page_title: Theodore Hesburgh
section_title: Honors and awards
hierarchical_section_title: Theodore Hesburgh / Honors and awards
caption_attribution_description: English: Fr. Ted Hesburgh's Presidential Medal of Freedom.
context_page_description: Rev. Theodore Martin Hesburgh, CSC was a native of Syracuse, New York, who became an ordained priest of the Congregation of Holy Cross and is best known for his service as the president of the University of Notre Dame for thirty-five years. In addition to his career as an educator and author, Hesburgh was a public servant and social activist involved in numerous American civic and governmental initiatives, commissions, international humanitarian projects, and papal assignments. Hesburgh received numerous honors and awards for his service, most notably the United States's Presidential Medal of Freedom and Congressional Gold Medal. As of 2013, he also held the world's record for the individual with most honorary degrees with more than 150.
  Hesburgh is credited with bringing Notre Dame, long known for its football program, to the forefront of American Catholic universities and its transition to a nationally respected institution of higher education. He supervised the university's dramatic growth, as well as the successful transfer of its ownership from Holy Cross priests to the Notre Dame Board of Trustees in 1967.
context_section_description: Hesburgh received numerous honors and awards for his public service. In 1964 President Johnson awarded Hesburgh the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest honor. In 2000 Hesburgh was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal, the first person from higher education to receive the honor.
  On September 1, 2017, the United States Postal Service (USPS) released a First Class postage stamp honoring Father Hesburgh in the year of the 100th anniversary of his birthday. The release ceremony was held at Joyce Center at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.
  Hesburgh's awards include, among many others:
  Honorary member of the Austrian Catholic fraternity KÖHV Alpenland (1961)
  Presidential Medal of Freedom (1964)
  The Award for Greatest Public Service Benefiting the Disadvantaged, an annual award presented by Jefferson Awards (1976)
  Alexander Meiklejohn Award (1970) from the American Association of University Professors
  Sylvanus Thayer Award from the United States Military Academy (1980)
  F. Sadlier Dinger Award by educational publisher William H. Sadlier, Inc. in recognition of his outstanding contributions to the ministry of religious education in America. (1982)
  Public Welfare Medal from the National Academy of Sciences (1984)
  Four Freedoms Award for the Freedom of Worship (1993) from the Roosevelt Institute
  Namesake of the TIAA–CREF's Hesburgh Award (1993)
  Indiana Living Legend (2001) award from the Indiana Historical Society
  NCAA Gerald R. Ford Award (2004 inaugural recipient) for leadership in intercollegiate athletics
  Awarded the Sagamore of the Wabash by the Governor of Indiana Mitch Daniels in 2006. 
  Honorary U.S. Navy chaplain (2013)
caption: Fr. Hesburgh's Presidential Medal of Freedom
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