+ Dr. Lisa Kuhmerker, In Memorium

Dr. Lisa Kuhmerker, Professor, Educator, and Founder of the AME

In Memoriam

Dr. Lisa Kuhmerker died April 29, 1998 at the Palliative Care Center at Beth Israel-Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. Born in Vienna, Austria, Lisa emigrated to the United States in 1938. She lived in the New York City area until the mid-1980's, when she moved to Cambridge to work with Lawrence Kohlberg at Harvard University's Center for Moral Development and Education. In recent years, she divided her time between Cambridge, Massachusetts, Sarasota, Florida and the home she dearly loved in New Lebanon, New York. She was 71 years old.

A graduate of Brooklyn College, Dr. Kuhmerker also received a Masters and a Doctorate of Education and Psychology from Yale University. After several years of teaching at Mills College in New York City, Dr. Kuhmerker became a Professor of Education at Hunter College in New York City, retiring in 1986.

In 1976, she founded and served as the first president of the Association for Moral Education, which is dedicated to bringing together professionals interested in the moral dimensions of educational theory and practice. The Association established the Kuhmerker Award in her honor, in 1982, to recognize individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the field of moral education.

Dr. Kuhmerker established the Moral Education Forum and was its editor for twenty years. She was also on the Board of the Journal of Moral Education in England, published several books on the theory and practice of moral education and traveled extensively to work with educators all over the world, including those in the former Soviet Union.

Dr. Kuhmerker was a member of the Harvard Institute of Learning in Retirement.

Lisa is survived by her loving companion, Kingsley Sanders; her children, Kathryn Kuhmerker Appel of Niskayuna, New York and Peter Kuhmerker of Alexandria, Virginia and their spouses Steven Appel and Lynne Kuhmerker; her three granchildren, Carolyn, Lauren and Jared; and, her sister, Doris Marmorek of Jackson Heights, New York.

In 1997, Lisa established a charitable foundation to foster activities that would make the world a better place in which to live. It was her hope that this foundation would give individuals the "gifts of time" they needed to bring this about. In recognition of her wishes, her family requests that donations be made to the Gifts of Time Charitable Foundation, 2452 Hilltop Road, Niskayuna, New York 12309.

+ Past Kuhmerker Dissertation Award Recipients

2023 Saetbyul Kim, Department of Educational Studies, The Ohio State University. Enriching Civic Learning Experiences in Elementary Social Studies Classrooms to Prepare Students for Purposeful Citizenship.

2022 Katherine Kristalovich, Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto. The Moral and Ethical Dimensions of Dialogic Critical Literacy Learning.

2021 Rodrigo Riveros, Department of Psychology, University of Southern California. A neuropsychological exploration of low-SES adolescents’ life goals and their motives.

2021 Matthew Hastings, School of Education University of Colorado Boulder. Left to Our Own Devices: Education and Attention for a Digital Age

2021 Allegra Joie Midgette, School of Education, University of California, Berkeley. Gendered Household Labor Distribution & Morality: Social & Moral Reasoning about Household Chores in Chinese & South Korean Families

2020 Tyler Colasante, University of Toronto, CANADA. Guilt in childhood: Intersections with regulatory functioning and implications for aggression.

2020 Jacob Fay, Harvard University, MA. Injustice and education, Theorizing about injustice in education: An ecological approach.

2019 Andrew Scott Conning, Harvard University, MA. How people learn to think globally: Mapping and measuring the development of internormative cognition.

2018 Hyemin Han, Stanford University, CA. Neuroscientific and social psychological investigation on psychological effects of stories of moral exemplars.

2017 Amie Senland, Fordham University, NY. A mixed methods analysis of moral reasoning and empathy during the transition to adulthood in young adults with high functioning Autism Spectrum Disorder.

2016 Sarah Forster-Heinzer, University of Fribourg, Switzerland, Against all odds: An empirical study about the situative pedagogical ethos of vocational trainers.

2015 Rachel Wahl, University of Virginia, Charlottesville USA, Learning norms or changing them? State actors, state violence, and human rights education in India.

