Katherine Pyne Addelson, Joseph Bathanti, and Leonard Fleck have been awarded the 2001 Ernest A. Lynton Award for the Scholarship of Engagement. The award recognizes early-career faculty who practice exemplary engaged scholarship through teaching and research. Recipients are selected on the basis of their collaboration with communities, institutional impact, and high-quality academic work.
Kathryn Pyne Addelson
Kathryn Pyne Addelson, Mary Huggins Gamble Professor of Philosophy, History of Science; andFrédérique Apffel Marglin, Professor of Anthropology, are the co-founders of the Center for Mutual Learning at Smith College, MA. The Center endeavors to connect the academic world to communities in the United States and South American. Dr. Addelson and Dr. Apffel Marglin’s work centers on how professional expert knowledge needs to change in order to learn with and from local communities. They have developed new epistemological theories and concepts, which help to form a bridge between learning in the academy and learning in the community.
Joseph Bathanti
Joseph Bathanti, Professor of English, Program Coordinator of the Humanities Division, and Writer-in-Residence at Mitchell Community College in Statesville, North Carolina. Dr. Bathanti’s belief in the power of writing extends the walls of his classroom to encompass the community. It is in this extended classroom that his deep commitment to education as a vehicle of social and intellectual change comes to bear. His work involves many groups that society often overlooks – prisoners, battered women, and the poor.
Leonard Fleck
Leonard Fleck is Professor of Philosophy and Medical Ethics in the Center for Ethics and Humanities and the Philosophy Department at Michigan State University. His special interests lie in medical ethics and particularly, in issues of social and economic justice in the allocation of health care resources. Through the “Just Caring Project,” he uses his skills as a philosopher-ethicist to facilitate community dialogs that bring together citizens and opinion leaders to determine moral values in health care. The ultimate goal is to create a more informed electorate to participate in political decision-making about the future of health care.
Peter Kiang
Peter Kiang is an Associate Professor in the Graduate College of Education and the American Studies Program at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Dr. Kiang is the founder of the University’s Institute for Asian American Studies and the University’s Center for Immigrant and Refugee Community Leadership and Empowerment. Currently, his work focuses on analyzing racial conflict in schools, developing leadership with Asian American youth and immigrant/refugee communities and ensuring access by communities of color to the information superhighway.
Honorable Mentions:
Clint Gould, Associate Professor, Humanities; and Coordinator, AIDS Education Program, Community College of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, for his work in HIV/AIDS education, prevention, policy and research.
Meredith Minkler, Professor and Chair, Community Health Education Program, Division of Health and Medical Sciences, School of Public Health, University of California, Berkeley, for her work in fostering the development of healthy communities.
Mary Morton, Associate Professor, Biology; Charles A. Dana Faculty Fellow; and Science Projects Coordinator, College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Massachusetts, for her work with K-12 public school teachers and students on innovative biology curricula and pedagogy.
Thomas O’Toole, Assistant Professor, Division of General, Internal Medicine; Associate Director, Division of General, Internal Medicine Fellowship Program; and Course Co-Director, School of Medicine, Ambulatory Care Course at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, for establishing clinics that provide healthcare to the homeless.
Robert Prigo, Professor, Physics, Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vermont, for his work with local K-12 teachers and administrators on inquiry-based, science teaching and learning.
Linda Silka, Professor, Regional Economic and Social Development and Director, Center for Family, Work and Community, University of Massachusetts Lowell , for her efforts to promote and enhance skill building with local immigrant groups.
Robert Sykes, Associate Professor, Department of Landscape Architecture, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, for his work that integrates design principles for physical space with new political and institutional frameworks for community building.
Ann Withorn, Professor of Social Policy, College of Public and Community Service, University of Massachusetts Boston, for her work on welfare rights and social justice.