Earlham College | News from Public Affairs

Earlham President Emeritus Landrum Bolling with the James L. Fisher Award for Distinguished Service to Education presented to him at the annual international assembly of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education. The award citation reads, in part, “Through more than 50 years of leadership in education, diplomacy, philanthropy, conflict resolution, and international development, your legacy is the wisdom and inspiration you have provided to thousands of students, young and old.”

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. — In recognition of his long and continuing commitment to students and the cause of higher education, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) has bestowed upon Earlham President Emeritus Landrum Bolling its highest honor, the James L. Fisher Award for Distinguished Service to Education.

The award was made to Bolling by CASE Board Chair Rita Bornstein, president emerita of Rollins College, during the international organization’s annual assembly, held this year in Miami Beach. CASE is the world’s largest association of education-related advancement professionals, representing roughly 24,000 members at more than 3,000 institutions in 45 countries.

Bolling was nominated for the recognition by current Earlham President Doug Bennett. Letters of support were submitted by former U.S. President Jimmy Carter — who Bolling served as unofficial emissary to the Palestine Liberation Organization in the late 1970s — as well as University of Notre Dame President Emeritus Rev. Theodore Hesburgh, a long-time friend and a former recipient of the Fisher Award, and Mercy Corps CEO Neal Keny-Guyer. Bolling serves today, at age 91, as the Washington, DC-based director-at-large for Mercy Corps, an international humanitarian relief agency headquartered in Portland, Oregon.

Given annually for more than five decades, the CASE award for distinguished service to education (renamed in 1986 for the organization’s second president) recognizes “individuals, organizations, foundations, corporations or publications for their extraordinary service to education of national and/or international significance, beyond service to a single institution or state.”

Other past recipients of the award include former CBS News President Fred Friendly, former head of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching Ernest Boyer, the United Negro College Fund, the Lilly Endowment, the Ford Foundation and The New York Times.

Landrum R. Bolling

A lifelong Quaker, you have defined, as one of your primary goals, the education and preparation of morally sensitive leaders for future generations — not to maintain the status quo, but to establish leaders who are knowledgeable about the world-at-large and actively engaged in improving humankind.

Ninety-one years young, you have humbly served and educated a remarkably diverse group of people. From your tenures at Beloit College, Earlham College, Georgetown University, the Lilly Endowment, the Council on Foundations, and the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Israel, to name just a few, students around the world have benefited from your vision, incisive teaching, and first-hand involvement in the social sciences and diplomacy.

Not one to rest on your laurels, you have recently served as both namesake and proponent of the Landrum Bolling Fellowships in International Service – a partnership between Earlham College and Mercy Corps. In addition, you continue to lead by example in efforts to raise funds for victims of the Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.
From your early days as a journalist in World War II through more than 50 years of leadership in education, diplomacy, philanthropy, conflict resolution, and international development, your legacy is the wisdom and inspiration you have provided to thousands of students, young and old. Douglas Bennett, president of Earlham College, said it best when he wrote, “We are all still learning from Landrum: learning that each of us is called to be a teacher and peacemaker, learning that each of us can make a difference in realizing the possibilities, born of knowledge, for the advancement of peace and justice… if only we will give our best selves to the effort.”

To this end, the Council for Advancement and Support of Education is proud to present you with the 2005 James L. Fisher Award for Distinguished Service to Education.

John Lippincott
President

Rita Bornstein
Chair of the Board

July 16, 2005

As Earlham’s president from 1958 until 1973, Bolling guided the institution’s emergence as one of the nation’s best small liberal arts colleges by giving particular attention to the strengthening of interdisciplinary and international studies. He played a vital role in establishing Earlham’s student exchange program with Waseda University in Japan and in developing other study abroad initiatives linking consortiums of American colleges with peer institutions in Europe, Asia, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East. Bolling was the founding chairman of the Great Lakes Colleges Association (GLCA), including Earlham and 11 other Midwest schools.

After leaving the Earlham presidency, Bolling served as head of the Lilly Endowment (1973-78), one of the largest grant making organizations in the world, and as chief executive officer of the Council on Foundations (1978-82). In each of those capacities he helped to direct hundreds of millions of dollars toward scholarly and scientific research at dozens of American colleges and universities.

Also during his long service to the academy, Bolling has served as president of the Associated Colleges of Indiana and the Independent Colleges of Indiana, as well as the Indiana Conference on Higher Education. He is a former chairman of the national Association of Protestant Colleges and Universities and a past board member of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, the National Council of Associations for International Studies and the Regional Advisory Committee of the Institute of International Education.

Formerly distinguished research professor in The Institute for the Study of Diplomacy at the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service (1982-85), Bolling also is a past president and rector of the Tantur Ecumenical Institute in Jerusalem, Israel, where from 1985 until 1988 he was deeply involved in facilitating interfaith dialogue between Muslims, Jews and Christians.

Dubbed a “warrior for peace” by former U.S. Senator Mark O. Hatfield, Bolling in June 2000 was co-recipient (with then-Senator George Mitchell) of a “Peacemaker/Peace Builder” award from the National Peace Foundation.

Honored by his undergraduate alma mater, the University of Tennessee, with its prestigious Founders Medal in 1998, Bolling has received more than 30 honorary degrees from colleges and universities around the world. In 2002 the Earlham community recognized Bolling’s many contributions to the College and the world at-large by naming its new $13 million, state-of-the-art instructional building the Landrum Bolling Center for Interdisciplinary Studies and Social Sciences. Among other occupants, the center houses Earlham’s International Programs Office. Bolling also continues to keep his campus office on the second floor of the building.

Contact:
Kevin Burke, director of media relations
765/983-1323 — E-Mail Kevin