The ASHFoundation Board of Trustees nominates Spirit of Philanthropy Award recipients. Awardees are chosen for sustained and significant philanthropic service that has a widespread impact.
2025
Lauren Calandruccio, PhD
Calandruccio is recognized for her significant, sustained, and effective philanthropic volunteer service to the ASHFoundation. A former ASHFoundation Trustee, she established a legacy of engagement and giving that resonates to this day. Notable for her development of the University Giving Program, known today as the University Engagement Program (UEP), Calandruccio is responsible for a significant increase in the ASHFoundation’s connections with faculty and students across the country. As the program evolved, Calandruccio remained a champion for increasing the diversity of institutions represented in the UEP. She has left an indelible mark on the ASHFoundation.
2024
Nancy A. Creaghead, PhD, FASHA
For more than 35 years, Dr. Nancy A. Creaghead has been a fierce advocate and supporter of the ASHFoundation, using her platform to advance research and scholarship in the discipline of communication sciences and disorders. Dr. Creaghead’s volunteerism is widespread; she has served as President of the ASHA Board of Directors, President of the ASHFoundation Board of Trustees, Ambassador for the ASHFoundation’s University Engagement Program, and a team member during the ASHFoundation’s Virtual 5K Walk/Run. In addition, as a Legacy Leader, she has committed to supporting the ASHFoundation through planned giving.
Today, Dr. Creaghead is a Professor Emerita in the Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders at the University of Cincinnati. She has been responsible for teaching in the areas of language acquisition and intervention and has a special interest in language and learning problems in children, phonological disorders, and intervention in school settings.
Dr. Creaghead goes above and beyond in her support of the ASHFoundation. She is always willing to lend a helping hand in developing new fundraising events and uses her vast experience to help the ASHFoundation connect its fundraising to its CSD roots. Further, Dr. Creaghead expands the ASHFoundation’s reach by introducing new people to its impactful mission and programs and bringing them along to engage with her. As one ASHFoundation board member put it, “[Dr. Creaghead was] instrumental in my involvement with the Foundation.” Thank you, Dr. Creaghead, for your leadership and philanthropy-forward approach to your work.
2023
Lesley B. Olswang, PhD, CCC-SLP, FASHA
Lesley B. Olswang PhD, CCC-SLP, FASHA has demonstrated a career-long commitment to the ASHFoundation as a donor of 35 years and a visionary leader whose work has promoted the ASHFoundation to a new generation of donors and created new pathways for engagement. As a long-time ASHFoundation volunteer, Dr. Olswang has held several leadership roles including for the 1989 Treatment Efficacy Conference, 1993 Research Mentoring Conference 2014 Implement Science Summit, 2018 launch of the Researcher-Practitioner Collaboration Grant, and as a member of the ASHFoundation Board of Trustees and the Vice President for Programs and Awards (2012-2018).
Dr. Olswang’s commitment to the ASHFoundation is seen throughout her work. In her current role as Professor Emeritus in the Department of Speech and Hearing Science at the University of Washington Seattle, Dr. Olswang has nurtured their University Giving Program (UGP) through her own giving and by encouraging other UGP ambassadors who, in turn, influenced others to support the ASHFoundation’s mission through annual giving.
As an ASHA Fellow and ASHA Honors recipient, Dr. Olswang also uses her experience to support the ASHFoundation in effectively reaching a wide range of communities and bringing along the future generations as it seeks to spark innovation. She helped develop communication efforts to expand donor prospecting for the critical support that the ASHFoundation provides for the scientific bases of the professions of speech-language pathology and audiology. She also helped to expand programmatic and stewardship alignment through personal letter-writing and individual connection making between students and past recipients of ASHFoundation funding. These are just a few of the outreach strategies she helped initiate that the ASHFoundation continues to benefit from today. The ASHFoundation is grateful for Dr. Olswang’s leadership and for living her philanthropic values every day.
As she writes, “Simply, the ASHFoundation has long served as a major player in moving the discipline forward in the most creative, interesting, and timely ways. I always knew that time spent on ASHFoundation activities would result in something tangible and important for our profession and the individuals it serves.”
2022
Alex F. Johnson, PhD, CCC-SLP, FASHA
Alex F. Johnson, PhD, CCC-SLP, FASHA is a longtime supporter of the ASHFoundation, having supported its efforts to support innovators and spark innovation for more than 30 years. Throughout that time, Dr. Johnson has made significant impact at key points in the ASHFoundation’s history: including spearheading significant fundraising efforts around its 60th anniversary (2006), expanding the ASHFoundation’s partnership with ASHA (2015), and supporting the launch of the University Giving Program through MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston, one of the early programs gaining 100% faculty participation in giving.
Dr. Johnson is a thought leader for change in advancing the ASHFoundation’s mission and goals, steadfastly advocating to make the ASHFoundation stronger. He has mentored countless individuals, including many ASHFoundation Board members who want to emulate his charitable spirit. He is noted by his peers as a kind and generous man who is humble regarding all his accomplishments, and there are many. Dr. Johnson served as president of ASHA (2006); was named a Fellow of ASHA and received the Honors of the Association (2013); and served on the ASHFoundation Board of Trustees (2010 – 2016), during which he served as the Organization Committee chair (2012-2013) and as the Board’s president (2014-2016).
While Dr. Johnson retired in July 2022 as Provost Emeritus from MGH Institute of Health Professions in Boston, where he had served as provost since 2008, his impact continues to be felt throughout the ASHFoundation. As one colleague wrote, “If a ‘family tree’ of people who found their origins with the ASHFoundation was established, a major branch would come from Alex!” The ASHFoundation thanks Dr. Johnson for his decades of support for our mission and the importance of philanthropic practice.
View Spirit of Philanthropy Award recipients before 2022 [PDF].