Alumni Association will honor members at annual reunion

The Alumni Medal

Created in 1941, the Alumni Medal is awarded to recognize achievement of an exceptional nature in any field, vocational or voluntary, covering an entire career. It is the highest honor the Alumni Association can bestow. Because the value of the medal is defined by its recipients, it has been given sparingly. The medal is awarded to no more than one person each year and is not awarded on an annual basis.

Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada (A.B., ’52) has spent his distinguished career in public service making Bolivia an economic model for neighboring countries and producing far-reaching improvements in the lives of Bolivia’s citizens. Elected to the Bolivian Congress in 1979, he served in a number of leadership roles, culminating in his 1993 election as Bolivia’s 61st President. As President of the Senate and Minister of Planning, Sanchez de Lozada gained popular recognition as author of the 1985 economic “shock therapy” program, which brought Bolivia’s hyperinflation under control and created the foundation for future economic stability and growth. As President, he implemented the Plan de Todos (Plan for Everyone) with economic, social and political reforms to promote ecologically sustainable development. Privatizing the nation’s largest state-owned enterprises, he ensured that each adult citizen received shares in the new companies, which now distribute a yearly lifetime bonus to people over age 65. He has received honorary degrees from Boston University, the University of Senshu, Japan, and the Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Ecuador.

The Alumni Service Citations

Created in 1988, the Alumni Service Citations are awarded for outstanding volunteer work on behalf of the University through service in alumni programs, on advisory committees and through efforts made to ensure the welfare of the institution.

Eve Jones (Ph.B., ’46, S.B., ’48, S.M., ’48, Ph.D., ’53) has had a long and distinguished career as a volunteer for the University Club of Los Angeles. Beginning as a phonathon volunteer and then chairing the Phonathon Program in Los Angeles, Jones subsequently became involved in nearly all the activities of the Los Angeles Alumni Club. During the past three decades, she has held many leadership roles, including newsletter editor, chair of the program committee, vice president, and, most recently, president. As an adjunct to her other service, she founded a Great Books Discussion Group for Los Angeles alumni.

Michael Klingensmith (A.B., ’75, M.B.A., ’76) has applied the results-oriented approach of his corporate career as president of Sports Illustrated and founder of Entertainment Weekly to his volunteer activities at the University. His organizational skills and managerial style have made him an effective leader of several alumni initiatives. From 1992 to 1996, he chaired the University’s alumni magazine advisory committee and designed the magazine’s first readership survey, persuaded a national research firm to conduct it at pro bono rates and wrote the first three years of survey reports. He served on the Alumni Association Board of Governors from 1992-98, the last two years as its president. He is a member of the College Visiting Committee and was named to the University’s Board of Trustees in April.

Beatrice Mayer (E.X.), who studied at the School of Social Service Administration in the early 1940s, has been a member of the school’s Visiting Committee since 1955. Most recently, she spearheaded SSA’s Older Adult Project, promoting gerontological social work among students through field placements, public lectures and enhanced training. She provided financial support for the training through the Nathan Cummings Foundation, which she founded in 1989. The Older Adult Project was a catalyst at SSA, promoting more active collaboration with community agencies and practitioners working with the elderly.

Byron Trott (A.B., ’81, M.B.A., ’82) established and supported the Jeff Metcalf Fellows Program in the College, which supplements undergraduates’ academic training with “real world” experience to prepare them for life after graduation. Under Trott’s leadership, in 1997 the College inaugurated what has become a showcase internship program that has placed students in paid internships at institutions as varied as the Smithsonian and the London office of Goldman Sachs. In addition to his work with Career and Placement Services, he is a member of the Visiting Committee for the College and is helping to raise funds for the new Gerald Ratner Athletics Center.

The University Alumni Service Medal

The University Alumni Service Medal was established in 1983 to honor a lifetime of achievement in service to the University. It is given to no more than one person each year and is not awarded on an annual basis.

Thelma Gruenbaum (A.B., ’52, A.M., ’56) has influenced several generations of students and alumni volunteers in Boston through her work with the Alumni Schools Committee. For nearly 25 years, she has attended countless college fairs, interviewed prospective students and taught many alumni how to be effective volunteers on behalf of the University. In addition to her leadership of the ASC, she was president of the Alumni Club of Boston, was an Alumni Cabinet officer and served as a phonathon volunteer for many years.

The Public Service Citations

The Public Service Citations honor those alumni who have fulfilled the obligations of their education through creative citizenship and exemplary leadership in service that has benefited society and reflected credit on the University.

Gary Gitnick (S.B., ’60, M.D., ’63) is a physician, humanitarian, teacher and scientist, who created a comprehensive program of mentoring, support services and college scholarships for disadvantaged youths. A professor of medicine and chief of the division of digestive diseases at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine, Gitnick created the Fulfillment Fund, with 1,000 volunteers who mentor more than 2,000 bright, disadvantaged or disabled students. The fund’s programs seek to motivate adolescents to complete school, broaden their socioeconomic horizons and facilitate their higher education through tutoring programs and college scholarships. About 93 percent of the students in the Fulfillment Fund’s programs complete high school, and 90 percent go on to college.

Ronne Hartfield (A.B., ’55, A.M., ’82) is an arts administrator and teacher committed to developing relationships among the arts, education and city life in Chicago. From 1974 to 1981, Hartfield served as Dean of Students for the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where she helped thousands of students find resources to continue their studies. She led Urban Gateways, a private, not-for-profit, arts-and-education organization, from 1981 to 1991. During this time, the program was designated a national model for artists’ training and for arts education by the National Endowment for the Arts, and it subsequently won a Presidential Medal for the Arts.

