​Richmond, Ind. -   Wayne County ATHENA Leadership Awards will accept nominations beginning today (April 29) for its ATHENA Leadership Award, ATHENA Young Professional Award, and the ATHENA Organizational Leadership Award.

Nominations will close at 5 p.m. on Friday, June 7.

Nomination forms are available at waynecoathena.com.

All ATHENA award recipients will be announced before the dinner. The awards will be presented at the annual dinner at 6 p.m. on Thursday, August 8, at Forest Hills Country Club, located at 2169 South 23rd St. in Richmond, Indiana.

The ATHENA Leadership Award® will be presented to an exemplary leader who has achieved excellence in their business or profession, served the community in a meaningful way and, most importantly, actively assisted women to achieve their full leadership potential.

Previous award recipients include Mary Jo Clark, Jackie Carberry, Kim Poinsett, Angie Dickman, Janis Buhl-Macy, Melissa Vance, Tracie Robinson, and Kathy Girten.

The ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Award celebrates emerging leaders. ATHENA Young Professional Leadership Nominees are 18-35 years of age. Nominees demonstrate excellence, creativity and initiative in their business or profession. They provide valuable service to improve the quality of life for others in their community and clearly serve as role models for young women both personally and professionally.

Previous award recipients include Jessie Pilewski, Ashley Sieb, Roxie Deer, and Tai Muldoon.

The ATHENA Organizational Leadership Award recognizes businesses and organizations that ignite, amplify, and celebrate leaders that are women. ATHENA organizational nominees are businesses or organizations, in the profit or non-profit sectors – who create an organizational culture that encourages women employees to achieve their full leadership potential or gives back to the larger community of women and girls by providing and/ or supporting leadership development opportunities and initiatives.

Previous award recipients include Girl Scouts – Wayne and Union County Service Unit and the Boys and Girls Clubs of Wayne County.

ATHENA International is a catalyst for developing diverse, transformative leaders worldwide through experiential programs that ignite, amplify, and celebrate girls, women, and allies —from young scholars to seasoned professionals.

At the heart of everything we do are the Eight Principles of Enlightened Leadership™ (ATHENA Leadership Model®): Live Authentically, Learn Constantly, Build Relationships, Foster Collaboration, Act Courageously, Advocate Fiercely, Give Back and Celebrate.

ATHENA is driven to bring empathy based, compassionate, and inclusive leadership culture to the workplace, educational institutions, and individuals.

For over four decades, ATHENA International has recognized exceptional women and pioneering leaders with ATHENA Leadership Awards on global, national, and community levels. Their impact extends to nearly 8,000 award recipients who stand as change-makers and trailblazers, opening doors of leadership opportunities for girls and women in communities worldwide.

The program is facilitated locally by Wayne Bank and Indiana University East, licensed ATHENA host organizations.

Nominations are sought throughout the community and recipients are selected by a diverse group of community leaders based on the criteria above.

ATHENA Leadership Award® recipients hail from all professional sectors. The award’s rich history, international scope and emphasis on mentorship make this award unique and amongst the most prestigious leadership awards one can receive.  Award recipients demonstrate The Eight Principles of Enlightened Leadership™ in all aspects of their life.

Wayne Bank and Indiana University East are honored to bring this award to Wayne County, established locally in 2014. ATHENA Leadership Award® recipients are presented with a hand-cast, bronze or crystal sculpture that symbolizes the strength, courage, and wisdom of ATHENA recipients.

Proceeds benefit local organizations dedicated to serving leadership building for women of all ages. To nominate visit waynecoathena.com.

For more information contact JoAnn Spurlock, Vice President, Director of Operations at Wayne Bank, at (765) 259-0209, [email protected], or IU East Office of External Affairs at (765) 973-8492 .

Paul Sniegowski Ph.D., a distinguished biologist and the Stephen A. Levin Family Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania, will become the 21st president of Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion on Aug. 1. He succeeds Anne M. Houtman, D.Phil., who will retire in July after a successful five-year term as president.
“Earlham has an important and longstanding place within the distinctive liberal arts tradition in the United States. It is a place that brings together a diversity of people to explore ideas, to learn to think and to go out and contribute to the world for good,” Sniegowski says. “Serving that ideal, and serving Earlham’s students and faculty, is why I am so excited to become part of the community.” 
An Indiana native, Sniegowski received his bachelor’s in music from the Indiana University School of Music; an M.A. in biology from Indiana University, Bloomington; and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago. He joined Penn’s Department of Biology in 1997 after a postdoctoral fellowship at Michigan State University.
Since his appointment as dean in 2017, Sniegowski has been responsible for the direction of Penn’s liberal arts undergraduate curricula, programs and students in academic departments and interdisciplinary programs across the humanities, social sciences and natural sciences. Sniegowski worked closely with faculty members and students in the College and across the university in adapting the College’s teaching during the COVID-19 pandemic, establishing consultative faculty committees to plan for online teaching and steering the College’s return to in-person instruction after the pandemic. Under his leadership, the college launched new minors in environmental humanities and data science and has initiated a review of its longstanding general education requirement. 
At Penn, Sniegowski is an advocate for first-generation, low-income (FGLI) students, participating in the establishment of the Penn First Plus Office and launching a student advisory board in 2018 to provide a voice for FGLI students in the College. He also has played a key role in Penn’s five-year grant to support inclusive teaching in the sciences through the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Inclusive Excellence 3 program, serving as project director in the first year of the grant.
Sniegowski’s scientific work focuses on evolutionary and population genetic theory as a framework for understanding genetic mutation rates and mutational phenomena. His research has been supported by the Sloan Foundation, the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health and NASA; he is a co-author on nearly 70 peer-reviewed and other scientific papers, has mentored dozens of graduate, undergraduate and high school students, and is an award-winning teacher. 
Throughout his career, Sniegowski has also maintained an active commitment to outreach and regularly engages with public audiences to promote better understanding of science. He is currently writing a book, Persistence of Error: A Natural History of Mutation, explaining genetic mutation for non-scientists. 
“Paul has been impressive and thoughtful in his excellent career as a faculty member specializing in evolutionary genetics and as dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania,” says Earlham Board Chair Tom Thornburg ’84. “He is a strong researcher, a frequently honored teacher, and much appreciated academic leader. His work as a faculty member and leader resonates with Earlham’s mission and Principles and Practices. He and his wife, Gail Kienitz, bring to us the knowledge of recent Earlham parents as well.”
Sniegowski and Kienitz, a former associate professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois, are parents to Ben Kienitz Sniegowski ’23. Their daughter, Emma Kienitz Sniegowski, is a 2018 graduate of Kenyon College. Paul and Gail — along with their Golden Retriever, Willa — look forward to deepening their engagement on campus and in Richmond.
“We are coming to Earlham because we want to be a part of this community,” Sniegowski says. “We want to help make this evermore a place where, once you’re here, you don’t want to leave.”

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About Earlham College 
Earlham College and Earlham School of Religion foster a collaborative learning community that inspires and motivates students with transformative opportunities and experiences so they can become catalysts for good in a changing world. Located in Richmond, Indiana, Earlham is one of U.S. News & World Report’s Top 100 national liberal arts colleges and offers one of the top 20 classroom experiences in the nation, according to the Princeton Review.​

Media contactBrian Zimmerman
Director of media relations