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News Release

Last modified: Monday, March 23, 2009

Indiana University to present honorary degree to President Emeritus Myles Brand

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
March 23, 2009

BLOOMINGTON -- Indiana University President Emeritus Myles Brand will receive an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree during the IU Bloomington Honors Convocation on Sunday, March 29.

IU President Michael A. McRobbie will present the award to Brand, who served as the university's president from 1994 to 2002 and since January 2003 has been president of the National Collegiate Athletic Association.

"It is an enormous honor for me and for Indiana University to confer this degree upon Myles Brand, who has done so much to transform higher education in Indiana and across the nation," McRobbie said. "His strategic vision was responsible for the creation of the School of Informatics, the establishment of the Clarian Health system and dramatic increases in private-sector support and research funding at IU. At the NCAA, he has been a forceful advocate for academic excellence, fiscal responsibility and accountability.

"Myles and Peg Brand are greatly valued members of the Indiana University community, and their contributions to the university will long be celebrated."

The Honors Convocation will take place at 2 p.m. at IU Auditorium. It will feature the designation as "Founders Scholars" of 3,240 high-achieving undergraduate students and recent graduates at IU Bloomington.

Provost and Executive Vice President Karen Hanson, who was Brand's colleague in the Department of Philosophy and chair of the department during much of Brand's presidency, said that the Honors Convocation is a particularly appropriate venue for honoring Brand.

"Myles Brand's commitment to academic excellence helped propel IU to new levels of distinction during his tenure as president, and that commitment has been manifest throughout his career," Hanson said. "He is now, as president of the NCAA, such a strong voice for the integration of academic and athletic excellence, a strong advocate for the academic interests of the student-athlete."

Hanson said it also is important to recognize, at the Honors Convocation, Brand's own excellence as an academician.

"Myles is a distinguished philosopher who has made many important contributions to our understanding, particularly in the areas of metaphysics and the philosophy of action, and he has been a leading officer of the profession, someone to whom the American Philosophical Association has often turned for advice and help," she said. "I am simply delighted that we will be honoring our superb President Emeritus, Myles Brand, at an event celebrating the highest standards of academic achievement."

Myles Brand led IU through a period of remarkable growth as the university's 16th president, including record enrollments and national leadership in information technology and the life sciences. Under Brand's leadership, IU established the nation's first School of Informatics, doubled research funding and increased the size of its endowment four-fold and the number of endowed chairs and professors three-fold. He developed the Central Indiana Life Sciences Initiative and consolidated University and Methodist hospitals in Indianapolis to create Clarian Health Partners.

As chief executive of the NCAA, Brand has presided over the most comprehensive academic reform package for intercollegiate athletics in recent history, refocusing attention on the academic achievement and retention of student-athletes. He has emphasized the integration of athletics with the academic mission of higher education and re-established the role of university presidents in governing college sports.

Prior to leading IU, Brand was president of the University of Oregon from 1989-94 and was an administrator and professor of philosophy at the Ohio State University, the University of Arizona and the University of Illinois at Chicago. He earned a bachelor's degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a doctorate in philosophy from the University of Rochester.

He is married to Peg Zeglin Brand, associate professor in the Department of Philosophy at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis.

At the IU Bloomington Honors Convocation, the new Founders Scholars designation will be presented to students who have earned a cumulative grade-point average of 3.8 or higher. Founders Scholars and their families have been invited to the event. The campus also will recognize students who achieve a GPA of 3.5 or higher in a single semester with a letter from the provost.

The convocation is part of Founders Day, the annual celebration of the university's founding in 1820. Honors convocations will be held in the spring on all IU campuses. Also, 19 outstanding faculty members will be honored Friday, March 27, at the university-wide Celebration of Distinguished Teaching, hosted by McRobbie on the Bloomington campus.

More information about the celebrations is at https://www.indiana.edu/~ceremony/founders/.

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