Eva Fishell Lichtenberg (A.B., ’52, A.M., ’55, Ph.D., ’60) is an advocate for the mentally ill and the impoverished, who has devoted four decades to public service in the city of Chicago. In addition to an active career as a clinical psychologist and a forensic trial expert, Lichtenberg chairs the Board of Directors of the Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and is Executive Committee Secretary of the Emergency Fund for Needy People. Lichtenberg’s public service also has reached beyond Chicago with her membership in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum’s outreach committee and in the American Jewish Committee’s Leo Lichtenberg Institute. At the University, Lichtenberg has served on numerous Reunion planning committees, as a Class Agent and on the College Visiting Committee.

The Professional Achievement Citations

The Professional Achievement Citations were established in 1967 to recognize alumni who have brought distinction to themselves, credit to the University and benefit to their communities through their vocational work.

DavÌd Carrasco (Th.M., ’70, A.M., ’72, Ph.D., ’77) is a leading scholar and author on Mesoamerica. While at the University of Colorado from 1976 to 1993, Carrasco received two university-wide teaching awards, as well as the Chancellor’s Book Prize for his first book, Quetzalcoatl and the Irony of Empire: Myths and Prophecies in the Aztec Tradition. In 1984, Carrasco established the University of Colorado’s Mesoamerican Archive and Research Project, and he has directed a number of academic conferences on the nature of Mesoamerican cities and religion, resulting in the series Mesoamerican Worlds, published by the University Press of Colorado. Editor-in-chief of the Oxford Encyclopedia of Mesoamerican Cultures published this spring, Carrasco has been writing about religious dimensions of Latino cultures. He also is on the board of directors of the Latino Public Broadcasting Organization.

Carl Christ (S.B., ’43, Ph.D., ’50) is faculty member at Johns Hopkins University. He has held appointments at Chicago, Princeton, Cambridge, the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Essex, Tokyo and the Bank of Japan. During his years at Chicago (1955-61), Christ worked on testing economic models’ predictive performance, and his findings continue to influence methodology for evaluating models. His Econometric Models and Methods (1966) is one of the earliest econometrics texts. As a natural offshoot of his empirical studies, Christ turned to the problems of formulating national economic policy, in particular, the topic of the government budget restraint.

Nancy DeSombre (A.B., ’61, A.M., ’62) has served as President of Harold Washington College in the City Colleges of Chicago since 1994. Under her leadership, the college has become a key educational player in Chicago, providing a liberal arts education for its more than 7,000 college students and state-of-the-art training for the business community. As an educator, administrator and civic leader, DeSombre has forged links between Chicago’s city colleges and such civic organizations as the Chicagoland Chamber of Commerce, the Grant Park Art Foundation and the Chicago Cultural Center. From 1994 to 1997, she volunteered as President of the Frank Lloyd Wright Home and Studio Foundation and worked with the University on the restoration of Robie House.

Harold Goldsmith (Ph.B., ’49, A.M., ’54) has spent his career developing, implementing and teaching data management systems that have touched everyday community life across America. Over four decades, his research in demography and community ecology has been at the forefront of assessing the need and availability of mental health services and resources in the United States. Goldsmith’s development and implementation of the 1980 Health Demographic Profile System, based on data from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, identified communities that are particularly likely to experience a higher prevalence of mental disorder.

Samuel Harvey Moseley (S.M., ’74, Ph.D., ’79) is recognized as a superstar of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center and an influential contributor to two of the most dynamic and fertile fields of modern astrophysicsóinfrared and X-ray astronomy. Moseley’s airborne infrared work has focused on the nature of interstellar dust and how stellar material is returned to the interstellar medium. Early in his career at NASA, he developed a mid-infrared spectrometer that has helped scientists understand stellar explosions that represent the fundamental source of elemental enrichment of the universe. In X-ray astronomy, he has developed the microcalorimeter, a completely new type of X-ray detector that promises to revolutionize the science.

Lauren Pachman (M.D., ’61) is internationally known for her pioneering research in pediatric rheumatology and immunology, especially of juvenile dermatomyositis. Her research into this rare and debilitating autoimmune childhood disease affecting the muscles and skin has uncovered important new findings about the condition. She has improved clinical patient care with a team-based approach and thorough education for all staff involved in the cases. After five years on the University faculty, Pachman moved in 1971 to Northwestern University Medical School, becoming professor of pediatrics in 1978. She created and currently heads the Division of Pediatric Immunology/Rheumatology at the Children’s Memorial Hospital.

The Young Alumni Service Citations

The Young Alumni Service Citationsóawarded for the first time during the 1992 University Centennialóacknowledge outstanding volunteer service to the University by individuals 35 and younger.

Atreyee Rupa Datta (A.B., ’90) first began to lobby for better and more focused young alumni programming as a member of the Young Alumni Task Force, a group of graduates formed in 1996. She helped create Young University Chicagoans, a group she served as president for three years. Under her leadership, the group has grown into a structured organization with regular mailings, monthly events and an ever-growing core of participants and supporters. Her group has served as a model for groups in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C.

Robert Tell (A.B., ’90, A.M., ’96) was instrumental in developing workshops to teach classmates and alumni how to use the Internet and created the School of Social Service Administration’s first Web site. He continues to act as alumni liaison for SSA and advises its alumni magazine. He also has served as a member of the SSA Alumni Association Board since 1998 and has volunteered for Career and Placement Services programs, participating in SSA career panels as well as University-wide career events.