Alumni Award Winners
Story by Chris Francis '13
John Camardella '03 has become a thought leader in high school religious studies. Across the country, his expertise is reforming curriculums and redefining the goal of secular religious education.
Distinguished Alumni Award - John Camardella '03
The fate of John Camardella ‘03 might have been sealed when he was born the child of a monk and a nun.
His parents met in the service of the church before leaving their orders to marry and start a family. Both became teachers in the Chicago area, where John grew up in one of the most diverse communities in America.
“I was raised by two people who lived lives of service long before I was born,” John said. “My parents taught me that education and care for others weren’t just values, they were practices.”
It seems obvious, then, that John would go on to become a hugely influential voice, providing a model for the theory and practice of public high school religious studies across the nation.
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“At our Easters and Christmases there would be Jewish and Buddhist neighbors, and there would be seminarians from Uganda, Mexico and Poland, so I was raised in this very interfaith, multi-ethnic space as a kid,” John said. “Our family’s attitude toward everyone was ‘come and break bread with us, let us serve you.’”
Inspired by his community and an interest in understanding the past, John came to IWU to study history and education. Even with his wide exposure to culture and faith, he found himself learning more than he expected.
“I did the Cuba May Term course in 2003, and I remember going to Catholic mass in Cuba and being like, ‘What is going on here?’ It was so different from my Italian Catholic upbringing. The mass was the same, but the culture was different, the music was different, the style of preaching was different, everything was different.” John said.
After his father died of illness in 1999, the Illinois Wesleyan Parent Fund ensured that John could still afford to attend the University, and the former IWU athletic director, Jack Horenberger '36, stepped in as a nurturing figure who would not only encourage him to continue his education but hold him accountable for it.
“We had a game in Nebraska my freshman year. It was a long road trip that got us back early in the morning, and I ditched Spanish class that day,” John recalled. “I showed up at basketball practice that afternoon, and Horenberger ripped the hell out of me. He asked me ‘Is this what your father would want?’ Everyone before that moment had told me ‘John, we’re so sorry.’ But Horenberger said ‘John, I care about you enough that I’m going to trust that this honesty and moral clarity is going to get through to you.’”
When Horenberger died the next year, John said it was like losing a second father.
“The professors and coaches at IWU challenged me to think, work, and engage with the world beyond the basketball court and classroom,” John said.
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Horenberger was right to push John, as he eventually became captain of the men’s basketball team and developed as a leader and a scholar. Soon after graduation, he started his career as a high school history teacher and varsity basketball coach, and would eventually earn graduate degrees from St. Xavier University and Harvard Divinity School.
When John first became a teacher at Prospect High School in Mount Prospect, Illinois, he hadn’t received any formal education in religious studies – he only had his unique personal upbringing and his formative but incidental experiences at IWU. But it was enough for him to intuit that the religious studies courses at the high school, which remains his home today, weren’t cutting it.
John’s post-graduate educational opportunities, for which he credits Diane Moore of Harvard Divinity School and Benjamin Marcus of the Freedom Forum, clarified what he thought was missing from religious studies in America’s public schools.
“What most public high schools do is reduce religion to facts and dates and names, and what I tell my students all the time is that, while it’s not incorrect, it’s wildly incomplete. It makes religion seem static and monolithic. But when you step back, you recognize that people sitting in the same pew can have a different and evolving understanding of divinity,” John said.
In 2006, he proposed that he write a new religious studies curriculum for an elective course that focuses on teaching, in his words, “how religion is embedded in culture.” He spent three years writing and rewriting the course while enrolled at St. Xavier, before finally turning it into a course on-offer at Prospect.
The goal of this course is to “give students the language and skills to interact with the infinite possibilities of belief that they will encounter in their lives,” he said. Today, the course enrolls 140 students each year, in a high school of 2,200 students, with a long waiting list of those drawn by John’s reputation.
John’s reputation has now grown beyond Prospect High School and the Chicago area as he is invited to travel, write and further develop resources for educators nationally and internationally. John is a co-author of the “Religious Studies Companion Document,” published by the National Council for the Social Studies to provide guidance to all 50 states on how to address religious studies in the classroom. In 2022 he authored an authoritative collection of resources for public school administrators and educators to promote the methods of his course. And he worked with the International Baccalaureate’s Diploma Program to completely rewrite their Religious Studies World Religion course.
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Throughout his career, John has regularly returned to IWU to share the insight he has gained with those who want to teach and learn like he has.
“My experience at Illinois Wesleyan — and the value it gave me — wasn’t just about learning how to think, but learning how I want to live in the world,” John said. “That’s the same approach I bring to teaching about religion. It’s not just about collecting facts — it’s about cultivating discernment, encouraging intellectual flexibility, and helping students take themselves seriously. This kind of learning doesn’t seek agreement — it invites understanding. And it doesn’t just prepare students for the world as it is, it helps them imagine what’s possible — and work toward a future rooted in peace and justice, one they can imagine, articulate, and begin to build.”
