DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI AWARDS NOMINATION INFORMATION


Recognizing Our Alumni Successes

The University of Iowa Distinguished Alumni Awards Committee—which includes members of our Alumni Leadership Council—aims to recognize a broad range of qualified candidates who embody the university’s core values by honoring them with Distinguished Alumni Awards. The committee selects an annual recipient in each of the following categories:

  • The Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award recognizes graduates or former students who demonstrate significant accomplishments in their business or professional lives as well as distinguished service to their university, community, state, or nation.
  • The Distinguished Alumni Service Award recognizes graduates or former students who demonstrate specific and meritorious service to their university, community, state, or nation.
  • The Distinguished Alumni Hickerson Recognition Award recognizes graduates or former students for outstanding contributions to their alma mater. This award is named in honor of the late Loren Hickerson (40BA), the university’s first full-time alumni director and an ardent UI champion.
  • The Distinguished Recent Graduate Award recognizes graduates or former students, age 40 or younger at their time of nomination, for significant accomplishments in their business or professional lives as well as for distinguished service to their university, community, state, or nation.
  • The Distinguished Friend of the University Award recognizes individuals who are not alumni for specific and meritorious service that enhances and advances the university.
  • The Distinguished Faculty Award recognizes retired or former faculty for significant achievements and for specific meritorious service that enhances and advances the university. Nominees need not be alumni.
  • The Distinguished “Forevermore” Staff Award recognizes retired or former staff for significant achievements and for specific meritorious service that enhances and advances the university. Nominees need not be alumni.

NOMINATION FORMAT

Graduates, former students, faculty, staff, and friends of the University of Iowa may make nominations (the Distinguished Alumni Awards Committee reserves the right to reassign nomination categories, if deemed applicable). Nominators should submit the following:

  • Cover letter that states the nomination category, endorses the candidate’s qualifications, and highlights how the nominee embodies the UI's core values
  • Nominee's vita or professional résumé, including a current address
  • Three or more letters of recommendation from other individuals who support the nomination
  • Any additional information that would further substantiate the nomination

EXCLUSION FROM ELIGIBILITY

Current members of the University of Iowa Center for Advancement’s board of directors and staff, members of the Alumni Leadership Council, and current full‑time university faculty and staff are not eligible to receive these awards. Individuals currently in a position of elected or appointed office or known to be launching a campaign are also not eligible to receive these awards. All nominees must be living at the time of nomination and cannot have received a University of Iowa Distinguished Alumni Award in the same category in the past. Nominations by active Awards Committee members will not be reviewed until the member’s term has concluded on the committee. The Awards Committee reserves the right to consider and approve exceptions to the exclusions from eligibility.

AWARDS TIMELINE

Nominations for the 2025 awards will open in May 2024 and close on January 31, 2025. The Distinguished Alumni Awards Committee will meet in April 2025 to review all nominations and make the annual selections. Distinguished Alumni Awards will be presented at a special ceremony on the Friday before the University of Iowa's Homecoming (October 2025).

MAIL NOMINATIONS TO:

The University of Iowa Center for Advancement
Distinguished Alumni Awards
One West Park Road
Iowa City, Iowa 52244

For more information, email Nici Bontrager or call 319-467-3607.

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A University Archives recording preserves the 1966 visit by Lawrence Ferlinghetti, a key figure from the Beat movement. PHOTO courtesy of City Lights Bookstore Ferlinghetti at age 40, 1959 Editor's note: In Old Gold, University archivist David McCartney looks back at the UI's history and tradition through materials housed in University Archives, Department of Special Collections, University of Iowa Libraries. For this month's column, Old Gold was tempted to invoke the era of the Beat Generation?by writing in free verse, complete with finger snaps. He then thought?better of it, deciding to leave poetry to the poets. Nonetheless, Old Gold observes and reports, and this installment recognizes a milestone for one of the Beat movement's leading figures in literature. Lawrence Ferlinghetti?poet, critic, political activist, and co-founder of City Lights Bookstore in San Francisco?recently celebrated his 100th birthday. In 1957 Ferlinghetti was tried on obscenity charges for publishing Allen Ginsberg's poem "Howl," a critique of modern-day conformity and censorship. Ultimately, the court ruled that "Howl" was not obscene, exonerating Ferlinghetti and his bookstore. Legal scholars hailed the ruling as a landmark victory in defense of the First Amendment. Thanks to the trial?and a growing counterculture movement during the 1960s?Ferlinghetti's notoriety made him a high-demand speaker at colleges and universities across the country, including the University of Iowa. On the night of Oct. 24, 1966, he spoke to a capacity audience in Macbride Auditorium, his visit sponsored by Students for a Democratic Society and the Radical Arts Project. According to the Daily Iowan the next day, he "conducted a tour of the Coney Island of his mind" during his talk, a reference to his well-known collection of poems of the same name published in 1958. Writing for the Daily Iowan, Tom Fensch described Ferlinghetti's poetry as "swirl[ing] before the mind's eye like a surrealistic parade in review. His poems resemble those of Allen Ginsberg, another apostle of the avant-garde, and also e.e. cummings, who wrote free-form, unpunctuated verse. Ferlinghetti is aware of the sounds around him; his poems echo the sounds of the street and the pace of life. His poetry is meant to be read aloud." Fortunately for posterity, public radio station WSUI recorded that evening's event, and the audio tape eventually made its way to the University Archives. Audio preservationists recently digitally reformatted the recording so that his poetry as delivered on campus can again be heard and appreciated, more than 50 years later. Go on an hour-long tour of the Coney Island of the mind, where he begins with an impersonation of President Lyndon Johnson (note that the date in the link refers to the date of WSUI's broadcast, Dec. 7, 1966): The event is also featured on the University Archives' online exhibit, "Uptight and Laid-back: Iowa City in the 1960s." Upon further reflection, Old Gold should correct himself. "Leaving poetry to the poets" is not what Ferlinghetti endorses. Not at all. Indeed, he writes of poetry as insurgent art. In his work of that same name, he invites us all to participate. For that matter, he admonishes us to do so: "The state of the world calls out for poetry to save it." Poetry as Insurgent Art [I am signaling you through the flames] By Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Courtesy of the Academy of American Poets I am signaling you through the flames. The North Pole is not where it used to be. Manifest Destiny is no longer manifest. Civilization self-destructs. Nemesis is knocking at the door. What are poets for, in such an age? What is the use of Poetry? The State of the work calls out for poetry to save it. If you would be a poet, create works capable of answering the challenges of apocalyptic times, even if this meaning sounds apocalyptic. You are Whitman, you are Poe, you are Mark Twain, you are Emily Dickinson and Edna St. Vincent Millay, you are Neruda and Mayakovsky and Pasolini, you are and American or a non-American, you can conquest the conquerors with words...

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