2014 Wouter Sanderse, Radboud University Nijmegen, The Netherlands, Character Education:
A Neo--Aristotelian Approach to the Philosophy, Psychology and Education of Virtue

2013 Matthew J. Hayden, Columbia University, New York, Cosmopolitan Education and Moral
Education: Forging Moral Beings Under Conditions of Global Uncertainty

2012 Eveline van Vugt, University of Amsterdam, Moral Development and Juvenile Sex
Offending

2011 No award

2010 Scott Seider, Harvard Graduate School of Education, Engaging adolescents from
privileged groups in social action

2009 Graham McDonough (PhD, University of Toronto), The Moral and Pedagogical
Importance of Dissent to Catholic Education

2008 Sharlene Swartz (PhD, Cambridge University), The moral ecology of South Africa’s
township youth

2007 Caroline Maclaine Guzman (PhD, Fordham University), Moral Judgment and Truancy in
Delinquency

2006 Maria Sciaino (EdD, University of Central Florida), for a dissertation in
English, Presuppositions in Moral Education Discourse: Developing an Analytic
Framework and Applying it to Several Moral Education Traditions

Karin Heinrichs (PhD, Johannes Gutenberg Universtät Mainz), for a dissertation in a
language other than English, Judging and Acting: A Process Model and Its Moral
Psychological Specification

2005 Bryan Sokol (PhD, University of British Columbia), Children’s Conceptions of Agency and
Morality: Making Sense of the Happy Victimizer Phenomenon

2004 no award

2003 Christopher H. Anderson (PhD, University of Minnesota), for a dissertation in English,
The Rhetoric of Republican Education and the Teaching of Politics in American Schools,
1776--1860

2002 John Tyler Binfet (PhD, University of British Columbia), for a dissertation in English, The
Effect of Reflective Abstraction Versus Peer Focused Discussions on the Promotion of
Moral Development and Prosocial Behavior: An Intervention Study

Gerhard Minnameier (PhD, Johannes Guttenberg University of Mainz), for a dissertation in a language other than English: Entwicklung und Lernen kontinuierlich oder diskontinuierlich? Grundlagen einer Theorie der Genese komplexer kognitiver Strukturen und Struktur genese moralischen Denkens; Eine rekonstruktion der Piagetschen Entwicklungslogik und ihre moraltheoretischen Folgen (Development and Learning: Continuous or discontinuous? Fundamentals of a theory about the genesis of complex cognitive structures; Structural genesis of moral thinking: A reconstruction of Piaget's development logic and its moral theoretical consequences)

2001 M. Kyle Matsuba (PhD, University of British Columbia), for a dissertation in English,
Caring for Their Community: Study of Moral Exemplars in Transition to Adulthood

Gunter Becker (PhD, Frien Universitat Berlin), for a dissertation in a language other than
English, Kohlberg und seine Kritiker in der Moralpsychologie: Eine
forschungsgeschichtliche Analyse (Kohlberg and His Critics in Moral Psychology: An
Historical Research Analysis)

2000 Karl H. Hennig (PhD, University of British Columbia), Mapping the Care Domain:
Conceptualization, Assessment, and Relation to Eating Disorders

1999 no award

1998 Elena Mustakova Possardt (PhD, University of Massachusetts at Amherst), The Ontogeny of Critical Consciousness

1997 Daniel James Vokey (PhD, University of Toronto), Reasons of the Heart: Moral Objectivity and Moral Education

Lene Arnett Jensen (PhD, University of Chicago), Different Habits, Different Hearts:
Orthodoxy and Progressivism in the United States and India

1995 John Harrison Taylor (PhD, University of British Columbia), Moral Climate and the
Development of Moral Reasoning: The Effects of Dyadic Discussions between Young
Offenders

1994 Mary Louise Arnold (EdD, Harvard University), The Place of Morality in the Adolescent
Self

1993 Marion Mason (PhD, Ohio State University), The Role of Expanded Social Participation in
the Transition from Stage 3 to Stage 4 Moral Judgment in Late Adolescence and
Adulthood

1992 no award

1991 Marilyn Sterner Keat (PhD, Pennsylvania State University), Moral Education: Toward New Foundations in the Hermeneutic Synthesis of Aristotle and Kant

1990 Kathleen Chafey (PhD, University of Minnesota), An Exploration of the Linkages among
Selected Components of Moral Behavior

1989 Dawn Ellen Schrader (EdD, Harvard University), Exploring Metacognition: A Description
of Levels of Metacognition and Their Relationship to Moral Judgment

1988 Deborah Deemer (PhD, University of Minnesota), Moral Judgment and Life Experience

1987 Jyotsna Vasudev (PhD, University of Pittsburgh), A Study of Moral Reasoning at Different Life Stages in India

1986 Stephen Joseph Thoma (PhD, University of Minnesota), Improving the Relationship
Between Moral Judgment and External Criteria: The Utilizer and Non Utilizer Dimension

