Meet this year’s Alumni of Distinction
This year’s celebration coincided with UAA Culinary Arts’ 50th anniversary and featured the program’s students extending their academic learning into practical application by developing the event menu, preparing the meal and running the buffet service of their delicious creations.
Nearly 200 graduates and supporters packed Lucy Cuddy Hall on the Anchorage campus to reconnect with their hometown university while raising donations to benefit UAA programs and scholarships. In just one hour, the gathered alumni raised more than $12,000.
Alumni Emerging Leader
Marie-Sophie Boggasch
B.S. Aviation Technology ’16,
M.S. Interdisciplinary Studies ’20
Women’s gymnastics head coach at UAA
When aviation technology and interdisciplinary studies alumna (and the world’s tied-for-No.1 female axe thrower in 2022) Marie-Sophie Boggasch accepted the head coach position for women’s gymnastics at her alma mater, she didn’t expect to be fighting to save the program from elimination just two months later.
In September 2020, the University of Alaska Board of Regents made the difficult decision to discontinue three UAA athletic programs due to reductions in the UA system’s state-funded budget for FY 2019-20 unless the teams could raise two years of funding to cover expenses.
Under Boggasch’s leadership, Seawolf gymnastics was the second of the at-risk programs to achieve reinstatement, raising more than $900,000 by June 2022.
Along with an exhaustive fundraising strategy, hours of cold calls and a fierce social media campaign, key to those advocacy efforts were the gymnastics team’s years of volunteering in Anchorage paying off. While volunteering has been a priority for UAA gymnastics long before Boggasch was on the team, it’s one she strives to maintain.
“Leaving our little Seawolf tracks throughout the community and giving back in any way, shape or form is really important to our team and truly what saved us,” said Boggasch. “If there ever comes a time again where the regents have to make hard choices, I want us to be the hardest choice and hopefully one they’re not going to end up making.”
Since being fully reinstated, Boggasch has gotten back to coaching without having to worry about whether or not the program will be around next year. With no new fundraising targets to hit, she has been able to focus on rebuilding the gymnastics team and improving the audience experience.
Originally from Germany, Marie-Sophie Boggasch came to Anchorage in 2012 when she was recruited to UAA as a student-athlete. Now on the coaching side, she hopes to be as good of a coach as the ones she had growing up.
“My priority as coach is to make sure each student-athlete graduates, flourishes and remains an honorable citizen, and that’s something I’ve always strived to replicate from the coaches I had,” said Boggasch. “Organization is something I valued from my coach in Germany. My coach when I was a gymnast at UAA always put us as people first. And the head coach when I started as a graduate assistant gave me a lot of autonomy which is how I found my style.”
Between flipping through the air, Boggach also enjoys soaring through the air. As an undergrad, she served as president of Alpha Eta Rho, the international aviation fraternity at UAA. As a graduate student, she worked as a flight instructor in the Aviation Technology Division.
After graduating and before returning to UAA as a coach, Boggasch achieved her childhood dream of being a pilot for Regal Air. She even developed a ground school curriculum that focused on making Alaska’s skies safer for fellow and future flyers.
“When I was younger, I had always wanted to become an astronaut, but when I learned they actually don’t fly as much, I decided I was going to become a pilot,” said Boggasch. “In Germany it’s a different system. To become a pilot you have to go through an airline and I was about an inch too short. So it was something I always thought was out of reach until I came to UAA.”
Alumni Humanitarian
Maggie Winston
A.A. General Program ’13, B.A. Psychology ’15
Program director at Independent Living Center
One morning in 2005, psychology alumna Maggie Winston — then a 21-year-old hairdresser and mother of twin boys living in Kenai — woke up feeling cramps between her shoulder blades.
Within an hour, she couldn’t walk. When she arrived at the emergency room, she was medevaced to Anchorage where she was diagnosed with idiopathic transverse myelitis, a rare condition in which the body’s immune system attacks the spinal cord, leaving Winston without the use of her arms or legs.
After spending months in the hospital on a ventilator, Winston returned home to find the real fight waiting for her: her twins’ father was seeking full custody of their children. However, thanks to the Disability Law Center of Alaska, she won that fight with 50-50 custody, as well as a new purpose.
“Having to fight for what was most meaningful to me when I was directly faced with discrimination because of my disability was what made me an advocate,” said Winston. “Having that groundwork already laid with legislation so many years ago that I didn’t even know I would need was so empowering. And now I get to continue that work for other people with disabilities and ensure they learn self advocacy so they can express self determination.”
Equipped with a wheelchair drivable via a chin-operated joystick and a rotating caregiver staff of six, Winston relied on the Independent Living Center (ILC) in Kenai to learn how to live independently and access her community.
