FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Four Indiana University alumni will receive IU’s Distinguished Alumni Service Award on Oct. 6, during Homecoming weekend on the Bloomington campus. The award is the highest bestowed on an IU alumna or alumnus by the university.
IU President Pamela Whitten will present the awards to 2022 honorees Rev. Franklin E. Breckenridge Sr., Pamela L. Carter, James F. Collins, and Jayma M. Meyer.
Recipients of the award are chosen for service and achievement in their fields, and for significant contributions to the community, state, nation, or university. With the addition of these recipients, IU has honored nearly 350 alumni since the award’s inception in 1953.
The following are brief biographies for each award recipient:
Rev. Franklin E. Breckenridge Sr., BS’63, JD’68
Rev. Franklin E. Breckenridge Sr. has devoted a lifetime of service to furthering civil rights, a mission that led him to become a lawyer and work within the legal system. He enrolled at the McKinney School of Law in Indianapolis around the time of President Lyndon B. Johnson’s War on Poverty Program.
In addition to working as a lawyer and a pastor, Breckenridge also served as a Head Start teacher in Kokomo, Ind. He has held memberships in many professional, legal, business, civic, and social organizations, including the NAACP, which he continues to serve since his retirement from the practice of law. Breckenridge was instrumental in helping form the Indiana Coalition for Black Judicial Officials, which resulted in the appointment of the first African American justices to the Indiana Court of Appeals and Indiana Supreme Court, respectively.
For his outstanding civil rights work, Breckenridge has been the recipient of many awards and accolades, and he has twice received the highest award bestowed by the state of Indiana for community service, the Sagamore of the Wabash. In 2010, he received the Distinguished Alumni Service Award from the McKinney School of Law in recognition of his notable services and achievements in the law, in Indiana, and the nation.
In 1998, Breckenridge and his wife Cora (Smith) Breckenridge, BS’59, MS’63—who became the first African American to join the IU Board of Trustees and who received the Distinguished Alumni Service Award in 2012—established an endowed scholarship to be given to an entering freshman student at IU Kokomo.
Pamela L. Carter, JD’84, LLD’99
Pamela L. Carter has been a social worker, a corporate executive, an attorney, an elected official, and a director of for-profit and nonprofit boards. Her career is varied but connected by a common thread—service to others and the pursuit of excellence. Inspired by a childhood meeting with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., she has sought, throughout her career, to advance people’s rights in ways that strengthened the community overall.
Carter was elected attorney general of Indiana in 1992, making her the first African American woman to be elected state attorney general in the U.S., as well as the first woman attorney general in Indiana’s history. She joined Cummins Inc. in 1997 as the company’s vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, and held numerous business positions there, including overseeing the region of Europe, the Middle East, and Africa as vice president and general manager. She later became president of Cummins Distribution, which has a presence in 190 countries, with over 13,000 employees, and revenues of $6 billion. She was the first woman to hold the position. In 2015, she retired from Cummins.
Carter was named the IU McKinney School of Law Outstanding Alumna of the Year in 2004 and received the McKinney Alumni Association’s Distinguished Alumni Award in 2015. She also received the Bicentennial Medal for distinguished service from Indiana University in 2020. Recent awards include the 2018 Sandra Day O’Connor Board Excellence Award, the 2018 National Association of Corporate Directors Directorship 100, and Savoy magazine’s Most Influential Black Corporate Directors in the U.S. in 2021. Carter holds four honorary degrees.
James F. Collins, MA’65, LLD’99
Ambassador James F. Collins is one of the U.S.’s leading authorities on Russia, the former Soviet Union, and the countries of East Europe and Eurasia. A retired career member of the Senior Foreign Service, he is presently senior fellow and former director of the Russia and Eurasia Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
During a broad and distinguished diplomatic career overseas and in Washington, D.C., Collins served as the U.S. ambassador to the Russian Federation from 1997 to 2001, as well as previously serving in a variety of diplomatic roles in Moscow. Collins’s other postings included assignments in Jordan and Turkey, in addition to a number of senior administrative positions in the Department of State and other government offices in Washington, D.C.
He has received extensive recognition and numerous awards from professional and academic institutions for his contributions, including the U.S. Department of State’s Distinguished Service Award and Distinguished Honor Award in 1993, the Department of Defense Medal for Distinguished Public Service in 1995, and the Woodrow Wilson Award for Public Service in 2016. He holds honorary degrees from several institutions, including IU, and is also an honorary professor at Moscow State University.
Collins has also served on boards and advisory panels of organizations concerned with U.S. foreign policy and American relations with Russia and Eurasia and is a frequent speaker and occasional contributor to publications on Russia and Eurasia. He has appeared often on radio and television in the U.S. and Russia in connection with developments in Russia and Eurasia.
Jayma M. Meyer, BS’75
Jayma M. Meyer is an experienced antitrust lawyer at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City who represents pro bono clients in Title IX matters. She is also a visiting clinical professor at the IU O’Neill School of Public and Environmental Affairs, teaching sports law and public policy. Meyer advocates for the role that sports can play in bringing about social change, with a special emphasis on achieving gender equity in sports through education, activism, and litigation.
She has negotiated Title IX settlement agreements with high schools throughout the U.S. and has co-counseled on Title IX matters with the California Women’s Law Center, San Francisco Legal Aid at Work, Hawaii ACLU, and National Women’s Law Center.
Meyer is a member of numerous sports, academic, and legal bodies, and has received many legal and academic accolades, including the Distinguished Alumni Award from the O’Neill School in 2014 and the IU Bicentennial Medal in 2020. She has served in leadership positions on the boards of the Women’s Sports Foundation, the National Women’s Law Center, and the Sports Lawyers Association—highly recognized national non-profits—in addition to being chair of the O’Neill School Dean’s Council.
Meyer is the author of many articles on college athletics and legal issues for publications such as the Harvard Journal of Sports and Entertainment Law and the Syracuse Law Review. She is a regular lecturer and panelist at universities, conferences, and symposia on sports law issues. She was also one of the top 10 butterfly swimmers in the world in the early 1970s and qualified for the Olympic trials for the 1972 Olympics in Munich.
The IU Alumni Association is a global alumni organization that brings more than 760,000 IU graduates together to support one another and Indiana University throughout their lives.
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