Gil Noam (EdD, Harvard University), Stage, Phase and Style: Developmental Dynamics of
Self and Morality

1984 Cheryl Armon (EdD, Harvard University), Ideas of the Good Life: A Longitudinal/Cross Sectional Study of Evaluative Reasoning in Children and Adults

1983 John R. Snarey (EdD, Harvard University), The Social and Moral Development of Kibbutz
Founders and Sabras: A Cross Sectional and Longitudinal Cross Cultural Study

+ Submission Instructions

Association for Moral Education Kuhmerker Dissertation Award

The Association for Moral Education gives an annual Kuhmerker Dissertation Award for an outstanding doctoral dissertation (e.g., Ph.D., Ed.D., Psy.D.). The annual award gives recognition and commendation to doctoral students addressing work that informs, develops, or relates to the understanding of moral development, moral functioning or moral education. The AME invites submissions from all fields, including psychology, philosophy, pedagogy, and cultural studies. The AME invites dissertations from recent doctoral students of any nationality.

Authors do not need to be a member of the Association to receive the award. The dissertation must have been completed and the degree awarded within 3 years (36 months) prior to the submission deadline.

The top three nominees will receive an honorable mention and a free AME membership for a year. Moreover all three are invited to attend the conference and present their work. If they do, AME will reimburse up to $250 to help with registration fee, hotel and travel expenses.

To apply, please submit the following materials (all in English) electronically by the given deadline to Tobias Krettenauer, Chair, AME Dissertation Award Committee email: tkrettenauer@wlu.ca.

• A letter of introduction that explains the most important contributions that your dissertation makes to the field. Such contributions may be to theory, methodology, using unusual respondent samples, or addressing particular social or educational policy or practice issues. This should not exceed 2 pages. • A letter from your mentor, who will normally have served in an advisory role during your doctoral work, but may be someone else exceptionally familiar with your work. • A 3000-word summary of your dissertation. This should include a summary of your theoretical approach and argument, and if your dissertation is research-based, your methods, your main results and some discussion of their implications. • Details of your contact addresses (mail and email), phone number(s), the dates of your doctoral program and award of degree, name and department of the institution awarding the degree, and the name(s) of your dissertation supervisor(s) and examiner(s), including their institutions.

The Dissertation Award Committee will short-list appropriate submissions for progression to the next stage. Those short-listed will be invited to submit their complete dissertation, as a .pdf file.

+ Call for Nominations: AME Kuhmerker Career Award

The Kuhmerker Career Award recognizes exceptional individuals who have made outstanding, long-term scholarly contributions that have made a significant impact on the fields of moral psychology, philosophy, or education, or civic or values development and who have shown extensive commitment to the life, leadership, and functioning of the Association for Moral Education. (See full description at https://www.amenetwork.org/awards-and-grants). The Award Committee seeks nominations for this year’s award and particularly welcomes nominations that reflect the cultural, geographical and disciplinary breadth of the organization’s membership and activities.

The winner’s name will be announced in the AME Conference program and a plaque will be presented at the conference. Subsequently, a detailed description of the awardees' accomplishments will appear in the AME Forum newsletter.

Please submit Letters of nomination, or queries, to the current award program chair, Dr. Wiel Veugelers, w.veugelers@uvh.nl. Letters of nomination should explain how the nominated person satisfies the Award criteria. More details of these criteria can be found at the next tab. The deadline for submission is June 30.

+ Criteria and Instructions for Letters of Nomination

A Nomination can comprise one letter, but additional letters are welcome. We suggest that the letter be between 400 and 1000 words in length.

The nominator should make clear the nature of their relationship or connection to the nominee. Letters will be treated as confidential to the committee and their authorship will not be disclosed to nominees.

The Letter should show how the Nominee meets the following criteria:

1. Scholarly leadership within the field.

Reflected in articles published in refereed journals books published by peer-reviewed publishers, citations in scholarly publications, or other evidence of recognition of scholarly achievement or influence. These, cumulatively, must demonstrate one or more of the following:

a) substantial innovative and influential contributions to the relevant research literature in education, psychology, sociology, anthropology, philosophy, or a related field;

b) long-standing contributions to ethical theory or moral philosophy;

c) the development of a relevant assessment instrument or strategy adopted by a significant number of researchers;

d) the publication of resource material and critical analyses helpful to researchers and/or practitioners; and/or,

e) the creating of an innovative education program adopted by a significant number of practitioners.

