On December 6, 2024, MIU celebrated 90 faculty and staff members who have served the university for 30 years or longer. Many have worked for more than 40 years, and topping the list was Dr. Robert Keith Wallace, MIU’s founding president and current Chair of the Department of Physiology and Health, who has served for 52 years.

The day included three events: a banquet, an awards ceremony following the banquet, and a special concert that evening in the Golden Dome by the twice-Grammy-Award-nominated vocalist Chandrika Tandon.

MIU President Dr. Tony Nader gave the keynote address at the awards ceremony. Each honoree received a Lifetime Achievement Award, a medallion, a copy of Dr. Nader’s new book, and a substantial cash honorarium.

“I see this as recognition for the highest level of what humanity can be,” President Nader said. “You will always be remembered as a symbol of the highest values that humanity can give. You truly deserve this award. Thank you for being here.”

The Lifetime Achievement Awards banquet was held in the main dining room in the Argiro Student Center.

“It took a special group to comprehend inestimable significance of the life-changing knowledge we received from Maharishi at the founding of the university,” said President Emeritus Dr. John Hagelin at the banquet. “It takes a special heart, a special mind. You gave and have given for decades. What you have done is so important for the history of education, for the history of the world. Everything you do is precious. You have created the community we know as MIU. You’ve built it. You deserve all credit for it.”

The event was inspired last spring by the Board of Trustees Personnel Committee, co-chaired by Dr. Laura Wege and Josie Fauerso, who spent months helping plan and fundraise for it.

“What an absolute joy it was to help plan these special events for you, the heroes that have been working and teaching at the greatest university in the world,” Laura Wege said. “You are precious not only to MIU, you are precious to the whole world.  We love all of you here, and we are so deeply grateful that you chose the path you did in life.”

The awards ceremony included short talks from four representative long-term faculty and staff members.

Anne Dow, chair of the Mathematics department, recalled her first visit to MIU, for the historic Taste of Utopia Assembly, which brought together 8,000 TM and TM-Sidhi program participants for three weeks to create a global wave of harmony and which Maharishi attended. “I was invited suddenly, along with the other mathematicians, physiologists, and scientists at MIU, to attend a special meeting with Maharshi,” Anne said. “At that meeting, Maharshi explained that chemistry was the study of nature from the viewpoint of structure. And mathematics was the study of nature from the viewpoint of orderliness. And it was at that moment that I realized that I was going to quit my tenured faculty position at University of Queensland and get here within one year, whatever it took.”

Anne also recalled the academic projects Maharishi gave the faculty. “We had project after project where each department worked together to go deep, deep, deeper into their discipline and to the source of their discipline in the field of pure consciousness,” she said. “Our growth of consciousness and growth in our disciplines was phenomenal.”

Matt Jaffey, a programmer systems analyst in the IT department, applied to work at MIU in 1980, only to learn that there were no open positions. “After several attempts, I gave up and found another job, in Chicago,” Matt said. “Then, a day before I was to start it, I got a call with a job offer from MIU. I think of this as nature’s organizing to give me an opportunity to choose between a salaried position at a prestigious organization affiliated with the University of Chicago and working in the kitchen in the pot room. . . . But I knew that this was the best place to go to continue my own spiritual evolution.”

Matt took time out to get a degree in computer science at MIU and was then hired by the Computer Services department, where he has worked ever since. “Throughout the years, I have been grateful that MIU provided me with an opportunity to work in a job that has been such a dharmic match for me. And it has been very satisfying to provide my services to so many staff and faculty, many of whom I count as long-time friends in our spiritual adventure in this haven created under Maharishi’s guidance to promote Consciousness-Based education.”

Ruthann Bollinger, who works in the Accounting Services department, remembers moving to MIU from Houston, Texas, with her late husband Robert. “Now, with no disrespect to downtown Houston, the contrast in moving to the MIU campus was quite dramatic. I felt that we had arrived in some heavenly place. We hardly knew anyone here at that time, but I felt that everyone who walked by me on the sidewalk looked like a saint. Everyone who spoke to me sounded like a saint. Everyone greeted us with so much friendliness and appreciation and support. And all of that only grew over time and transformed our experiences and our lives here, both inside and out. Our decision to work at MIU was the best possible decision we could have made thirty years ago. I can’t imagine having been anywhere else or having done anything else other than working for Maharshi in this holy place.”

Ken West, a lecturer in photography in the Cinematic Arts and New Media department, also served as the director of MIU printing services and later as treasurer. He attended MIU during its first year, 1973–74, when it occupied a rented motel complex in Santa Barbara, California. In 1974 MIU relocated to Fairfield, Iowa, and Ken returned in August 1977 to work on staff. On his first night in Fairfield, as he looked across the campus, the light shining out from hundreds of residential hall windows reminded him of an ancient Indian text that advised surrounding oneself with people on the same spiritual path — people pursuing the highest goal in life, higher states of consciousness. “So that evening when I looked out on the sparkling lights, each light a place where a meditator was living, I knew that this was my home for the rest of my life — a place where I could serve Maharishi and his goal of bringing world peace to all mankind. Here we are 47 years later. A life worth living.”

Josie Fauerso, who was among the first university trustees, also addressed the award recipients. “In the future,” she said, “your grandchildren and great-grandchildren will hear your stories of coming to the heartland of America, to a neglected campus, and turning it into a haven of enlightenment. An accredited university educating people from more than a hundred countries all over the world. And a beacon light of Maharishi’s Vedic knowledge right here in America. And this is a life worth living.”

Lifetime Achievement Award Recipients

Robert Keith Wallace • Susan Tracy • Craig Pearson • Melissa Pearson • Ken West • Cathy Gorini • Jim Shrosbree • Isabelle Levi • Michael Lerom • Brad Mylett • Tom Brooks • Harry Bright • Bill Goldstein • Craig Shaw • Vicki Alexander Herriott • Scott Herriott • Mike Shay • Tom Hirsch • Chris Jones • Ken Daley • Tom Egenes • Greg Guthrie • Elaine Guthrie • Sandy Nidich • Carolyn King • Robert Schneider • Anne Dow • Jim Karpen • Dennis Heaton • Dale Divoky • Rachel Goodman • Mike Davis • Sue Brown • Sandra Rosania • Nick Rosania • Martin Schmidt • Jane Schmidt-Wilk • James Bedinger • Linda Bedinger • Jonathan Worcester • Randy Bales • Bill Graff • Paul Morehead • Dolores Johnson • Sam James • Matthew Beaufort • Julie Beaufort • George Collum • Terry Fairchild • Fred Travis • Andy Cozzens • Marc Bouttenot • Gerry Geer • Richard Thompson • Keith Levi • Clyde Ruby • Jane Aikens • Jim Fairchild • David Fisher • Joanie Romes • Kris Wood • Sherri Shields • Rosemary Spivak • Michael Spivak • John Runkle • Susan Runkle • Lyle Nelson • Maxwell Rainforth • Rhoda Orme-Johnson • Bill Sands • Kit Healy • Dan Wasielewski • Ruthann Bollinger • Matt Jaffey • Sam Boothby • Ken Cavanaugh • Steve McLaskey • John Salerno • Shepley Hansen • Jerry Dee Lawley • David Goodman • Bruce McCollum • Bill Christensen • Arla Rabalais

You can  view the photo album here and the individual award recipient photos here.