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PJSA Annual Awards

CALL FOR NOMINATIONS

Each year the Peace and Justice Studies Association presents various awards to teachers, scholars, activists, and distinguished peace and justice proponents by recognizing their service, accomplishments, and excellence at a ceremony held during the PJSA conference, Saturday night at the Banquet. The distinguished peacemakers are recognized and given the opportunity to present a message of challenge and hope.

THE DEADLINE FOR AWARD SUBMISSIONS THIS YEAR IS MAY 31, 2010.

PJSA relies on the input from members of the peace and justice community to nominate individuals for these awards. There are people out there doing outstanding work - this is your chance to see that they are recognized for their efforts. Submit a nomination here.

There have been several changes made to the nominating procedures to make it easier for the Awards Committee to make their decisions. Probably the most important is that you can quickly and easily nominate people on-line.

    Awards will be presented in six major categories:

  •    Social Courage Award: For exemplifying courage and honor in building and promoting a culture of peace and non-violence in the face of political pressure and social struggle.
  •    Peace Educator of the Year Award: For exemplary teaching and/or great scholarship in forwarding peace education and peace studies.
  •    The Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement in Peace Studies Award: For outstanding contributions made to the field of peace and justice studies.
  •    Best Dissertation/Thesis of the Year Award, and Best Undergraduate Paper of the Year Award : These awards recognize and reward a graduate student AND an undergraduate student whose research has been identified by the PJSA community as outstanding among those submitted during the awards cycle. Submit nominations for student research here.
  •    Next Generation Peacemaker: For the best young peacemaker of the year.
    Through the generous support of our membership, PJSA also offers a grant (as available) that helps cover travel expenses to the conference, namely the OMNI Peace Center Fund for PJSA Student-Activists/Scholars. Under this program, approximately $150 will be awarded, as funds are available, to 3-4 qualifying individuals based on merit and/or need.


    Award Eligibility

    The Peace and Justice Studies Association extends eligibility for the awards to any and all peace practitioners of all ages and nationalities.

    Individuals submitting nominations may be from the same institution as the person who they are nominating.

    NOMINATION SUBMISSION FORM


    Previous Award Recipients

    2009 Conference at Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI

    • Peace Scholar of the Year Award: Joel Kovel
      Extraordinary work for decades on behalf of nonviolence, anti-racism, ecology, solidarity with Palestine, etc., for which he was rewarded in 2008 by being let go from his 20-plus year job at Bard College. Kovel became involved in political activism during the Vietnam War, and has been an active member of anti-nuclear movement and peace campaigns; Central American and Caribbean solidarity movements; the movements for democratic media; and environmental campaigns. Kovel has published nine books and over a hundred articles in various publications, including his 2002 book, The Enemy of Nature: The End of Capitalism or the End of the World?, which is still considered by many to be the most up-to-date exposition of modern eco-socialist thought.
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies Award: Robert Johansen
      Professor Johansen is an extremely productive and influential scholar and advocate of peace. His special interests have been the establishment and strengthening of international norms and the institutions that support them (e.g. the U.N., the International Court of Criminal Justice, and the yet to be realized establishment of a standing international peace force). In addition to his voluminous scholarly production of books and articles, Johansen has tirelessly promoted peace through popular articles, speeches, panels, interviews (newspaper, radio and television), and congressional testimony. He has been a Senior Fellow of the Kroc Institute at Notre Dame since 1986, influencing a generation of peace scholars and practitioners as Director of Graduate Studies for much of that time.
    • Social Courage Award: George Martin
      An excellent example of living out the legacies of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, George Paz Martin works to make peace and achieve justice wherever he goes. One of the few African-Americans to hold leadership positions in major peace organizations in the U.S., Martin came to peace work through his involvement in the Green Party. He served as program director of Peace Action Wisconsin for several years; initiated the Milwaukee Bring the Troops Home Referendum Campaign; and started the Wisconsin Peace Voter Campaign. Martin is a founding member of Black Caucus of the Green Party, and serves as National Co-Chair of United for Peace & Justice. He is a volunteer and activist on homeless issues, especially working for the needs of homeless veterans.
    • Best Undergraduate Thesis of the Year Award: Maya Karwande
      ...of Tufts University, for her BA Senior Thesis entitled “Failure to Engage: Outreach at the Bosnian War Crimes Chamber.”
    • Best Graduate Thesis of the Year Award: Catia Confortini
      ...of the University of Southern California, for her Doctoral Dissertation entitled “Imaginative Identification: Feminist Critical Methodology in the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom, 1945-1975.”