1. Leadership and/or other long-term service within the association, for example as:

a) Board Member,

b) Office holder in one or more positions over the years,

c) Conference Chair,

d) Regular host and mentor of students at AME conferences,

e) Creator or coordinator of a SIG,

f) Regular presenter at AME conferences over the years.

The deadline for receipt of nomination letters is June 30. This is an updated submission deadline. (Nominations received after the deadline will be retained for next year’s award.). Please send letters, or queries concerning nomination to the current award program chair, Dr. Wiel Veugelers, w.veugelers@uvh.nl.

+ Past Career Award Recipients

James Conroy (2023) Kaye Cook (2022) Bill Puka (2021) William Damon (2020) Lawrence Blum (2019) Sharon Lamb (2018) Larry Nucci (2017) John Gibbs (2016) Wiel Veugelers (2015) John R. Snarey (2014) Marvin W. Berkowitz (2013) Nobumichi Iwasa (2012) Helen Haste (2011) Robert Selman (2010) Ben Spiecker (2009) No award (2008) Anne Colby (2007) Monica J. Taylor (2006) Norman A. Sprinthall and Lois Thies-Sprinthall (2005) Stephen J. Thoma (2004) Fritz Oser (2003) Wolfgang Edelstein (2002) Augusto Blasi (2001) Ann Higgins D’Alessandro (2000) No awards (1998-1999) Clark Power (1997) Mary Brabeck (1996) Don Cochrane (1995) Lawrence J. Walker (1994) Dwight R. Boyd (1993) No awards (1991-1992) Richard L. Hayes (1990) Muriel Bebeau (1989) Howard Radest (1988) Edwin (Ted) Fenton (1987) Margot Strom and Bill Parsons, Jr. (1986) Marcia Mentkowski (1985) Ralph Mosher (1984) James R. Rest (1983) Lawrence Kohlberg (1982)

+ 2022 – Geoff Thomson

• His program Youth Charter (non-governmental organization) promotes a benefit for a community. His mission statement consists of to provide sport, art, cultural and digital activity to develop the mental, physical, and emotional resilience and life-skills of young people and in particular the disadvantaged and disaffected in communities where anti-social, gang-related activity and extremism is experienced.
• His proposal of practice is exemplary, interesting, and impactful to moral educators, because his program delivers social and human initiatives with specific emphasis on moral values: dignity, honesty, integrity, respect of self, equality, diversity, and inclusion.
• It is possible to replicate his practice even with adaptations for other circumstances. The Youth Charter tackles educational non-attainment, health inequality, anti-social behaviors and the negative effects of crime, drugs, gang related activity and racism by applying the ethics of sporting and artistic excellence. These can then be translated to provide social and economic benefits of citizenship, rights responsibilities, with improved education, health, social order, environment and college, university, employment, and enterprise.
• His practice be verified by a credible testimony. In 2019 he was included in the Top 100 BAME Leaders in Business List and was named in the Evening Standard’s top 1000 influencers in London. He was also awarded an honorary professorship of the International Business School at Xi’an Jiao tong-Liverpool University, Suzhou, China.

+ 2021 – Bill Puka

Through his teaching, writing, exemplary practices, motivating college students to action; creating the Be Your Own Hero organization, recipes for being good...Bill Puka is the exemplar of GOOD WORK. He tirelessly reminds all through writing, philosophies, psychology and teaching, and being amoral exemplar himself to be good.

He spearheaded the Soup Lunch in Glasgow AME to give the excess money we would have spent on lunch to the community. He contributed as a AME Board member to make this an organization that DOES something and not just a conference.

He encourages us all through his writing and speaking to "walk" with the spirits of starving children as we go through our day to day lives, and he calls for social justice, better theories and more daily action.

His dedication to raying consciousness and leading to action is demonstrated in the many daily things he has done as a professor of 50 years, now retired, but still writing every day. As a professor, he made national news leading a protest at his university, with students from his class to Save the Union critiquing higher education authority, the president, and advocating for democracy and student-self-governance.

+ 2020 – Bryan Sokol

At the 46th AME Conference organized by the University of Toronto, from October 28 to November 1, 2020, the committee, formed by Maria Rosa Buxarrais (Chair), Jay Brandenberger, Susana Frisancho and Andrew Garrod, that evaluates the candidates presented, from the different universities and institutions participating in the Conference, for the Good Work Award, decided to give the award to Bryan Sokol, an Associate Professor, Department of Psychology at Saint Louis University (SLU), MO, USA. and Director of the Center for Service and Community Engagement.

