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On what would have been Kurt’s 99 th birthday this year on November 11, world-famous actor
and comedian Lewis Black was named the new chairperson of the board for the KVML in 2022.
2022 is the year of Vonnegut and “a century of stories” to celebrate Kurt’s 100 th birthday.


KVML Founder and CEO Julia Whitehead said, “It’s unprecedented for our organization to have
this specific scenario. We’ve been trying to become a national organization for many years; it just
naturally will happen with him as board chair.


“His own messages of social justice and just being kind to people, there’s a lot of overlap
between Lewis Black and Kurt Vonnegut. How fortunate for us that he is willing to spend that
time with us and that knowledge and all of the work that goes along with being board chair,”
Whitehead said.


Black first discovered Vonnegut by reading Cat’s Cradle during a summer job as a kid. “Finally
I didn’t feel crazy anymore,” Black wrote. “He made me feel comfortable in what I thought was
my madness. I immediately followed it up by reading Sirens of Titan. And then whatever he
wrote, I would read. He was my psychic road map.”


“If this isn’t nice, what is?”

Click here to read the full-article from Domenica Bongiovanni, Arts and Creativity Reporter for
the IndyStar.

Kathi Badertscher, PhD

Director of Graduate Programs at the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy
Kathi Badertscher, PhD, is Director of Graduate Programs at the IU Lilly Family School of Philanthropy. Dr. Badertscher teaches a variety of BA, MA, and doctoral courses, including Applying Ethics in Philanthropy and History of Philanthropy. She has participated in several Teaching Vonnegut workshops and is a member of the Kurt Vonnegut Museum and Library. Dr. Badertscher has been a guest speaker on ethics in philanthropy, including at the National Association of Charitable Gift Planners – Indianapolis Council; Association of Fundraising Professionals – Indiana Chapter; and Zhou Enlai School of Government, Nankai University, Tianjin, China. In 2019 she received IUPUI Office for Women, Women’s Leadership Award for Newcomer Faculty. In 2019 and 2020 she received the Lilly Family School of Philanthropy, Graduate Teaching Award.
Dr. Badertscher’s publications include “Fundraising for Advocacy and Social Change,” co-authored with Shariq Siddiqui in Achieving Excellence in Fundraising, 5th ed., 2022; “Insulin at 100: Indianapolis, Toronto, Woods Hole, and the ‘Insulin Road,’ co-authored with Christopher Rutty, Pharmacy in History (2020); and three articles in the Indiana Magazine of History: “A New Wishard Is on the Way,” “Evaline Holliday and the Work of Community Service,” and “Social Networks in Indianapolis during the Progressive Era.” Her chapters on social welfare history will appear in three upcoming edited volumes on the history of philanthropy, including “The Legacy of Edna Henry and Her Contributions to the IU School of Social Work,” Women at Indiana University: Views of the Past and the Future, edited by Andrea Walton, Indiana University Press, 2022 (forthcoming). Dr. Badertscher is also the Philanthropy and Nonprofits Consulting Editor for the forthcoming Digital Encyclopedia of Indianapolis, edited by David J. Bodenhamer and Elizabeth Van Allen, Indiana University Press, 2021. Dr. Badertscher is an active volunteer in the Indianapolis community. At present, she is a Coburn Place Safe Haven Board Member and a Children’s Bureau/Families First Brand and Marketing Advisor. Dr. Badertscher holds the MA in History from Indiana University and the MA and PhD in philanthropic studies from the Indiana University Lilly Family School of Philanthropy.

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