    2008 Conference at Portland State University, Portland, OR
    • Peace Scholar of the Year Award: Marjorie Cohn
      Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and the President of the National Lawyers Guild. She has done in-depth legal research deconstructing the invasion of Iraq, helping to develop legal defenses for military resisters and providing support for those working to impeach the architects of the war. Dr. Cohn is a dedicated educator in all her writings, and has greatly aided the cause of peace scholarship through the widespread and accessible dissemination of her work.
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies Award: Betty Reardon
      Betty A. Reardon is the Founding Director Emeritus of the Peace Education Center at Teachers College, Columbia University and the International Institutes on Peace Education. She was the initiator and served as the first Academic Coordinator of the Hague Appeal for Peace Global Campaign for Peace Education. Dr. Reardon was awarded an Honorable Mention UNESCO at the 2000 Peace Education Prize Ceremonies.
    • Social Courage Award: Sami Rasouli
      Sami Rasouli, born in Najaf in 1951, moved back to Iraq in 2004 after the U.S. invasion and initiated Muslim Peacemaker Teams that strive to promote peace between all groups in Iraq and around the world. Mr. Rasouli works to bring reconciliation in the midst of an acute conflict zone, initiating some of the boldest efforts for nonviolent conflict management in the region, including a reconciliation effort between Shia and Sunni immediately after the bombing of the Golden Temple.
    • Best Undergraduate Thesis of the Year Award: Krysta Sadowski
      …of George Washington University, for her BA Senior Thesis in Special Interdisciplinary Programs, entitled “Partition as a Strategy for Managing Ethnic Conflict: The Case of Cyprus.”
    • Best Graduate Thesis of the Year Award: Julie Morton
      ...of Prescott College, for her master's thesis in peace education entitled "Reading and Writing Peace: The Core Skills of Conflict Transformation and Literacy".


    2007 Conference at Elizabethtown College, Elizabethtown, PA
    • Peace Scholar of the Year Award: Norman Finkelstein
      …for his groundbreaking and important new work on the underlying causes of the Palestinian conflict, and on the cynical uses of history to justify continued oppression. His tenure case was famously interfered with, and after a positive tenure vote by his department and university faculty committees, he was turned down for tenure at the urging of a dean.
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies Award: Fr. David Smith
      …who founded the Justice and Peace Studies Program at the University of St. Thomas, and provided key work in the founding of PJSA at a very critical time. David has also done many workshops to train others to develop such programs. Last summer he did accompaniment work in Palestine, and years ago he did draft counseling during the Vietnam War. Fr. David Smith with shortly be publishing a book on teaching about justice and peace within theology.
    • Social Courage Award: Jonathan Wesley Hutto, Sr.
      …who has worked with the American Civil Liberties Union and Amnesty International, initiated and directed the People’s Coalition for Police Accountability, and most recently has bravely initiated, developed, and represented the Appeal for Redress from the War in Iraq (www.appealforredress.org). Mr. Hutto’s hard work and determination have ensured that soldiers’ voices are not lost in the ongoing discussion about the Iraq War.
    • Social Courage Award: Barbara Wien
      …for a quarter century of daring peacemaking with a positive spirit and a deep compassion. Barbara is quick witted, articulate, and courageous in her endeavors to make peace and to promote human rights. She recognizes the value of thinking globally and working locally, and continues to confront with intelligence and creativity the social and cultural structures that dehumanize us as a human family.
    • Best Undergraduate Thesis of the Year Award: Julia Resnitsky
      …of Brandeis University, for her BA Senior Thesis in Sociology, entitled “Encounter with the 'Other' — Delegitimization, Anti-Arabism, and Denial: Constructing the Jewish-Israeli Identity.”
    • Best Graduate Thesis of the Year Award: Caroline Sarkis
      …of Portland State University, for her MA Thesis in Conflict Resolution, entitled “Seeking Reconciliation in Rwanda: The International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda as a Reconciliation Mechanism.”