But it wasn’t long before Winston joined ILC in a leadership capacity, first as a volunteer on the board of directors in 2012, then as a systems advocate in 2016, next as health program manager for senior and disability services in 2020, and most recently as director for independent living programs in 2022.
Winston’s innate people skills go a long way toward her advocacy work, which is complemented by her understanding of medical models learned during her psychology curriculum.
“Especially in the disabilities world, it helps to have that education in not just disability, but the medicalized limitations, the psychopathy, the way individuals are looked at for mental health,” said Winston. “That background helps to see things from a perspective that views people not as medical patients that need to be fixed, but that we all are humans with neurodivergence that are living in a limiting society.”
In addition to her work with ILC and other boards, councils and nonprofits, Winston is an adjunct professor at UAA with the Alaska LEND Without Walls program. Having gone through LEND herself as a fellow in 2017, Winston provides interdisciplinary graduate training to people working in health care and related fields who might service those who have developmental disabilities.
Even her non-advocacy work is still rooted in advocacy. During her early days on the ILC board, Winston illustrated the book Slugs Forever! by author Marianne Schlegelmilch, the proceeds of which benefit ILC. She also writes the blog Pretty Wheelchair Girl and is exploring new ways to share her story through podcasting and comedy.
“Discrimination is still very present,” said Winston. “The Americans with Disabilities Act passed in 1990, but there are still struggles with people accessing their communities, people accessing services, people just being able to access the store or the bathroom. Really the only thing that makes a difference is making a fuss, and I want to continue finding creative ways to show that disabilities are not something to be feared and that it can be pretty fabulous sometimes.”
Alumni of Achievement
Kenneth McCoy
B.A. Justice ’96
Division chief diversity, equity and
inclusion officer at Providence
How do you follow up a landmark policing career that not only culminated in becoming chief of police, but also occurred during a watershed period of accountability in law enforcement across the country? For justice alumnus Kenneth McCoy, you become the very first chief diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) officer for Alaska’s largest employer.
As Providence’s CDEIO for its northern region, McCoy leads DEI initiatives to promote culturally-competent patient-centered care across the organization’s clinics throughout Alaska and Puget Sound in Washington.
“My role is to ensure that everyone feels valued,” said McCoy. “How we get there looks different from hospital to hospital, from clinic to clinic, from caregiver to caregiver. Internally, it all comes down to leadership. And externally, it’s about building trust between the community — particularly communities of color — the organization and the work.”
In the relatively short time since joining Providence in February 2022, McCoy has already made a big impact. Kicking things off with a listening tour across his region, he’s implemented implicit bias training, launched awareness campaigns and is developing a strategic plan to guide Providence’s DEI efforts through 2025.
Despite the transition to health care from law enforcement, the core principle of equity continues to be the cornerstone of McCoy’s entire career philosophy.
“There are aspects of this position that I have been doing my entire career, such as building more inclusive environments, advocating for the underserved and giving the underrepresented a voice in the way we serve them,” said McCoy. “Those are the things I cherished during my law enforcement career, and being able to impact Providence in that same fashion spoke to me.”
When he was chief of police for the Anchorage Police Department (APD), more than 600 men and women fell under McCoy’s chain of command, including detectives, school resource officers, K-9s, SWAT and non-sworn positions.
McCoy retired from APD after a 27-year career. Starting at the patrol level, he steadily rose through the ranks with detective and command assignments in the Special Victims Unit, Robbery/Assault Unit and Internal Affairs Unit.
“When I became chief of police, I felt an obligation to not only myself, but to my family, to the men and women who I served with throughout my career and to the community who rallied around me every step of the way,” said McCoy. “I was so grateful for the support and wanted to ensure I represented this community to the level they deserved.”
Becoming a police officer wasn’t always the plan for McCoy. While he always knew he wanted to work in law enforcement, it took some time before he knew exactly in what capacity.
A self-described army brat, McCoy originally wanted to follow in his father’s footsteps and join the armed services. And he did just that by attending a military institute in New Mexico and enlisting with the Army National Guard, eventually attaining the rank of second lieutenant.
Upon returning home to Anchorage, McCoy enrolled at UAA to become an attorney. But the more he studied, the more he realized that what he actually wanted to do was to work widely and visibly with the community as an officer. Case closed.
“Once I started studying law enforcement, I saw where I could make a difference and help people in their time of need and be that visible symbol of hope. That’s what I saw in police work,” said McCoy. “Really, my time at UAA solidified that desire that this is what I want to do and gave me the tools I needed to take that step.”
