Three receive Distinguished Alumni Award

Left to right: Pam Fischer, Gene Tempel, and Dawn Whitehead

Three alumni of the IU School of Education have received the Distinguished Alumni Award, the highest award given to an alum of the school. The award, founded in 1977, recognizes alumni who have enhanced the reputation of the school by distinguishing themselves in their careers through significant professional and civic contributions to their community, state, and nation.

“As Dean of the IU School of Education, it’s my honor to give out the Distinguished Alumni Award to these three incredibly deserving alumni,” said Dean Anastasia Morrone. “I’m so proud of the work our alumni do and the legacy they leave for our current and future students.”

This year’s DAA recipients will be recognized with an awards presentation and dinner this evening.


Pam Fischer

Pam Fischer (B.S.'88, M.A.'99)

Excellence in PreK-12 Education Award

Pam Fischer was a secondary English teacher for thirty-three years before retiring in May of 2021 and moving to Tucson, Arizona. Her life was profoundly shaped both personally and professionally by the Global Gateways Program beginning with her student teaching placement in Cheltenham, England, in the spring of 1988; she is still close to the Malyons, her host family, more than 35 years later. Indeed, that experience gave her the courage to land a position early in her career at ACS International in Cobham, Surrey, in England where she lived with the boarding school students on campus. Fischer taught at North Central High School, Lafayette Jefferson High School, Lawrence Central High School, and Park Tudor Schools.

Gene Tempel

Gene Tempel (M.A.’74, Ed.D.’85)

Excellence in Higher Education Award

Gene Tempel is Founding Dean Emeritus of the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy and a Professor of Philanthropic Studies. He led the world’s first school devoted to research and teaching about philanthropy. An internationally recognized expert on the philanthropic sector, he has four decades of leadership and fundraising experience. He helped found the school’s precursor, the Center on Philanthropy, and was its executive director for 11 years, transforming it into a leading national resource. Generous donors recently established the Eugene R. Tempel Endowed Deanship at the school to honor Tempel. It will enable future deans to continue the development of the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy to reach its full potential and to achieve its goal of improving philanthropy to improve the world.

Dawn Whitehead

Dawn Whitehead (B.A.’97, M.S.’03, Ph.D.’07)

Outstanding Alumni Award

Dawn Michele Whitehead is the Vice President of the Office of Global Citizenship for Campus, Community, and Careers at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U). Her work focuses on advancing practices and strategies to integrate global, civic, and experiential learning across curricular and co-curricular initiatives and practices that advance equitable participation in global and community-based learning for all for work, life, and citizenship. She serves as the program director of AAC&U’s Annual Meeting, drawing on the broader work of AAC&U members and contemporary issues in higher education to create a compelling and timely meeting. She is also the director of AAC&U’s Institute on Integrative Learning and Signature Work and co-director of the Institute on Teaching and Learning for Campus-Wide Interfaith Excellence in collaboration with Interfaith Youth Core.