For Immediate Release January 18, 2006

For More Information Contact: Carol Madison, 317-274-4871 Rich Schneider, 317-278-4564 rcschnei@iupui.edu

Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence at IU Launches Hoosier Fellows Program

INDIANAPOLIS - The Randall L. Tobias Center for Leadership Excellence at Indiana University is launching a new program Friday (January 20, 2006) that will use a 1914 voyage of adventure and survival to the Antarctic, urban warfare, and 1,500-year-old religious leadership practices to provide lessons in leadership.

Members of the inaugural class of Hoosier Fellows - mid-career leaders from business, education, government, religion and the non-profit sectors - are embarking on a 10- month study of leadership facilitated by the Tobias Center.

It's been said, “It takes leaders to grow more leaders.” That's the premise of the Hoosier Fellows program. Once they complete the program, Hoosier Fellows will then be better prepared to lead within their own organizations, and to share what they've learned with others.

Hoosier Fellows will be an annual program.

During the first seminar on Friday, Dennis N.T. Perkins, author of Leading at the Edge, will draw upon Sir Ernest Shackleton's famous 1914 Antarctic voyage and survival story as the group explores the essential elements of leadership and high performance teamwork.

Later sessions will include a study on military leadership that includes a trip to the Zussman Urban Combat Training Complex at Fort Knox, and a focus on Benedictine leadership with the monks of Saint Meinrad Archabbey in Southern Indiana. In the sixth century, St. Benedict originated a form of government with rules that are still followed throughout the world today.

The Tobias Center started the Hoosier Fellows program as part of its unique mission to act as a source, collaborator and convener on the subject of leadership. With funding from the Randall L. Tobias Foundation, the center takes a practical approach to leadership studies designed to develop and encourage leaders in the corporate, educational and non-profit arenas, in Indiana and across the nation. The Center is housed at the IU Kelley School of Business Indianapolis on the IUPUI campus and is a collaboration of the Kelley School, School of Education, School of Public and Environmental Affairs and the Center on Philanthropy on the IUPUI and Bloomington campuses.

“The Hoosier Fellows program is a hands-on part of the Tobias Center 's outreach to the people of Indiana,” said Gerald Bepko, former IUPUI Chancellor, interim IU President and the Tobias Center 's Director. “The Fellows will have a unique opportunity to learn about leadership from a variety of perspectives – and learn from each other as well, coming from different walks of life and types of organization. They'll come out of this experience with a wonderful set of tools for leadership in their own careers, and the responsibility to transmit what they've learned to others.”

Businesses and organizations represented by the 2006 Hoosier Fellows class include Cook Group, Suros Surgical, Duke Realty, Emmis Communications, Lilly, State of Indiana, Valparaiso Community Schools, Fathers and Families Resource/Research Center, St. Luke's United Methodist Church, the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, Methodist Health Foundation, Lumina Foundation

Philip L. Cochran is the associate director of the center, and has been selected to succeed Bepko as director after a period of inaugural development. He currently holds the Thomas W. Binford chair in Corporate Citizenship. Though he is based at the Kelley School of Business in Indianapolis, his teaching and research activities are in collaboration with the IU Center on Philanthropy.

Members of the center's Board of Overseers are:

Cheryl Bachelder, who most recently held the position of President and Chief Concept Officer of KFC Corporation, located in Louisville, Ky; Ronald Dollens, former CEO of Guidant Corporation and who was recently selected as the fifth Harold A. “Red” Poling Chair of Business and Government; David W. Goodrich, who serves as President and CEO of the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership; Lee Hamilton, a former Congressman who has acted as the director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars since 1999 and served as vice chair of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (9-11 Commission); Frances Hesselbein, who is the Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Peter F. Drucker Foundation for Nonprofit Management; Marie Johns, former Verizon President for Verizon Washington, D.C.; Lynn Luckow, who recently completed a two year term as President and CEO of Northern California Grantmakers; William G. Mays, who founded the highly successful Mays Chemical Company; William I. Miller, the fifth generation of the founding family of Irwin's Bank.

( Note to reporters: Dennis Perkins and Hoosier Fellows will be available for interviews at noon on Friday, January 20. Please call Carol Madison at 317-274-4871 to arrange an interview.)

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