    2006 Conference at Manhattan College, New York City, NY
    • Social Courage Award: Huwaida Arraf
      ...co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement, an organization committed to resisting Israeli occupation and aggression through nonviolent, direct action.
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies: Robert Jay and Betty Jean Lifton
      ...Robert Jay Lifton is a professor emeritus of psychiatry and psychology and director emeritus of the Center on Violence and Human Survival at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, City University of New York. Betty Jean Lifton, also a psychologist and an adoption counselor, has published extensively on adoption, and has written many excellent books for children on difficult issues. Together and separately, their lifetimes of work have contributed enormously to the field of psychology in areas of particular concern to peace studies.
    • Peace Scholar of the Year Award: Daniel Bar-Tal
      ...a social psychologist at the School of Education at Tel Aviv University, Dr. Bar-Tal has worked extensively on peace education in Israel, and is most recently the author of Stereotypes and Prejudice in Conflict: Representations of Arabs in Israeli Jewish Society (Cambridge, 2005).
    • Peace Scholar of the Year Award: Louis Kriesberg
      ...Professor Emeritus of Sociology, and the Maxwell Professor Emeritus of Social Conflict Studies at Syracuse University. Dr. Kriesberg has continued to build on the path-breaking theoretical framework he developed in Sociology of Social Conflicts (1973), in his new work, Constructive Conflicts: From Escalation to Resolution (Rowman and Littlefield, 2006).
    • Best Thesis of the Year: Gabrielle Ross
      ...of Portland State University for her thesis entitled "Responses to Emnification in the United States After September 11, 2001."


    2005 Conference at Goshen College, Goshen, IN
    • Peace Educator of the Year Award: Jill Sternberg
      ...for her work as a nonviolence trainer with the International Fellowship of Reconciliation and service as Gamaliel Chair in Peace and Justice
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies: Ken Brown
      ...to an icon in the field with five decades of teaching and cajoling and writing and demonstrating under his belt. News Coverage


    2004 Conference at the University of San Francisco, San Francisco, CA
    • Social Courage Award: Madeline Duckles
      ...for her work on behalf of women peacemakers through The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom.
    • Social Courage Award: Yuri Kochiyama
      ...for her work protecting civil rights at a time of strinking liberties.
    • Social Courage Award: Linda Evans
      ...behalf of her codefendant Marilyn Buck, both former political prisoners.
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies: Elizabeth Betita Martinez
      ...for her work at the intersection of Chicana Studies and peace and justice studies.
    • Best Thesis of the Year: Judith Conde
      ...for her thesis and for founding the Women’s Alliance of Vieques.


    2002 Conference at Georgetown University, Washington, DC
    • Peace Educator of the Year Award: Priscilla Prutzman
      ...for her leadership and creativity and for producing innovative educational materials in response to 9/11
    • Social Courage Award: Congresswoman Barbara Lee
      ...for her lifelong commitment to peace and justice, for her leadership and courage to raise her voice in Congress and to challenge her colleagues to explore alternatives to violence and war.
    • Social Courage Award: The September 11 Families for Peaceful Tomorrows
      ... for their courage to speak up and to challenge calls for vengeance with powerful messages of compassion and for turning a terrible personal and collective tragedy into an opportunity to educate and reach out to the American People and to victims of the US bombing of Afghanistan.
    • Peace Scholar of the Year: Stephen Zunes
      ...for his insightful analysis of current events, his ability to engage large and diverse audiences and for setting an example of how to integrate scholarship and activism.
    • Outstanding Contribution to Peace Studies: Ruth Legar Sivard
      ...for her lifelong dedication to challenging military spending and for producing the groundbreaking almanac comparing hunger, poverty, women’s literacy and the military budget.
    • Best Thesis of the Year: Matt Bowles
      ...for his original examination of the relationship between critical pedagogy and the pursuit of peace with justice both in the academy and in the trenches.
    • Bennet Scholarship Award for the Best Conference Paper: Paul Neufeld Weaver
      ...for his paper “Confronting Violence, Promoting Reconciliation and Justice: The Role of Peace Teams in Chiapas, Mexico"