He reserves the greatest credit for his wife, Lindy (Wick) Camardella ‘04, whose support John insists made his success possible, and their children, Peyton, Marley, and Zach. “I hope everything I teach and write helps shape a world where they (and their generation) can live with integrity and courage,” John said.
Loyalty Award - Carol Willis '68
Carol Willis ’68 never got to be the star player. She never even got to be on the team.
Growing up in a time when opportunities for girls to participate in high school athletics were somewhere between scarce and nonexistent, Carol had to watch from the sidelines.
Fast forward 60 years and Carol is finally part of the team.
Through her support of women’s athletics, Carol is as familiar a figure in IWU athletics as anyone else these days. You’ll find her in the stands, watching practice, or visiting coaches and support staff in the Shirk Center.
“This has given me purpose in life,” Carol said.
Carol’s support of IWU athletics started when she learned of a need for new women’s locker rooms. When she connected with IWU Athletic Director Mike Wagner she learned Wagner was in possession of funds to refurbish the men’s locker rooms, but he refused to move forward until he could also begin work on the women’s locker rooms.
Her first contribution to IWU athletics was helping to fund the renovation of the women’s basketball and volleyball locker rooms. She later did the same for women’s soccer.
Carol has been particularly supportive of the Titan softball team, funding a new pavilion for hitting and pitching, a video scoreboard and most recently a row of gazebos where parents and fans of Titan soccer and softball players can gather before and after games.
Her support was recognized in 2021 when the softball field was named Inspiration Field at Carol Willis Park in a moment Carol calls “one of the highlights” of her life. Since then, the newly renovated field hosted the 2025 NCAA Division III Softball National Championship finals.
“Carol is a trailblazer in terms of providing first-class opportunities for women and girls involved in sport,” said IWU Head Softball Coach Tiffany Prager. “Every student-athlete, coach and athletic administrator within the footprint of our campus community has been positively affected by Carol’s generous heart.”
For the past three years, Carol has received handwritten cards from Titan softball players, one of which said, “I wake up happy every day at IWU because of what you have done for us.
“I’m glad that I can inspire these young ladies. They are my passion and my legacy,” Carol said. “And I do this for the women who never got to play a sport.”
Outstanding Young Alumni Award - Natalie Lalagos '12
Natalie Lalagos ‘12 has been an educator since she graduated from IWU a year early. Now she presents at national conferences, not only about her success as an award-winning Spanish teacher, but to share her blueprints for giving multilingual students unique opportunities that make the most of their backgrounds.
Also an early graduate from her high school, Natalie has always been precocious and driven, but at the heart of her ambition is service to others through education.
She originally intended to become a teacher in Spain, having fallen in love with the country after a May term course in Barcelona, but a poorly timed broken ankle and lack of funds made a domestic career with Teach for America far more plausible, starting with a brief stint in the Mississippi Delta.
She soon came to live in a converted flower shop in the 600-person town of Martin, Kentucky, where she became committed specifically to the challenges faced by poor, rural communities.
A large chunk of her career has been as a teacher of teachers, and she describes her Rural School Leadership Academy fellowship as the “best professional development of my life.” But, “When you’re a coach, you watch everyone teach.” And, in 2018, “I realized I missed doing that myself.”
Natalie is a natural teacher, evidenced by the fact that, in her first year after returning to teaching Spanish in the classroom, she earned National Board Certification – an honor that the majority of applicants fail to achieve with their first attempt.
But that’s not why Natalie is a sought-after presenter at language teaching conferences. She is instead becoming known nationally and internationally for her Transformative Translations program.
Natalie returned to the classroom as a teacher on the island of Hawai’i, where the community is prodigiously multilingual, but, “there were no higher-level opportunities for students who speak other languages. Only classes to help students learn English,” Natalie explained.
After finding a collaborator among the University of Hawaii Hilo’s language faculty, Natalie created an educational internship specifically for multilingual students. Transformative Translations, as it’s called, gives students the opportunity to take courses in translation skills, earn college credits, and provide translation services as a paid internship. After five years, the program is now running in four high schools in Hawai’i state.
She has been toying with new ideas for the program’s name, but she might be running out of time as the renown of her program grows. She has won multiple awards since creating the program, including the Southwest regional award for Teacher of the Year (being the first teacher from Hawai’i to do so) as well as state awards for social justice and excellence in education. This summer she will be the opening and closing keynote speaker at Hawai’i’s language teachers’ conference.
Kuleana – a Hawaiian word meaning "privilege and responsibility” – is the term Natalie uses to describe her accomplishments and goals. “I envision our program being a hub for multilingual youth to find opportunities, and our kids’ skills, experience, insight, heart and stories should be at the center of all we do,” Natalie said.