Martha M. McCarthy
B.A. in Elementary Education, ’66
M.A. in Elementary Education, ’69
Inducted to the Alumni Hall of Fame in 1990

Martha McCarthy is a Chancellor’s Professor at Indiana University and Chair of the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy studies. She is a native of Louisville, Kentucky and received her undergraduate and masters degrees from the University of Kentucky. She earned her specialist degree and her PhD from the University of Florida. Previously Director of the Indiana Education Policy Center and the High School Survey of Student Engagement, she has also been a public school teacher and administrator.

She has authored or coauthored nine books and more than 200 articles on students' and teachers' rights, church-state relations, equity issues, school privatization, leadership preparation programs, student engagement, and education reform efforts. She has served as President of the Education Law Association (ELA) and the University Council for Educational Administration (UCEA) and Vice-President for Division A of the American Educational Research Association.

Among awards, she has received the Sonneborn Award for distinguished teaching and research at IU (1991), the McGhehey Award for outstanding contributions to the field of school law from ELA (1992), the Living Legend Award from the National Council of Professors of Educational Administration (2002), the Bowman Award for Exemplary Teaching across the IU System (2004), and the Campbell Lifetime Achievement Award from UCEA (2004).

In addition to being inducted into the University of Kentucky Alumni Hall of Fame for the College of Education in 1990, she was named an Alumna of Outstanding Achievement to celebrate the University of Florida’s fiftieth anniversary of admitting female students (1997).