If you’ve been walking around the Wright education building, you’ve likely seen some new banners adorning the light posts. These banners honor just some of our late illustrious alumni who made important contributions to the world of education. We remember and honor them for their many accomplishments.

"The new alumni light pole banners are a great addition to the School of Education to highlight alumni from diverse backgrounds and also individuals who were the first,” said Tina O’Neal, Clinical Assistant Professor and chair of the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion committee. “I am especially excited to see Martha Dawson and Elder Watson Diggs as I enter the building each day. Both of them were trailblazers during their time and have created paths and open doors for other African Americans to follow."

Corazon Baldos

Corazon Baldos was a Professor in the College of Education and Commerce in the University of the East in Manila. She escaped death 3 times during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines during World War II. Baldos was awarded a Fulbright scholarship in 1949 and came to the U.S. to study at Eastern Kentucky State College. She received her doctorate in educational psychology in 1956 from the IU School of Education.

Martha Bernal

Martha Bernal was the first person of Mexican descent to receive her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in the United States. After earning her doctorate at the IU School of Education, Bernal went on to a U.S. Public Health Service Postdoctoral Fellowship, and completed research training in human psychophysiology at the University of California, Los Angeles, Health Sciences Center. In 1966, the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) gave her a grant to establish a laboratory to study orienting responses and classical conditioning in autistic children.

Mark Caress

Mark Caress was superintendent of Crawfordsville Community Schools from 1959 to 1965. During that time, he was also president of the Association of School Superintendents before working as a president of First National Bank for 25 years.

Martha Dawson

Martha Dawson earned her masters and doctoral degrees from the IU School of Education. She returned to IU as a professor of education, the first African American woman to become a tenured member of the IU Bloomington faculty. While at IU, she directed and developed a multi-cultural program centered around working with other professors to address minority students’ learning; the program focused on how to improve the curriculum and the techniques being used in order to best support the students.

Elder Watson Diggs

Elder Watson Diggs was the first African American to graduate from the IU School of Education. In 1910 when Diggs attended IU, he was one of the few African American students enrolled. Indianapolis Public School #42, where he served as a teacher and principal for 26 years, was renamed the Elder W. Diggs IPS School #42 in his honor after his death.

Anna Hyer

When Anna Hyer competed her Ed.D. Audio-Visual Education from the IU School of Education in 1952, she was one of the first women to do so in the male-dominated audiovisual field. Prior to that, she was supervisor of film production at IU in 1949, the first woman in such a position. By 1951 she was head of the Syracuse University Overseas Film Project in Iran, Turkey and Greece. She went to work for the National Education Association in 1958 and, after briefly serving as associate executive secretary, she served as executive secretary of the Department of Audio Visual Instruction from 1958 to 1969 - and simultaneously as Director of the NEA's Division of Audio-Visual Instructional Service, a position she continued to hold at the NEA until her retirement.

Maria Mercedes Manosalva

Maria Mercedes Manosalva graduated from the IU School of Education with a B.A. in Education. Mercedes Manosalva was a member of the Spanish Club, the French Club, the Marquette Club, and the Cosmopolitan Club while at IU. She came from the University of Chile, where she majored in Humanities and Philosophy.

H.A.R. Tilaar

Alumnus H.A.R. Tilaar was professor emeritus at the State University of Jakarta and a highly-influential voice for education in Indonesia. He spent 23 years as an educational specialist for BAPPENAS, the Indonesian government’s central planning agency, serving as deputy director for education and culture and assistant minister for human resource development.