Awards

Bicentennial Medal - 2020

About Mark A. Canada

Mark Canada earned his bachelor's degree from IU Bloomington and went on to earn his master's degree and Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.

Canada is chancellor of Indiana University Kokomo. Canada served as IU Kokomo’s deputy chancellor since July 2021 and executive vice chancellor for academic affairs since 2015. He led the effort to begin the IU Kokomo Experience and You, or KEY. KEY is the campus’s signature program of high-impact practices and other transformative learning experiences, including internships, domestic and international travel, research and community projects, retreats, simulations and more, to enrich the student experience. A recipient of the University of North Carolina Board of Governors' Award for Excellence in Teaching, Canada has taught numerous courses in American literature and other subjects. He is the author, co-author, or editor of five books, including Thomas Wolfe Remembered (University of Alabama Press, 2018), Information Literacy for Students (Wiley, 2017), and Literature and Journalism in Antebellum America (Palgrave Macmillan, 2011). His articles on Edgar Allan Poe, Theodore Dreiser, Rebecca Harding Davis, student success, and other subjects have appeared in The Chronicle of Higher Education, American Literary Realism, Journalism History, Southern Cultures, and other venues.

Canada is a past president of the Thomas Wolfe Society, a contributing editor of The Thomas Wolfe Review, a graduate of AALI's Executive Leadership Academy and Harvard's MLE institute, and a member of Phi Beta Kappa. He serves on the board of directors for Habitat for Humanity of the Kokomo Community and belongs to a local chapter of Rotary International.

Canada received the IU Bicentennial Medal in March 2020 in recognition of his distinguished service to Indiana University Kokomo.