Based on these conversations and the criteria outlined by WWU’s Black Student Organizations at Western, Richard was inspired to facilitate a new initiative in housing to create a more welcoming and inclusive community for Black identified students. Over the summer, Richard developed a task force to create this new community and is spending this academic year collaborating with students and campus partners to develop learning outcomes, programming, and outreach to shape this new learning community.

Sara Wilson - Student Success Initiatives

Sara Wilson, M.S., is the Executive Director for the Student Success Initiatives unit in the Division of Enrollment and Student Services at Western. The SSI unit includes the Academic Advising Center, Career Services Center, Student Outreach Services, the Western Success Scholars program as well as unit support for marketing/website/technology needs and divisional support with assessment and strategic planning initiatives. She has served at Western since January 2010, initially as the Special Assistant to the Vice President for Enrollment and Student Services.

Sara’s primary work is focused on working with her team and institutionally to find strategies and solutions that improve Western’s retention and graduation rates. This includes identifying institutional barriers to student success along with implementing advising/academic supportive measures and outreach initiatives that assist students with degree completion. Since 2012, she has also shared a principal role with Western’s VPUE in the initiative to implement SSC/Navigate – a tool that allows advisors across the institution to communicate and share information with each other in supporting students. Beginning in March 2020, she has also served as the Planning Section Co-Chief in Western’s institutional response to the COVID-19 pandemic. One of her colleagues praised her ability to maintain an incredible balance between grit and sensitivity, and bring rich experience, insight, and wisdom to her work.

Wayne Galloway - Facilities Management

Wayne Galloway’s passion for Western Washington University’s custodial teams has powered his determination to establish team building, leadership development, and top-notch customer service skills since he joined the Facilities Management team in Fall of 2016.  His personal attention and care for the university’s custodial staff has created a cohesive, respectful, and caring team. To accomplish this, Wayne meets frequently with the teams and ensures that all custodians are given the opportunity to advance their skills by training for certifications in the custodial trade from ISSA and IICRC. Team members are recognized in quarterly Certificate of Appreciation events. 

Due to his experience in the medical cleaning trade, he has been ensuring that the WWU custodial teams have been consistently trained on the most current information to help them successfully navigate the COVID-19 pandemic cleaning and disinfection challenges. He has also personally led and been a member of the ISOQ transport team that has safely made over 100 moves of pandemic impacted students to and from the Ridge ISOQ Suites to ensure the safety of the WWU community.

Thanks to Wayne’s leadership, the custodial teams are well known for quickly handling all building service concerns or needs of the WWU community.