Some of the reasons that have contributed to his election, among others, are the following:

His work links moral theory to educational practice in a substantive way. Bryan has been engaging SLU students and faculty in an impressive array of service opportunities at SLU, within the city of St. Louis, across the country, and in other parts of the world.

His ability to create partnerships within the university, as well as between the university and the community, even creating a database of community partners that students can access.

Under Bryan’s stewardship, the Center has raised the SLU’s community service profile to the point that it is now recognized as a national leader by the Carnegie Foundation, the Princeton Review, and the Washington Monthly. The Center has expanded and clearly differentiated between the different types of service experiences in which students and faculty may participate, including civic engagement, community engagement and service-learning opportunities.

He is equally dedicated to promoting the formation and well-being of young people, both in and outside of the college classroom and has built a strong culture of assessment and evidence-based decision-making among both staff and students and guides them in recognizing personal strengths and setting challenging goals for deeper growth, particularly from a vocational lens of life-long, servant-leadership. In fact, his commitment to teaching and mentoring students, even in his administrative role as the CSCE director, is why he was selected to represent the Division of Student Development on the University-wide Undergraduate Core Committee (UUCC).

The committee believed it was especially fitting to honour the outstanding and influential work of Bryan Sokol during 46 AME Conference.

+ 2019 - the Japanese school and professional practice of Furikaeri(振り返り) / Hansei(反省)

The 2019 Good Work Award goes to “the Japanese school and professional practice of Furikaeri(振り返り) / Hansei(反省)”, as represented by Mayumi Nishino. According to Dr. Meyer Knapp, Hansei and Furikaeri are squarely directed towards moral benefit, not just for those actually conducting the practice, but for the wider community as well. In schools the evaluative process includes aiming to get better academic results but goes much deeper. It focuses on collaboration and the avoidance of conflict, on the inclusion and contribution of each person affected and on kindness and care. Furikaeri and Hansei are integral equally to high quality results and to harmony, two characteristics for which Japanese society is rightfully admired worldwide.

Furikaeri entails students gathering in pre-existing groups to review their recent endeavors, an evaluation based on goals previously established, moving on then to set the group’s next near-term goals. Furikaeri meetings are based on a commitment to collaborative, honest and careful self-evaluation, and an acceptance that this leads to results which will be better tomorrow than those achieved today.

In contrast to the teacher/counselor/vice-principal structure prevalent in US schools, where an authority from above makes assessments of children’s behavior, in Furikaeri the participants themselves are required to analyze events, to set down their findings and determine follow-on activities. This is just as true when troubles arise as when the classroom is humming along. If there is an altercation in the playground, everyone nearby at the time will participate in the discussion. The task is not to identify who “caused it.” Everyone, on-looker, ignorant outsider or participant, is focused instead on what each of them could be doing in the future to prevent that kind of trouble arising in the first place. By the time Japanese students leave high school they have become skilled at self-evaluation, and they have also become skilled at inventing strategies for improving the quality of work and relationships for themselves, their team-mates and colleagues.

+ 2018 - Dr. Clark Power

Dr Power’s nomination was accompanied by several articles related to his innovative work with the Play Like a Champion sports program and his World Masterpieces Seminar that provided humanities classes for homeless individuals. In addition, the nomination noted his extensive service to AME and research and implementation of moral education/just community initiatives. The GWA committee believes that Dr. Power’s good work meets the criteria of the award at the highest level. In the words of Ann Higgins-D’Alessandro:

In these examples, Clark worked not only to help others, but to respect and honor them, to offer them experiences through which they could explore who there were and who they wanted to become, what they knew and how much more they wanted to learn, and finally, that these experiences would be experiences in community with fellow-feeling, good-will and trust.

+ 2018 - GREM – GRUP DE RECERCA EN EDUCACIÓ MORAL (Research Group on Moral Education)

The group’s long-time commitment to developing and providing ethically grounded and inclusive research, training and educational materials in the fields of moral, service and citizenship education impressed us. GREM serves as an invaluable resource for students, teachers and researchers in Spain and Spanish speaking Latin American countries. At the request of Professor Araujo, we wish to give special recognition to Professor Josep Maria Puig, founder of GREM. Professor Puig is well known in Brazil for his “innovative approach to moral education incorporating the mainstream” ideas of theorists and researchers from the US with “a critical, creative and innovative perspective that tried to broaden the focus” of moral education by integrating the insights and research of European thinkers. The committee believes it is especially fitting to honor the outstanding and influential work of GREM during our conference in their home city of Barcelona.

