Elizabethtown College Awards Mark Heckler, President of Valparaiso University, Distinguished Alumnus Award

Alumnus receives prestigious Award for Service through Professional Achievement

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ELIZABETHTOWN, PA (11/05/2009)(readMedia)-- At the annual President's Dinner, held in Lancaster, Pennsylvania on October 23, alumnus Mark A. Heckler, Class of 1977, was recognized by the Elizabethtown College Alumni Association. The highest honor given to alumni, the Professional Achievement award is presented to alumni who have made exceptional contributions to the community, professional field or the College. President Theodore Long presented the award to Heckler, the eighteenth president of Valparaiso University in Indiana. Founded in 1859, Valparaiso is a private, comprehensive and independent Lutheran university.

After graduating summa cum laude from Elizabethtown with a Bachelor of Arts degree in communication arts, Mark earned a Master of Fine Arts in directing from Catholic University of America. Currently, he is a doctoral candidate in educational leadership and innovation at the University of Colorado.

Mark has spent the last thirty-one years in higher education. Only two years after graduating from Elizabethtown, he began his career in academia as a professor of fine arts and director of theatre at Siena College in New York. Mark moved to the University of Colorado at Denver as a professor of theatre and ass director of the School of the Arts in 1995. Three years later, he was the founding dean of the College of Arts and Media. The university named him provost and vice chancellor for academic and student affairs in 2003. He became president of Valparaiso University in 2008.

In 1977, the Alumni Association presented Mark Heckler with a student award. The Alumni Association once again honored Mark as an alumnus who has committed his life to continuing the tradition of educational excellence and service he discovered at Elizabethtown College.

Heckler's strong commitment to community and professional service has led him to work with thirty organizations in the past twenty years, with nearly half of his involvement at the board level. Mark lives with his wife, Veronica, and their four children.