Anita Manion, Richard Treadway and Jhanae Latham receive UMSL Hero Awards

by | Jan 27, 2025

The award is presented to up to three staff or faculty members each month in recognition of their efforts to transform the lives of UMSL students and the wider community.
Anita Manion, Richard Treadway and Jhanae Latham

This month’s Hero Award recipients are (from left) Anita Manion, Richard Treadway and Jhanae Latham. (Photos by Derik Holtmann)

University of Missouri–St. Louis Chancellor Kristin Sobolik and her cabinet continue to recognize the exemplary efforts of staff and faculty members from across campus by bestowing the UMSL Hero Award on up to three individuals each month.

This month’s honorees are Anita Manion, assistant professor of political science; Richard Treadway, maintenance services attendant with Facilities Management; and Jhanae Latham, assistant director of admission operations in the Office of Admissions.

Anita Manion
Manion was raised in a politically engaged household. Her dad was an elected official for the United Auto Workers, and her aunt was a teacher’s union member who ran for school board. She always accompanied her parents to vote.

However, as the first person in her family to go to college, Manion didn’t realize political scientist was a viable career path.

“When I went to undergrad, I was a first-generation college student and really unsure of what to major in or what my options were,” she said. “I thought, ‘Well, I guess I want a job, so maybe if I major in business that’s how to get a job.’”

Manion went on to earn bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business and launch a career in higher education. At Fontbonne University, she served in leadership positions such as director of faculty for the College of Global Business and Professional Studies and assistant dean for faculty and curriculum. In 2014, she made the jump to Webster University, where she directed strategic initiatives for the College of Arts and Sciences.

“When it came time to pursue my PhD, I really looked at curriculum from economics to higher ed, and I ended up landing on the public and social policy PhD program at Saint Louis University,” Manion explained. “The curriculum just really spoke to me.”

In 2015, Manion came to UMSL as an associate teaching professor while she worked on her dissertation. Over the past decade, she’s become an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science and made an overarching impact on campus and in the community.

She teaches courses on American government as well as public policy, which allows her to interact with students across campus, and serves as the faculty advisor for the Political Science Academy – one of UMSL’s most active student organizations. Her research primarily focuses on how public policy affects issues of equity related to elections and education.

“To me, those are foundational,” Manion said. “We need to have free and fair elections and to make those accessible and get as wide a swath of Americans being represented as we can. Also, education, whether it’s K-12 or higher ed, is just so foundational to our democracy and to people’s everyday lives.”

Manion is working on a variety of research projects, including the impact of four-day school weeks on teacher labor markets in Missouri, but her biggest undertaking concerns the implementation of vote centers in elections. Manion and her colleague David Kimball have been studying the effects of a “vote anywhere” approach, where citizens can vote at any polling place in their home county.

The pair looked at St. Louis County, which implemented vote centers in 2020, and Fresno County in California. They found that the approach resulted in fewer spoiled ballots, overall cost savings and positive feedback from poll workers and voters. Manion and Kimball were also instrumental in making the Millennium Student Center a St. Louis County polling place in 2022.

In addition to this work, Manion is surely familiar to KSDK viewers as the channel’s political analyst. Watching her analysis now, it’s hard to believe that her mentor, the late Dave Robertson, had to politely push her into the spotlight.

“When they started asking me to come on, I had complete imposter syndrome,” Manion said. “Finally, Dave nudged me, ‘I gave them your information; you’re going to do this.’ The first time I worked with KSDK was in the 2018 August primary, which is when Wesley Bell had the big upset. It’s also when ‘right to work’ was on the ballot. I went in that night, I was fairly intimidated, but it was actually really fun. Everyone there was supportive, and I was like, ‘Oh, I like doing this.’”

Director of Community Engagement and Outreach Patricia Zahn lauded Manion’s work to foster civic engagement on and off campus – actions in line with the spirit of the UMSL Hero Awards.