+ 2017 - Dr. Zehavit Gross

DR. ZEHAVIT GROSS SELECTED AS 2017 AME GOOD WORK AWARD WINNER

The AME Good Work Committee members selected Zehavit Gross, holder of the UNESCO Chair for Values Education, Human Rights, Democracy, Tolerance and Peace Education at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, as the 2017 award winner. Dr. Gross is a true moral exemplar with a sustained passion and dedication to enhancing the peaceful coexistence of the people in Israel and the world. Letters from her students gave powerful testimonies about the impact her course ‘Democracy and Education’ has had on their perception of “the other.” They believe the course truly made a difference in how they will act in the future. Moreover, Professor Gross’s research and publications on the topic of peace education not only substantiate the theoretical underpinning of her course and help to improve it, but also ensure that many academics and professionals can learn from her experiences. As one letter of support read: “the nominee’s strength is her open-mindedness and innovation, focusing on areas of research, which are extremely important in today’s world. She is able to draw on her own, personal background, and brings a range of experiences and expertise to her major areas of research, resulting in an innovative and exemplary approach.” In accepting the award at the 2017 AME Conference, Zehavit expressed how personally moved she was to hear the words of her former students that were quoted during the ceremony. “You have the ability to generate change, to teach people to love one another, to accept, not to judge, and to talk - and that's the most important thing. I wish the whole world could reach this level of understanding that we're all fellow human beings and we all want to live in peace and tranquility, justice and care.” The AME Good Work Award is a most deserved addition to the signs of recognition Professor Zehavit Gross has received from other learned societies.

+ 2016 - Dr. Kyle Matsuba

Dr. Kyle Matsuba was given the 2016 Good Work Award for the synthesis of his scientific interests in moral exemplarity and mindfulness, and his long-term commitment to supporting the development of a community of young people in Uganda through the MindUP Program.

After his important scientific work on moral exemplarity, Kyle Mastuba of Kwantlen Polytechnic University has become a moral exemplar himself by implementing MindUP in Uganda, where he works with teachers and students to improve the well-being of children who live in post-conflict areas.

MindUP is a programme based on neuroscientific and cognitive research promoting academic success through the learning of mindfulness. The programme has been extensively studied and has shown to lead to an improvement of children’s academic achievement, well-being, emotional responsiveness and executive functioning. While MindUP was not developed by Kyle Matsuba, he brings the programme to a place where children are clearly in need of support in improving their well-being – a place that is not the most comfortable and easy to work in, to use an understatement. He has worked in Uganda many times for shorter and longer periods.

The fact that he has also dedicated time and energy to (successfully) enthuse colleagues, students and friends to contribute in one way or the other to his project is another reason to deem him a most worthy award winner.

For an interview of Kyle Matsuba by former Good Work Award winner Dan Hart, click here (Forum 2017)

+ 2015 - Dr. Robert Enright

In recognition of his outstanding contribution to spread forgiveness around the world by developing workshops and therapy on the basis of excellent research the 2015 Good Work Award was given to Dr. Robert Enright, professor in the Educational Psychology Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Dr. Enright began with a weekly seminar in 1985 on the psychology of forgiveness. This seminar, which was well attended, was an extra-curricular event and ran for 17 years. Since 2002 Enright and his team have been applying the research to educational settings and have developed extensive curricula material. They have held workshops on forgiveness education for teachers in cities and countries around the globe. Enright and his colleagues have co-authored 17 curriculum guides for teachers working with all age groups. A guide for parents and two anti-bullying guides were also developed. His Forgiveness Therapy work is an evidence-based treatment, helping clients with a diversity of highly traumatic histories (incest survivors, elderly women hurt by uncaring family members).

The programs and treatment clearly promote the well-being of not only the pupils, parents and teachers or the clients involved, but also benefit their relationship with the people to whom they offer forgiveness and the people who are forgiven. The programs are replicable by other teachers who want to assist children in offering forgiveness and can be used by schools that want to diminish bullying by pupils.

Dr. Enright has developed the 20-step Process Model of Forgiving and the Enright Forgiveness Inventory, which is now used by researchers worldwide. He has published over seven books and a hundred other works. The programs as well as the extensive research, and the books and articles written by Enright are of significant interest to moral educators.

Dr. Enright is a founding member of the International Forgiveness Institute, Inc., which is "dedicated to helping people gain knowledge about forgiveness and to use that knowledge for personal, group, and societal renewal." For further information and many testimonials, visit this website.

