Last modified: Wednesday, September 26, 2012
College of Arts and Sciences names 2012 recipients of alumni, faculty awards
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sept. 26, 2012
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. -- A former U.S. ambassador, the first female federal judge in Indiana and a Hall of Fame women's basketball coach are among the 2012 recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Awards recently announced by the College of Arts and Sciences.
"The exceptional lives and careers of this year's Distinguished Alumni Award recipients bear witness to the remarkable range of professional achievements that characterize alumni of the College," said Larry Singell, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. "Their wide-ranging career paths began with imagination, inspiration and instruction in a liberal arts education. Part of the joy of conferring these awards is in celebrating their many roads traveled and in acknowledging the achievements that each has built on the foundation of such an education."
The College honors accomplished alumni and faculty annually at its Annual Recognition Banquet, which will be held this year on Friday, Oct. 5. The highlight of the banquet, now in its 35th year, will be the presentation of the College's most prestigious awards, including three Distinguished Alumni Awards, an Outstanding Young Alumni Award and a Distinguished Faculty Award.
This year's recipients of the Distinguished Alumni Award are Sarah Evans Barker (B.A. '65), a U.S. federal judge in the Southern District of Indiana; James D. McGee (B.A. '77), a former U.S. ambassador to Zimbabwe, the Republic of Madagascar, the Union of the Comoros and Swaziland; and Tara VanDerveer (B.A. '75), the head coach of Stanford University's women's basketball program.
The 2012 recipient of the Outstanding Young Alumni Award is Kathleen Plinske (B.A. '01), president of the Osceola and Lake Nona campuses of Valencia Community College in Orlando, Fla.
This year's Distinguished Faculty Award recipient is Darlene J. Sadlier, a faculty member in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, who began her career at IU Bloomington in 1978. She has been director of the College's Portuguese program for 32 years.
The College of Arts and Sciences Annual Recognition Banquet is open to the public. Reservations for the banquet must be made by Friday, Sept. 28. Registration and details are available online.
Sarah Evans Barker
Barker was the first female federal judge in Indiana (Southern District), appointed to the bench by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. Throughout her career she has remained deeply committed to her role. She has ruled on a number of high-profile cases, including the overturning of an Indianapolis ordinance banning pornographic materials, on the grounds that it violated the First Amendment; mandating an end to overcrowding at the Marion County jail; and, in coordination with U.S. Magistrate Judge Sue Shields, resolving more than 800 cases related to alleged defects in Bridgestone/Firestone tires linked to hundreds of deaths and injuries. Recently, Barker enjoined the enforcement of an Indiana statute that opponents said would unfairly impinge on the civil rights of people who, though residing legally in the United States, are not yet citizens. The Indiana statute was similar to an Arizona law recently struck down in major respects by the U.S. Supreme Court. Barker has been involved with many educational, judicial and philanthropic endeavors over the years.
James D. McGee
McGee spent the majority of his 30-year Foreign Service career overseas working in support of U.S. government policy. After serving with distinction for 19 years as a State Department management officer, he was nominated and confirmed as ambassador to the Kingdom of Swaziland from 2002 to 2004; Madagascar and the Comoros Islands from 2004 to 2007; and Zimbabwe from 2007 to 2009. During these appointments, McGee worked to expose political violence and increase international pressures on violent regimes in Zimbabwe. He combated human trafficking and the spread of malaria in Madagascar and Zimbabwe, and supported HIV/AIDS intervention activities, hospice care and other medical institutions in Swaziland. He then returned to the National War College in Washington, D.C., as the senior advisor to the director of the African Center for Strategic Studies. As his most recent assignment, McGee opened the first political military office to provide diplomatic advice and guidance to the Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet. McGee is a member of the American Academy of Diplomacy. He serves on the board of directors of the Council for a Community of Democracies and the Global Alliance for Zimbabwe.
Tara VanDerveer
VanDerveer is the head coach of the Stanford University women's basketball team. She has led the Stanford Cardinals to two NCAA Championships, 10 NCAA Final Four appearances, 20 Pacific 10 Conference titles, nine Pac 10/Pac 12 Tournament crowns and 24 trips to the NCAA Tournament. She is one of only six NCAA Division I women's basketball coaches to win at least 800 games. VanDerveer became internationally known in 1996, when she guided the U.S. Olympic women's basketball team to a gold medal at the Atlanta Games. As coach of the U.S. national team, she accrued four gold medals in major international championships and won 88 games against only nine losses, for an astounding .917 winning percentage. VanDerveer's Stanford alumnae have consistently made their mark on the professional level, in some years occupying more roster spots than alumnae of any other school and winning numerous awards and titles in the WNBA and its predecessor league, the ABL. In 2011, she was formally enshrined into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.
Kathleen Plinske
Plinske serves as the president of the Osceola and Lake Nona campuses at Valencia Community College. Recently named as the best community college in the nation, Valencia serves nearly 60,000 students each year in the greater Orlando area. Before joining Valencia in 2010, Plinske served as vice president and interim president at McHenry County College in Crystal Lake, Ill. Actively involved in her community, Plinske is the president elect of the Rotary Club of Lake Nona and serves on many local boards, including the Education Foundation and Junior Achievement of Osceola County, the Osceola Center for the Arts and the Lake Nona Education Council. Plinske attended IU Bloomington as a Herman B Wells Scholar, earning a Bachelor of Arts in Spanish and physics with highest distinction and honors. She completed a Master of Arts in Spanish from Roosevelt University and a Doctorate in Educational Technology with honors from Pepperdine University, and she will complete a Master of Business Administration from the University of Florida in December 2012. She was recently recognized as one of 24 emerging leaders in the world by Phi Delta Kappa International.
Darlene J. Sadlier
Sadlier, a professor of Spanish and Portuguese, began her career in the College of Arts and Sciences in 1978. She has been director of the College's Portuguese program for 32 years. Her books cover a wide range of subject matter that includes Lusophone literature, history, film and art. Her recent works of scholarship include "Brazil Imagined: 1500 to the Present" (2008), the first cultural history of Brazil in English, and the forthcoming "Americans All: Good Neighbor Cultural Diplomacy in World War II," a history of the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs (1940-46) and its many initiatives to bolster U.S.-Latin American cultural relations during the war. This book brings to attention the contributions of President Herman B Wells and others at Indiana University. "Brazil Imagined," and her book on Brazilian film director Nelson Pereira dos Santos, will appear shortly in translation in Brazil. She has received numerous awards for research and teaching from, among others, the NEH, the Lilly Foundation, the Fulbright Commission, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation and the Rockefeller Archive Center. In 2009, she won the first-place prize of $20,000 in an international competition sponsored by the Brazilian government for best essay on the novelist Graciliano Ramos. She is currently working on a book about the Portuguese-speaking diaspora in literature and the arts.