“Under her advisement, student organizations collaborate to host highly successful nonpartisan voter education and civic engagement events including debate watch parties and panel discussions on issues and rights,” Zahn wrote in her nomination. “She is always there for students helping them think through issues and opportunities as they become confident and successful participants on campus and in civic life. She is frequently a presenter at programs. She is also instrumental in organizing students to host voter registration events and has secured funding for creating videos on voting in St. Louis County and encouraging people to vote at the UMSL polling place.”

Richard Treadway
Treadway is a man of few words and many deeds.

Alexander Salois, a fellow maintenance services attendant in Facilities Management, captured Treadway’s humble nature succinctly in his Hero Awards nomination.

“Rick Treadway consistently goes above and beyond in doing his own job and helping everyone else in the department do their jobs better,” Salois wrote. “He has extensive experience in most trades, but he is never dismissive or condescending to those with less knowledge.”

Treadway was simultaneously happy and surprised when he heard the news. It’s not something he foresaw when he began his career at UMSL in 2000. He started his career at the university as a painter, but since then, he’s become a maintenance services attendant. The position, he says, is like being a jack-of-all-trades, helping with anything from carpentry to locksmithing.

“I help everyone do everything,” he said.

His day-to-day necessitates frequent collaboration, which also happens to be the best part of the job.

“I just like working with the people,” Treadway said. “Everybody is very nice, very friendly.”

After 25 years, Treadway anticipates sticking around to keep helping those around him.

“I just like working here,” he said. “I love coming to work. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have been coming here for 25 years, you know? I just like working with everybody. Everybody’s very nice. Bosses are good.”

Jhanae Latham
After graduating from the University of Memphis in 2009, Latham found herself in the same boat as many recent graduates in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis. She hopped from job to job, struggling to find a fulfilling position.

Several years later, Latham and her then boyfriend, now husband, had stopped at Sweetie Pie’s for a bite to eat on the way to Six Flags St. Louis when an unexpected idea hit: What if the pair moved from Memphis and tried their luck in St. Louis?

“I just thought that St. Louis looked really cool,” Latham said. “I really liked the architecture. We looked up what kind of jobs were here, and they seemed way more exciting than what was available in Memphis.”

Latham saved up some money and began applying to open positions as she prepared to move. UMSL came calling her first week in St. Louis, and she interviewed for, and landed, an office support position with the Department of Psychological Sciences. After three years, she transferred to the College of Education to serve as business support specialist.

“What I did there was I hired their part-time faculty, and I also oversaw the schedule for half of the college, which was very challenging,” she said. “I was there for about a year, and then I moved over to Admissions as an enrollment advisor, where I processed applications.

“I really, really liked being in Admissions, and I wanted to do more. I kept bothering my boss, like, ‘How do I do more? How do I learn more about Slate?’ I really wanted to learn more about that software.”

Latham’s determination paid off when a business analyst position became available. It allowed her to sharpen her skills with Slate, an admissions application management software. In 2023, she was promoted to assistant director of admission operations, something she hadn’t envisioned eight years ago. Initially, she thought she’d move into academic advising at some point, but she got hooked on solving problems in Admissions.

“Jhanae’s forward-thinking approach has been instrumental in positioning UMSL and the enrollment division for long-term success,” Vice Chancellor for Strategic Enrollment Reggie Hill wrote in his nomination. “Her determination to find innovative solutions and her proactive mindset make her a critical asset to the team. Whether it’s tackling day-to-day tasks or strategizing for the future, Jhanae demonstrates an unwavering commitment to the university’s mission and goals.”

The support Latham has received over the years and the ability for her career to naturally evolve has kept her at UMSL.

“I felt like there were really opportunities for growth here,” she said. “If my boss saw that I was interested in something, and I shared those interests with her when I was over in psychological sciences, she would encourage that. She would give me opportunities to explore what that looked like. That’s not something I had ever experienced anywhere. I really like the people here. They’re so helpful. They really go out of their way to help you figure something out. That kind of encouragement from others here is something that’s been very positive for me.”

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