2007 Distinguished Service Citation

A concern for and an interest in history, science and the outdoors brought Katherine Austin to Beloit College in 1963 to major in anthropology. The profound influence of Professors William McCutcheon and Donald Summers and her willingness to risk, think and change, redirected her interests and shifted her toward a major in sociology and religious studies. It was also at Beloit that she met and joined forces with her classmate and husband of four decades, Steve Mahle. As an ordained minister in the United Methodist Church, a guiding force in that church’s Minnesota Annual Conference, and the first woman to preside over the ecumenical Minneapolis Ministerial Association, she has extended her commitment to creating opportunity, fulfilling the expectations, and advancing the spiritual life of her church. Poised and wise, she has broadened her own horizons, offering new visions to those seeking meaning in life, teaching that in every ending there is a beginning. Her Beloit liberal arts preparation has inspired her calling to serve, enhancing this and other educational institutions as well as the quality of the lives of her flock. It is fitting, on this 40th anniversary of her graduation, that the Beloit College Alumni Association should confer upon her its highest recognition, the Distinguished Service Citation.