Nadine Coudret named Unsung hero
Tamara Skinner named Inspirational Leader
Nadine Coudret and Tamara Skinner will receive the Women Stepping Up Awards on Aug. 24 at the Women’s Equality Day luncheon.
Coudret is the Dean Emerita of the University of Southern Indiana School of Nursing and will receive the Women Stepping Up Unsung Hero Award. Skinner is the Principal of Harrison High School and will receive the Women Stepping Up Inspirational Leader Award.
The annual awards this year are given in tribute to the late Sallie Wyatt Stewart, who will be named for the Women Stepping Up Legacy Award. Stewart was a long-time educator in Evansville who rose from a childhood of poverty and racial discrimination to become a national leader in efforts to improve life for African American women and their children.
YWCA Evansville, with support from Women Stepping Up, will host the luncheon from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. August 24 at the Old National Events Plaza. The luncheon will feature speaker Lisa Kaplowitz, the co-founder and executive director of the Rutgers Center for Women in Business. Tickets (Friend for $75, Donor for $100, reserved table for eight for $750) are available https://womensequalityday.swell.gives. Sponsorships are also available.
A native of Vincennes, Nadine Coudret was the Dean of the University of Evansville College of Nursing and Health Sciences when the University of Southern Indiana decided to open a School of Nursing and Health Professions. She became the first Dean and over the next 34 years developed a nationally recognized program that drew students from across the country. Before her retirement she also served as USI Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs.N
She served as a consultant in leadership development, academic administration and nursing education for more than 20 health care organization and academic institutions. Including Co-Director and Instructor of Thirteen Continuing Education Programs on Substance Abuse Education for Indiana University Medical Center – Evansville.
She was the founding director of Institute for Alcohol and Drug Studies and Co-Chair of Mid-America Institute on Aging among others.
Coudret has an Honorary Law Degree from USI and received the National Administrative Leadership Award: Association for Gerontology in Higher Education. She was named a Sagamore of the Wabash, a Phenomenal Women of Evansville and twice was an Athena honoree and received the Sadelle Berger Outstanding Community Service Award among others.
Coudret’s education started with the then St Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing. She received undergraduate and master’s degree in education at the University of Evansville as well as a doctoral degree in higher education administration from Indiana University.
Coudret taught at the St. Mary’s School of Nursing and at the University of Evansville before becoming Dean of University there. Her clinical work included the operating room, medical-surgical, psych-mental Health, Long Term Care, and Home Health.
Coudret and her late husband Raymond, have three children, and many grandchildren.
A native of Evansville, Tamara Skinner began teaching English and French at North High School where she started the first TEENPOWER club serving the community by modeling positive choices and sharing the dangers of drugs and alcohol use. This work led to her participation in the planning/implementation of first ever STARPOWER camp, a leadership camp for EVSC students.
Meanwhile she worked her way up the ranks to department chair and assistant principal.
As principal of the Glenwood Leadership Academy, Skinner collaborated with the Evansville Police Department to create the first ever Disney trip with Glenwood students as a reward for exceptional academic progress and character development. This later developed into the Cops Connecting with Kids program, which has taken 10 years of trips to Disney with students from all over the city, forging positive relationships between city and county officers with central city families and youth.
She served as the principal of Plaza Park International Prep Academy for three years before returning to her alma mater, Harrison High School, as principal.
Skinner credits opportunities she was given at McGary and Harrison and mentors such as Jean Rickard, Phyllis Kincaid, Leanne Nayden and Barbara Jones.
She and her husband John Skinner, who is principal of North High School, have two daughters, Brittany and Katelyn, who are proud EVSC graduates. Brittany is a content marketing specialist for the Pott College at USI and Katelyn will begin her teaching career in the EVSC this fall.
Sallie Wyatt Stewart was president of the 100,000-member National Association of Colored Women from 1928 to 1933 and served on its executive committee for 10 years prior to that.
She was the first Black woman to serve as vice-president of the National Council of Women of the United States.
She served as a US delegate to the International Council of Women in Vienna, Austria, in 1930.
She also served as trustee and first secretary of the Frederick Douglass Memorial and Historical Association.
In addition to being an educator, she was an entrepreneur. She was the first Black woman in the United States to earn a real estate broker’s license and own her own brokerage firm. She was so good at running a business, she was elected to the executive committee of the National Negro Business League and the National Colored Merchants Association.
She founded the newspaper Hoosier Women, which provided a voice for Indiana’s African American clubwomen.
Through all of that, however, her focus was on improving conditions for Black women and their children in Evansville.
She taught in Evansville’s segregated schools for an incredible 50 years, first at Douglass High School then at its replacement, Lincoln High School, where she dean and headed the English department until her retirement in 1951. She reached beyond the classroom, conducting fund drives to buy musical instruments and uniforms for the school’s band, and uniforms and equipment for the school’s athletic teams.
She established the Evansville Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs in 1916 to work for neighborhood improvements, better housing and racial equality.
She raised money in 1919 to establish a daycare center for the children of Evansville’s African American women, who were in the workforce long before most white women with kids.
She led efforts to establish a boarding house and recreation center for young Black women who came to Evansville in search of jobs.