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The Alumni Association will honor its Spring Awards recipients at a banquet on April 6. Festivities begin at 6:30 p.m. and will be held in the Spence and Cleone Eccles Reception room at Rice-Eccles Stadium. In addition to the two honorees profiled here, the Association will recognize and celebrate many of the recipients of its more than $500,000 in annual scholarships, along with the awardees of its Lowell Bennion service fellowships. Register online by March 31 to attend the banquet.
PAR EXCELLENCE AWARD: Matthew T. Sanderson BA’05
The Alumni Association's Young Alumni Board presents its Par Excellence Award annually to a former student who attended the U within the last 15 years, in recognition of his or her outstanding professional achievements and service to the community as well as the University of Utah. This year's honoree, Matthew Sanderson, is a lawyer making a big splash in Washington politics.
Sanderson is perhaps best known among college football fans as the lawyer who co-founded the Playoff PAC, a political action committee formed to lobby on behalf of a college football playoff. Playoff PAC was nominated in 2011 for Sports Illustrated’s Sportsman of the Year award for its work to bring down college football’s unpopular former post-season system, the Bowl Championship Series.
While the Playoff PAC is impressive, it’s only a side note compared to what Sanderson has accomplished in his career thus far. After receiving his bachelor's degree from the U in 2005, he obtained his law degree from Vanderbilt University in 2008. After graduation, he headed to work in Washington, D.C., where he is a member in the Political Law Practice Group of Caplin & Drysdale, advising major corporations, political committees, and advocacy groups on campaign finance, ethics, and lobbying rules. He has served as general counsel for Senator Rand Paul’s 2016 presidential campaign, outside counsel for Governor Rick Perry’s presidential campaign, legal counsel for Mitt Romney’s Commonwealth PAC, campaign finance counsel for Senator John McCain’s 2008 presidential campaign, and general counsel for a government reform commission created by Utah Governor Jon Huntsman, Jr. Sanderson, along with the rest of The Colbert Report team, received the Peabody Award in 2012 for efforts related to television personality Stephen Colbert’s Super PAC.
Sanderson is also a lecturer at the University of Virginia School of Law, where he teaches an advanced course on campaign finance regulation, and a trustee of the American Council of Young Political Leaders. He lives in Northern Virginia with his wife, Emily, and their four children.
PERLMAN AWARD: Stephen C. Alder PhD’02
The Alumni Association presents this award annually to faculty or staff who have exemplified excellence in student counseling. The recipient this year, Stephen Alder, is chief of the Division of Public Health at the U and has mentored and provided opportunities for countless students to make an impact on global health issues.
Alder is a professor of Family and Preventative Medicine and head of the Public Health at the U, where he holds adjunct appointments in Internal Medicine, Obstetrics and Gynecology, and Health Promotion and Education. Since joining the Department of Family and Preventive Medicine in 1995 as a founding member of the Health Research Center, he has been active in various forms of clinical and population-based research.
As the faculty advisor for Global Health Scholars in the Honors College since 2009, Alder has mentored, taught, and counseled thousands of students in majors impacting global health issues. He has also been instrumental in initiating the University’s Global Public Learning Abroad programs where students from a variety of disciplines—both grad and undergrad—participate in community-engaged scholarship in Ghana, Peru, India, Armenia, China and Uganda. Alder is also working to develop a Junior Global Health Scholars program for high school students.
Alder has had a vast and positive influence on countless students and communities. As one student wrote in a hand-written letter: “Thank you Dr. Alder for being an amazing leader… and for helping develop other community leaders. You are honest, dependable and approachable, and your advice has always helped me reach a thoughtful decision.”
Other leadership roles Alder fills include president of the Association of Accredited Public Health Programs and serving as a member of the Framing the Future: The Second 100 Years of Education for Public Health Task Force. He also co-directs the Community Outreach and Collaboration Core for the U’s Center for Clinical and Translational Sciences and is Chief Science Officer for the developing Institute for Health Care Transformation.