Isabel Piedmont-Smith is a Bloomington native and first-generation American born to German immigrants. She is a graduate of Bloomington High School South and received a BA in History from Oberlin College and an MAT in Social Studies Education from Boston University. She joined the Department of French and Italian at Indiana University-Bloomington in 1996, serving as Department Administrator from 1998 to 2022. Through the years, her tireless, precise, and passionate work was vital to the success of our department in all its areas, from research and teaching to professional service and community engagement, while setting a model of integrity, responsibility, and unmatched expertise for faculty, graduate students, and staff. Isabel was particularly dedicated to our graduate students whom she enthusiastically and thoughtfully welcomed to FRIT, helping to guide them through the challenges of academia and making them feel at home in our department, at IU, and in Bloomington. As a long-standing member of the Bloomington City Council since 2007, she has also been modeling good citizenship in this capacity through her efforts to alleviate poverty, ensure sustainability, and involve the community in local government.
These awards are given to graduate students who provide service to their peers, the Department, the College, and/or the University above and beyond what is normally expected from students pursuing graduate study. We celebrate and appreciate the service contributions of these exceptional graduate students!
The College of Arts