Alumni Association Service Award

• Christine Lodewick '67, a speech pathologist, served for two terms on the UConn Alumni Association Board of Directors, and has also served as co-chair of the Alumni Campaign, as a member of the Programs and Outreach Committees, as well as on the Provost's Commission on the Status of Women. She was awarded the University of Connecticut Alumni Association's 2011 Alumni Association Service Award, an award presented to an alumnus who has consistently provided exemplary service to the University community, enhancing the stature, success, and well-being of the University of Connecticut Alumni Association. A pioneer for the women's philanthropy movement in higher education, she helped to develop the Women's Philanthropy Council at the University of Wisconsin and Indiana University School of Philanthropy, which led to the formation of the UConn Women's Leadership Council. She and her husband, Philip Lodewick '66, '67, have endowed the Lodewick Teachers for a New Era Scholarship Fund and a Lodewick Endowment for the Advancement of Diversity, as well as built the Lodewick Visitors Center.
  
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Distinguished Alumni Award

• Jerold Mande '78, Senior Advisor to the Under Secretary for Food, Nutrition, and Consumer Services at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, who is best known for designing the Nutrition Facts label that appears on virtually all packaged foods, was honored with the University of Connecticut Alumni Association's 2011 Distinguished Alumni Award, which recognizes the outstanding professional, personal, and civic achievements of men and women who are former students of the University of Connecticut. Earlier in his career, Mande worked as a senior legislative assistant, from 1982 to 1991, for then-U.S. Rep. Al Gore, where he helped research and create the National Organ Transplant Act of 1984. As senior advisor for the commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration (1991-1997) and at the White House (1997-1998), he helped shape national policy on nutrition, food safety, cancer, and tobacco control. Mande also served for six years as associate director for public policy at the Yale Cancer Center before joining the USDA in 2009. Among his achievements is the Presidential Award for Design Excellence for his work on the Nutrition Facts food label.
  
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Humanitarian Award

• Bette Gebrian '77, '93, public health director of the Haitian Health Foundation, a nonprofit organization that provides relief services to residents of rural southwest Haiti, received the University of Connecticut's 2011 Humanitarian Alumni Award, which honors alumni who have made outstanding contributions to humanity. Gebrian has used her experience as a nurse, public health practitioner, and anthropologist to design and implement public health interventions and service programs worldwide over the past 20 years. In 1981, she opened Madonna Place in Norwich, Conn., to provide support for women and children in difficult circumstances; it remains an important community resource. After moving to Haiti in 1987, she co-authored an initial Haitian Health Foundation public outreach proposal to the United States Agency for International Development for 28,000 people, which has since extended to 104 villages and 200,000 people. She has developed and computerized a comprehensive health information system still in use that has become vital in achieving high vaccine rates in children and women, sound improvements in maternity care, and feedback of progress from village partners. Gebrian has been recognized by many organizations for significant contributions to maternal and child health and community-based primary health care, and her humanitarian efforts were featured in a 2010 PBS special entitled Saving Haiti's Mothers. She also serves as an associate clinical professor for the School of Nursing, as a clinical instructor at the Department of Community Medicine and Health Care in the UConn School of Medicine, and on the nursing faculty at The Johns Hopkins School of Nursing.
  
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Graduate of the Last Decade (G.O.L.D.)

• U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy '02 of Connecticut has been named the 2011 Graduate of the Last Decade by the University of Connecticut Alumni Association, in recognition of his outstanding service and accomplishments of an exceptional young alumnus who has graduated from the University during the past decade. Murphy is currently serving his third term as the representative for Connecticut's Fifth District, which includes the towns of Danbury, Meriden, New Britain, and Waterbury. Prior to being elected to the U.S. House of Representatives, Murphy served for eight years in the Connecticut General Assembly, during which time he earned a degree from the UConn School of Law. He has distinguished himself throughout his political career by participating in a number of high-profile committees. While in the State Senate, he acted as chairman of the Public Health Committee, leading the passage of Connecticut's landmark stem cell research law, which was influential in the development of UConn's Technology Incubation Center in Farmington, Conn. Today he serves in the U.S. House of Representatives on the Foreign Affairs Committee and the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
  
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