+ 2014 - Rev. Gregory Boyle

Rev. Gregory Boyle, SJ and Homeboy Industries

For demonstrating the power of boundless compassion and enduring solidarity with former gang members through effective programs of moral intervention and personal development.

Homeboy Industries clearly promotes the well-being of former gang members in the Los Angeles area. It provides educational services, employment services of various nature and legal assistance. The homeboys and homegirls, as they are called, work within the organization thereby not only contributing to their own development and life support, but also to the sustainability of the organization by selling all kinds of foods and merchandize. Thus, Homeboy Industries increases liberty, opportunity, equality, safety, fairness, mutual respect and concern. Homeboy Industries has grown into a flourishing organization in which former gang members can find a new way of life. The website explains, among other things, the reason of the success of the organization: "Homeboy Industries is unique among other organizations serving former gang members for a number of reasons. We have learned in that time that jobs are probably about 80% of what these folks need to redirect their lives. The other 20% is a mixture of therapeutic and support services. So, in addition to paying men and women to receive job training, we also require that they spend part of their working day here working on themselves. We offer education, therapy, tattoo removal, substance abuse treatment, legal assistance, and job placement services. We also offer six different social enterprise businesses where trainees can receive real job training that they can use immediately upon graduation from Homeboy. And we provide all of this in a trauma-informed, therapeutic community setting that also allows them to work on attachment repair and buildsing healthy relationships with co-workers who may formerly have been members of rival gangs." Father Greg is an exceptional person. Homeboy Industries would not have been the success it is without his endless dedication. His book Tattoos on the Heart is most commended to learn more about Father Gregory Boyle's life, work and inspiration. It will certainly inspire you.

+ 2013 - David Rowse

"He had a vision and he also had the patience and gravitas to carry it through." - Helen Haste

The 2013 Good Work Award was presented to David Rowse for his lifelong dedication to improving the lives of disadvantaged young people who experience many difficulties in their lives and seem to have been written off by society, by founding and maintaining the charity Collegiate Centre for Values Education for Life in Birmingham (UK), and founding two schools for these young people. Within these schools, that can be called true examples of just communities, the importance of moral values for these young people is passed on among others by structured dialogue, the moral ethos of the school and by dedicated teachers. Testimonies of the success of the schools can be found on the website of the organization: http://vefl.org.uk/about-us

Drawing attention to the importance of moral values in many ways, is one of the strengths of David Rowse (in addition to his seemingly endless energy in continue to do so long after his official retirement). He has not only founded schools, but also started the journal Ethos that is distributed free of charge, developed courses for teachers, which are valuable for teachers and beneficial to their pupils, and was one of the initiators of the Values Education Council UK that influences (the values of) policy in the United Kingdom.

+ 2012 - Dr. Marcia Mentkowski

In 2012 the Good Work Award was presented to the Valuing in Decision-Making Department of Alverno College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to be received by Dr. Marcia Mentkowski. The work of the Valuing in Decision-Making Department not only contributes to the flourishing of academics working in disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, science and to the well-being of professionals working in areas like nursing, education, business & management, professional communications and technology, but also to the well-being of the people that are served by those professionals.

Mentkowski describes the central aim of the department as: members engage in the scholarship of teaching and learning related to Valuing, maintain disciplinary expertise, and continue service to their disciplines and professions. Valuing members also expect themselves to develop interdisciplinary and inter-professional understanding and experience for optimizing each student’s learning of the Valuing ability, and to support each student’s learning and development in the campus culture (italics by GWA committee).

"Alverno has been a leader in this field of supporting and assessing students’ moral and civic formation for decades. The work of that department, and especially its long-time leader Marcia Mentkowski, provide unique exemplars of the intersection of sophisticated and evolving theory; highly visible and recognized empirical research; effective educational practice; high quality, thoughtful, usable assessment; and broader institutional transformation. The work she and her colleagues have done on the Valuing in Decision-Making Ability, as it is taught and assessed across the Alverno curriculum and co-curriculum, has been a shining example of a best practice in higher education for nearly 40 years and continue to rigorously demonstrate its long-term influence on student learning. I give it my highest recommendation." - Professor Anne Colby

Through various publications: Valuing at Alverno: The Valuing Process in Liberal Education (1980), Valuing in Decision-making: Theory and Practice at Alverno College (1992) and Learning that Lasts (2000), members of the Department have enabled other academics to serve their students and through them society at large. Moreover, members of the Department provide various workshops, give presentations at conferences and collaborate with other institutions.

