ALUMNI HALL OF FAME

Carmen Balthrop
B.M. 1971
Inducted April 22, 1995

Gail Berman
B.A. 1978
Inducted June 5, 2010

The Honorable Mary Stallings Coleman
B.A. 1935, LL.D. (Honorary) 1978
Inducted April 22, 1995

Lawrence G. David
B.A. 1970
Induction June 4, 2005

Leonard J. Elmore
B.A. 1978
Inducted June 10, 2000

Jim Henson
B.S. 1960, D.F.A. (Honorary) 1978
Inducted April 22, 1995

Hugh Newell Jacobsen
B.A. 1951, D.F.A. (honorary) 1993
Inducted June 10, 2000

Wilbur Monroe (Munro) Leaf
B.A. 1927
Inducted April 22, 1995

Liz A. Lerman
B.A. 1970
Induction June 4, 2005

Catherine P. "Cassie" Mackin*
B.A. 1960
Inducted June 5, 2015

Manning Marable
Ph.D. 1976
Induction June 4, 2005

Renaldo Nehemiah
B.A. 1981
Induction June 4, 2005

Michael Olmert
B.A. 1962, Ph.D. 1980
Induction June 4, 2005

Robert M. Parker, Jr.
B.A. 1970
Inducted June 5, 2010

Jane Cahill Pfeiffer
B.A. 1954, LITT.D. (Honorary) 1979
Inducted April 22, 1995

Bios

Carmen Balthrop

Critics have described soprano Carmen Balthrop’s voice as “pure silver.” She debuted with the Metropolitan Opera as Pamina in Die Zauberflote by Mozart and has performed throughout North America, Europe, Russia, and the Far East. A national advocate for the arts, she has even sung an aria for the U.S. Senate. Not only does Balthrop give voice to a world of beautiful music, she shares her expertise as both teacher and mentor to aspiring vocalists at the University of Maryland where, as associate professor of voice, she has taught master classes for over a decade.

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Gail Berman

Gail Berman co-produced the original Broadway production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, earning seven Tony Award nominations. Following Broadway, she produced several successful television series. As Fox Broadcasting Company's President of Entertainment, she developed such hit series as American Idol, 24, and House. She took the network to number one before becoming President of Paramount. She was the first woman, and only to date, to be president of a television broadcast network and film studio. Berman was named one of Fortune's "50 Most Powerful Women in American Business" and Forbes' "100 Most Powerful Women in the World."

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The Honorable Mary Stallings Coleman

As an undergraduate, Mary Stallings Coleman was the university’s first Miss Maryland, singled out for her community service. As a Michigan judge, she served 12 years on the Probate and Juvenile Court, drafting legislation that created the state’s Children’s Protective Services and Office of Youth Services. Coleman was elected Michigan’s first female supreme court justice in 1972 and its first female chief justice in 1979. A member of the Michigan Women’s Hall of Fame inaugural class, she received the Champion of Justice Award from the state’s bar association in 1993.

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Lawrence G. David

Four years after graduating with a history degree, Larry David began his stand-up comedy career, developing a reputation as the “comic’s comic” on stage, while building an extensive list of credits on the big and small screen. Between 1979 and 1982, he served as writer and actor on the late-night sitcom Fridays. In 1984 he wrote for Saturday Night Live. Between 1983 and 1987, David appeared in several films, including Woody Allen’s Radio Days. In 1988, he teamed with Jerry Seinfeld to create the hit sitcom Seinfeld, earning two Emmy awards. Today, David plays himself in HBO’s critically acclaimed, Curb Your Enthusiasm.

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Leonard J. Elmore

Many remember Len Elmore for his rebound records in the 1973-1974 college basketball season. The first at Maryland to complete 1,000 rebounds in a career, Elmore played for the All-ACC team three times and the 1974 All-American team. That same year, the Indiana Pacers selected him in the first round of the NBA draft. Elmore retired in 1984, after 10 stellar years in the league. In 1987, while working as a sports commentator for ESPN, he received his law degree from Harvard University. Lawyer, businessman, commentator, and active alumnus, Elmore was the university’s winter commencement speaker in 1997, the year he was inducted into Maryland Athletics’ Hall of Fame.

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Jim Henson

Jim Henson introduced Washington, D.C., to “muppets” (his amalgam of marionette and puppet) on WRC-TV’s Sam and Friends in 1955 during his freshman year at Maryland. In the decades after graduation, Henson’s creations performed for a global audience on television’s Sesame Street, The Muppet Show, and in three feature films. His creations include Bert and Ernie, Big Bird, Oscar the Grouch, Miss Piggy, and Kermit the Frog, whose likeness has joined Henson’s on a statue located in front of the Stamp Student Union. The statue is a gift of the classes of 1994, 1998, and 1999.

