Awards

IU Indianapolis Spirit of Philanthropy Award - 2014

About Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation

The Woodrow Wilson Fellowship Program was established in 1945. As it became clear that the G.I. Bill would soon bring unprecedented numbers of students onto college campuses around the United States, Princeton University professor Whitney Oates worried that promising scholars who had left the academy to fight in World War II would not return to pursue advanced degrees and become college teachers. He and Princeton’s graduate dean, Sir Hugh Taylor, persuaded Miss Isabelle Kemp, a private donor, to support the first of a group of graduate fellowships that would attract veterans back to academic careers. Soon leaders nationwide realized the urgent need for a new generation of outstanding college and university professors and the donations soared, allowing the Foundation to become a lasting supporter of American scholars.

Since 2007, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation has partnered with IUPUI to support the Woodrow Wilson Indiana Teaching Fellowship. Thanks to ongoing support from the foundation, this fellowship program features IUPUI and its higher education partners, Purdue University, Ball State University and the University of Indianapolis, in providing an accelerated master’s program in education to talented and committed individuals with backgrounds in science, technology, engineering and math. Program graduates are specifically prepared to teach STEM subjects to middle and high school students in high-need Indiana public schools. By 2014, the Indiana program had prepared 226 new teacher candidates and was estimated to reach more than 22,000 students each year.