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The Indiana University College of Arts and Sciences honored Patrick Shoulders, J.D. ’78, with its Distinguished Alumni Award. He was celebrated at an event that took place October 24 in Alumni Hall at the IU Memorial Union.

Shoulders has a long record of service to IU and the College of Arts and Sciences. After 10 years of service, including two as chair, on the College’s Alumni Board, he was tapped to serve as the national chairperson of the IU Alumni Association. After that service ended, he was appointed to the IU Board of Trustees. He was elected five times by the alumni and he served for nearly 20 years on the board. He was also a member of the IU Foundation’s board of directors for more than 18 years and served a term on the IU Varsity Club board.

Shoulders received the Hine Medal from IUPUI for his work with the Center on Philanthropy, now the nation’s first school of philanthropy, and he was awarded the Chancellor’s Medallion from IU Southeast for his tireless advocacy in support of residential housing there. During his trusteeship, Shoulders worked closely with IU President Michael McRobbie toward the establishment of six new IU schools, on countless building projects and campus improvements, and spearheaded the construction of an IU Medical Center Campus in downtown Evansville.

Shoulders has practiced law in his hometown, Evansville, for 46 years. He has received numerous honors recognizing his successful legal career, election to the Indiana State Bar Association General Practice Hall of Fame, the bar’s Excellence in Continuing Legal Education Lifetime Award, inclusion in the American College of Trial Lawyers, and the Evansville bar’s highest honor—the James Bethel Gresham Freedom Award. He is a Sagamore of the Wabash and a Kentucky Colonel.