Giles Reid Hoyt, John W. Ryan award for distinguished contributions

Giles Reid Hoyt Professor of German School of Liberal Arts University Graduate School IUPUI

Interim President Gerald Bepko, Hoyt and IUPUI Acting Chancellor William Plater at the Founders Day ceremony

Hoyt has devoted untold hours to the preparation of the first strategic plan for internationalizing the campus. The plan calls for boosting enrollment of international students, creating more study abroad opportunities for IUPUI students, and strengthening research and service partnerships with institutions outside the United States. He also was instrumental in the upgrading of International House at IUPUI as a way of expanding on-campus housing for international students. And one of Hoyt’s greatest accomplishments is the formation of partnerships between IUPUI programs and compatible institutions in Germany.

Hoyt is well known in Indianapolis for his work with Sister Cities International. He was a co-founder of the Indiana chapter of the organization and was directly involved in developing the ties between Indianapolis and Cologne, Germany, one of its five sister cities.

An expert on the history of German immigration and culture in the Midwest, Hoyt serves as an active and influential board member of the foundation for the Deutsche Haus–Athenaeum, the historic building in downtown Indianapolis that has been a center for German-American arts, athletics and political thought for more than a century. He founded and serves as director of the Max Kade German-American Research and Resource Center, an IUPUI academic unit that is located in the building. With his wife, Dolores Hoyt, who is associate dean of University Library, and their colleagues Ruth and Eberhard Reichmann, Hoyt has overseen publications and conferences through the Max Kade Center, including a recent international symposium on Germany’s 1848 revolutions and their effects on American society. The Hoyts and the Reichmanns have also endowed an IUPUI faculty position in German-American studies and German language and culture to encourage more scholarly interest in Indiana’s largest immigrant group.

Giles Hoyt has made many contributions toward internationalizing the IUPUI campus and promoting German-American studies and the study of German language and culture.