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11/18/2004 2:45 AMBy Andrea Hjelm, B.S. '65 When the members of this year’s freshman class arrived in September, they stepped onto the grounds of a great university that has produced a long list of outstanding alumni. For these highest-achieving alumni, the University reserves its Outstanding Achievement Award, which recognizes individuals who have attained unusual distinction in their chosen fields or professions or in public service. So far, more than 1,000 University alumni have received this honor. To name a few: • Kathleen Blatz (M.A. ’78, J.D. ’84) became, in 1998, the first female chief justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Throughout her public service career, including eight terms in the Minnesota House of Representatives, Blatz has been an unwavering advocate for children’s rights. She authored the so-called "Cocaine Baby" law, which requires doctors to report drug-using pregnant women. More recently, Blatz has championed the Children’s Justice Initiative, designed to expedite the process through which children move from foster care into permanent homes. • Ismael Abu-Saad (Ph.D. ’89), born in a tent in Israel’s underdeveloped Negev region, became the first Israeli-Bedouin to complete a doctorate degree. Abu-Saad returned to Israel and is a professor of education at Israel’s Ben-Gurion University, where he is devoted to helping fellow Bedouins, especially women, pursue a university education. In 1998, Abu-Saad established the Center for Bedouin Studies and Development at his school. The center helps prepare Bedouin students for the university and provides financial aid. In four years, the number of Bedouin women studying at the Ben-Gurion University increased from 8 to 120. • Norman Shumway (Ph.D. ’56) performed the first heart transplant in the United States, in 1968. Shumway accomplished this breakthrough at Stanford University, where he is now chair of the Department of Cardiothoracic Surgery. In the years following the first heart transplants, 85 percent of the recipients died, largely due to tissue rejection. Shumway and his team of doctors devised a way to detect signs of rejection and to suppress it with a then-experimental drug called cyclosporine. Today, roughly 80 percent of heart transplant recipients survive the procedure. These and other outstanding University alumni have inspired a magnificent new public art installation under construction outside the McNamara Alumni Center. This alumni wall of honor will span more than 200 feet from the corner of Oak Street and Washington Avenue toward the alumni center entrance. Designed by artist Constance DeJong, a colleague of alumni center architect Antoine Predock, the structure will be covered with an oxidized steel that matches the copper of the alumni center. Within a 20-foot peak, the landmark will feature a "day chamber" in which tiny holes direct sunlight onto an angled stainless-steel panel, creating an impression of constellations. Most important, the work will be a place to recognize outstanding alumni. In fact, the names of all of the University’s Outstanding Achievement Award recipients will be inscribed on the wall of the landmark. This work of art will be accompanied by the Scholars Walk, whose construction began this summer. Lined with newly planted bur oaks, the walk will run west from the alumni center across Northrop Mall to Appleby Hall. It will feature monuments to the U’s Nobel Prize winners and recipients of other prestigious academic awards. Both projects are being built with private funds raised by a nonprofit partnership of the UMAA, the University of Minnesota Foundation, and the Minnesota Medical Foundation. The new landmarks are not only fitting tributes to our outstanding alumni and our highest achieving faculty, they are places of inspiration for current scholars and for today’s students—our future outstanding alumni. | |||||||||||||
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