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Home Distinguished Alumni Awards Distinguished Alumni Awards Nomination Information

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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Donations spark new art and music therapy efforts in the pediatric psychiatry unit at UI Stead Family Children's Hospital. Mollie Tibbetts came to the University of Iowa to study child psychology, with the dream of helping kids find health and happiness. Three years after her killing, a memorial fund honoring Tibbetts is achieving her vision for patients at UI Stead Family Children's Hospital. To date, more than 1,200 donors have given $129,000 to the Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Fund for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Tibbetts' family established the fund in 2018 to honor Mollie's academic and professional ambitions after her life was cut tragically short following her freshman year at Iowa. Since then, donations have poured in from around the nation to support art therapy, music therapy, and other mental health initiatives at the children's hospital. "One of the biggest things that this fund has meant for us is simply the raising of awareness of youth mental health," says Hanna Stevens, director of the hospital's division of child and adolescent psychiatry. "When people think of what a wonderful person Mollie was and what she intended to do professionally to help youth mental health, it's a reminder that this is a cause worthy of attention and in great need." The Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Fund has allowed Stevens' unit to make needed equipment purchases and support new programming. For example, the fund has been used to purchase MP3 players for music therapy programming, which can be a useful coping technique for patients in psychiatric crisis. And during the holidays, which are often a difficult time for hospitalized children, the memorial fund has helped purchase care packages for patients. The memorial fund has also supported a pair of new art initiatives. Outpatient therapy group participants have partnered with Grinnell College Museum of Art curator Tilly Woodward and Iowa City artist Helen Neumann (97MA, 98MFA, 20MSW) to create uplifting artwork that is displayed inside the children's hospital. "The benefits for youths during that creative process is really huge," says Stevens of the art therapy programming. "We've done this with multiple groups and involve their families and the therapists working with them. Mollie was a very creative person, and her mom is a very creative person, so this program is especially meaningful." A Brooklyn, Iowa, native, Tibbetts was a talented stage performer, writer, and speech competitor in high school who was particularly interested in mental health issues. She chose to attend the nearby University of Iowa, where she excelled in her first year as a psychology undergraduate who one day hoped to work with children. The fund has created strong bonds between Tibbetts' hometown and UI Stead Family Children's Hospital. The Girl Scout Daisy troop with which Mollie volunteered has made posters and cards for the children on the in-patient unit with inspiring messages. And each year, community members gather at Brooklyn's BGM High School for the Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Run, which follows the five-mile route that the avid runner would often take. Proceeds from the fall run are donated to the Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Fund. Tibbetts' family takes heart in knowing that her legacy lives on through the impact at the children's hospital, and her mother, Laura Calderwood, continues to work closely with the child and adolescent psychiatry unit to identify new ways to support patients. "To help kids who were suffering emotionally and mentally was very important to her," Calderwood says. "This is where Mollie would have wanted to make a difference." Give today to support the Mollie Tibbetts Memorial Fund for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

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NOTICE: The University of Iowa Center for Advancement is an operational name for the State University of Iowa Foundation, an independent, Iowa nonprofit corporation organized as a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt, publicly supported charitable entity that works to advance the University of Iowa. Please review its full disclosure statement.

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