+ 2011 - Dan Hart

Dan Hart, Ed.D., is the Distinguished Professor Rutgers University and Director of the Center for Children and Childhood Studies. His work is not only designed to accumulate social scientific data, but to improve the lives of the "subjects" he is researching. He has even brought some of the poorest, most troubled children in his sample into his very home to live and faced the difficulties this entailed. He is the very personification of the Good Work Award.

The Camden STARR program, founded by Dan Hart and Robert Atkins in 1995, is a volunteer organization that promotes civic identity and responsibility in children through both recreation and mandatory community service projects in Philadelphia, Camden and southern New Jersey. The adolescents involved gain knowledge of civics and what it means to be a responsible member of a community through STARR. Many youth in the Camden area live in dangerous neighborhoods where these kinds of communal connections are difficult to foster, thus the moral and civic development gained through STARR is not normally an option for these adolescents.

"Dan’s work in Camden is exceptional. … Few scholars as productive as Dan would think it a good use of their time to spend a week each summer in Vermont with 30-40 adolescents from Camden backpacking, swimming, and stargazing. Moreover, even fewer scholars would be willing to devote the hours required to get a Commercial Driver’s License (CDL) so that they can drive hundreds of hours to Vermont, on camping trips in New England, and day trips to go bowling, ice skating, canoeing, and white water rafting. Finally, few scholars of Dr. Hart’s repute would be willing to alter their work schedule to accompany adolescents from Camden to college visits, dental appointments, and juvenile justice court dates (some of the STARR youth have, unfortunately, run afoul of the law). Dan has taken youth from the STARR Program to visit colleges in New Jersey and New England, accompanied them to have cavities filled, and spent more hours in Camden juvenile justice courts than many lawyers."

Dan Hart has also written various articles and book chapters about topics that are related to the method of the STARR program is well as numerous articles that can be said to be related to the mission of STARR. His article with Donnelly, Younniss and Atkins in the American Research Journal (2007) may be regarded as a particularly exemplary contribution.

+ 2010 - Prof. Marvin W. Berkowitz

The 2010 AME Good Work Award was presented to Prof. Marvin W. Berkowitz for his work in the Leadership Academy in Leadership Education (LACE). LACE is a professional development resource for school leaders that focuses on school transformation in service of students’ moral development and is therefore a fine example of a practice that fosters the link between moral theory and educational practice.

LACE provides an effective, comprehensive character education initiative, primarily at the school level. Its rationale: School leaders have the greatest influence on the culture of a school. As the research on character education has demonstrated, the development of a positive culture, ‘a caring community’, is the active ingredient in making a character education initiative effective.
The program and its rationale is a fine example of the way in which schools may become moral communities where children learn to become moral. We concur with the rationale of the program, described as: “School leaders have the greatest influence on the culture of a school. As the research on character education has demonstrated, the development of a positive culture, "a caring community", in a school is the active ingredient in making a character education initiative effective.
Additionally, Marvin Berkowitz has done good work by writing practical books for parents, columns that are a wonderful read and by doing quality research in the field of character education, that does not only feed into academic publications, but also his practical books and the program. Berkowitz holds the Sanford N. McDonnell Chair in Character Education at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, formerly held the Coors Chair in Character Development at the US Air Force Academy, and has been named the University of Missouri System’s Thomas Jefferson Professor for 2011-2013, the highest scholarly recognition bestowed by the UM System President.

+ 2008 - Prof. Andrew Garrod

The 2008 and first Good Work Award was presented to Prof. Andrew Garrod for his work with postwar adolescent development in Mostar, Bosnia-Herzegovina. Garrod has created and led an innovative program to direct Muslim and Christian youth in productions of Shakespearean plays. This work has had a powerful impact on the Bosnian youth and their broader, and highly divided, communities. The cast becomes a group and a force for good in healing the postwar trauma in Bosnia. This work has been immortalized in an award-winning documentary “Much ado in Mostar” and featured in numerous media reports.

Quoting from CBS News: "Theater is an extraordinary medium for people to work cooperatively on a group project that demands selflessness, preparation, and trust," explains Professor Garrod, who is the director of the Bosnia program and an education professor at Dartmouth College. "If these young people really work hard...ethnicity will become redundant in the process. They will care so much about each other's success that they won't care who is Muslim and who is Catholic."

Garrod has also applied his unique vision in the Marshall Islands. He just retired from Dartmouth University where he has twice won teaching excellence awards and the Presidents’ Good Steward Award.