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Hugh Newell Jacobsen

Since starting his own architecture firm in 1958, Hugh Newell Jacobsen has earned more than 110 awards for design excellence. Jacobsen has built commercial and institutional structures in countries around the world, including the American University in Cairo, Egypt; an addition to the U.S. Capitol; and the American embassies in Paris and Moscow. In 2000, Architectural Digest named him one of the world’s top 100 architects. Jacobsen is perhaps best known for his modern homes that abstract traditional styles. The prolific architect has built some 400 houses during his career, including a campus home for Maryland alumni: the Samuel Riggs IV Alumni Center.

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Wilbur Monroe (Munro) Leaf

Munro Leaf, author and illustrator of dozens of children’s books, is best remembered for his signature character, Ferdinand, the Spanish bull, who preferred smelling flowers to fighting in a ring in Spain. Composed in less than an hour one Sunday afternoon in 1935, the book sparked controversy. With the Spanish Civil War raging, political critics charged that it was a satirical attack on aggression. In Germany, the book was burned; in India, Gandhi called it his favorite. Even today, Ferdinand continues to charm children around the world—the story has been translated into more than 60 languages.

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Liz A. Lerman

Before arriving at Maryland in the late 1960s, Liz Lerman attended Bennington College and Brandeis University. In College Park, she found the inspiration for her future in dance. Lerman has operated the Liz Lerman Dance Exchange, first as a school of dance, then as a traveling company. In many performances, she invites young and old, experienced and novice, to express themselves through movement. Lerman has received commissions from the Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Center, and BalletMet. For her work, she has earned a MacArthur fellowship, an American Choreographer Award, and the American Jewish Congress’ “Golda” award, among many others.

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Catherine P. "Cassie" Mackin*

Cassie Mackin, who made her mark in national political coverage, was a pioneering woman journalist in U.S. network broadcasting. After nearly a decade working in print news, she received a Nieman Fellowship to Harvard, where she studied the history of political institutions. Hired at NBC in 1969, Mackin worked as an anchor and reporter at WRC-TV in Washington and became regarded as a tough-minded and tenacious interviewer. She first received national attention in 1972 as NBC's first woman floor reporter covering national presidential conventions—coverage that helped the network win an Emmy award. In 1976, she took over the "NBC Sunday Nightly News" as the first woman to regularly anchor an evening newscast solo. Mackin later moved to ABC, where she continued to cover presidential campaigns and won another Emmy. She died in 1982.

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Manning Marable

In May 1973 while working on his Ph.D. in American history, Manning Marable won the Gewher Award for the Department of History’s best graduate paper. That award foreshadowed countless others that he would earn while defining the black experience in America, from the slave trade era to the latest election cycle. Marable has been a professor of public affairs, political science, and history at Columbia University and a lecturer for the Sing Sing Prison Inmates’ Master’s Degree Program. He has raised awareness of issues related to civil, prisoners’, and labor rights through his nationally syndicated column, “Along the Color Line,” first published in 1976.

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Renaldo Nehemiah

Renaldo Nehemiah is known around the world for his record-setting track and field performances and his years with the Super Bowl Champion San Francisco 49ers. In 1978, he set a world record that still stands today in the 55-meter hurdles. Between 1978 and 1982, he was the world’s No. 1 high hurdler—the first to break 13 seconds in the 110-meter event, running a 12.93 in 1981. In 1982, Nehemiah became a wide receiver for San Francisco, winning the 1986 Jim Thorpe Award for excellence in two or more sports. He was inducted into the National Track and Field Hall of Fame in 1997 and the Maryland Athletics’ Hall of Fame in 1998.

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Michael Olmert

Michael Olmert holds degrees in medieval literature, but his research examines everything from prehistoric man to British colonialism and from architecture to Einstein. He has written and produced for screen and stage while spending years as a lecturer in Maryland’s Department of English. In every case, his many endeavors have brought critical acclaim. Two of his Discovery Channel documentaries have won Emmy Awards, television’s highest tribute. He has also been recognized by organizations such as the American Bar Association and the Phi Kappa Phi honor society. When he’s not writing or conducting classes on campus, Olmert can be found giving public lectures or guiding tours of various European countries. 

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Robert M. Parker, Jr.

One sip of wine changed Robert Parker's life. His innate ability to sense the essence of every wine he tasted made his palate perfect. His passion for writing independent reviews of those wines made him one of the most respected wine critics in the world. His newsletter, The Wine Advocate, along with dozens of books and articles, rated both famous and obscure wines. Parker inspired a significant improvement in wine quality and renewed interest in wine and wine making. Respected around the world, he received many awards, including France's highest honor, the Legion of Honor, and Italy's top Civilian honor, the National Order of Merit.

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Jane Cahill Pfeiffer

Jane Cahill Pfeiffer, who studied speech and dramatic arts at Maryland, joined IBM in 1955 as a systems engineering trainee. She rose through management, serving as IBM’s vice president of communications before becoming an independent consultant to educational institutions and private companies two decades later. Pfeiffer was the first female recipient of a prestigious White House Fellowship in 1966. In 1978, NBC named her as its chairman of the board. Pfeiffer returned to consulting in organization management, communications, and government relations in 1980.

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*Posthumously