The 21st Annual National Service-Learning Conference Award Recipients

NYLC awards shine a spotlight on exemplary leaders from across the service-learning movement and nurture the leaders of the future. Most awards are presented annually at the National Service-Learning Conference.

Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award

The Alec Dickson Servant Leader Award honors exemplary leaders who have inspired the service-learning field, positively impacted the lives of young people, and motivated others to take up the banner of service.

Carol Bellamy
Education for All — Fast Track Initiative, Vermont

Carol Bellamy has recently assumed the position of Chair of the Board of Directors for the Education for All — Fast Track Initiative. In this role, she will provide leadership for the global partnership supporting universal primary education by 2015. Prior to this, she served as President and CEO of World Learning, a private nonprofit organization that promotes international understanding through education, training, exchange, and development activities in more than 70 countries. Bellamy also served for 10 years as Executive Director of UNICEF, the children’s agency of the United Nations, and was the first former volunteer to become Director of the Peace Corps. She has worked in the private sector and as an elected public official, including five years in the New York State Senate. In 2009, Bellamy was awarded the Légion d’honneur by the Government of France.

G. Bernard Gill Urban Service-Learning Leadership Award

The G. Bernard Gill Urban Service-Learning Leadership Award honors individuals who, by example, have played a leadership role in urban schools, communities, and the lives of young people.

Jeffrey Duncan-Andrade
Educator, San Francisco State University and East Oakland Step to College, Oakland, California

Jeffrey Michael Reies Duncan-Andrade is Assistant Professor of Raza Studies and Education Administration and Interdisciplinary Studies at San Francisco State University. He also continues as a high school teacher in East Oakland where for the past 18 years he has practiced and studied the use of critical pedagogy in urban schools. He currently teaches ninth grade English at Mandela High School in East Oakland. Before joining the faculty at S.F.S.U., Duncan-Andrade taught English and coached in the Oakland Public Schools for 10 years, and completed his doctoral studies at the University of California, Berkeley. Duncan-Andrade has lectured around the world about the elements of effective teaching in schools serving poor and working class children. He works closely with teachers, school site leaders, and school district officials nationally, and as far abroad as Brazil and New Zealand, to help them develop classroom practices and school cultures that foster self-confidence, esteem, and academic success among all students. His research interests and publications span the areas of urban schooling and curriculum change, urban teacher development and retention, critical pedagogy, and cultural and ethnic studies.

“It is my firm belief that, as educators, we are charged with providing young people the opportunity to connect what they learn in the classroom with the world around them. Along this path, young people should be positioned to teach us, teach each other, and to positively impact their community. Service-learning provides educators and students alike just such an opportunity and for that reason it is a great honor to receive the G. Bernard Gill Urban Service-Learning Leadership Award.”

State Farm Service-Learning Practitioner Leadership Award

The State Farm Service-Learning Practitioner Leadership Award recognizes those practitioners who have equipped young people to lead and serve, both through their direct work with youth and by nurturing other practitioners.

Michael Genovese
Holy Cross High School, New York

Michael Genovese has been a service-learning practitioner for more than 30 years, even before service-learning became a known and respected pedagogy. For 30 years he has been the Director of Service-Learning at Holy Cross High School in Flushing, N.Y., and for the past 17 years, the Co-Director of a Learn and Serve America school-based project called SPARC, engaging diverse schools in a service-learning partnership in the New York City metropolitan region. He has been a leader in an ever-widening circle, nurturing service-learning practitioners in his own school, the New York City metropolitan region, the state of New York, and even nationally. Genovese served as a National Peer Consultant with the Kellogg Service-Learning Leadership Initiative; as Co-Director of the New York Metropolitan Service-Learning Institute, the New York City and Long Island Regional Service-Learning Networks; and as Chairperson of New York City Mayor’s Task Force for Student Volunteers.

“I am honored to receive the Service-Learning Practitioner Leadership Award given by NYLC and State Farm. I must thank my peers and administrators at Holy Cross High School. Special thanks goes to my co-partners of SPARC and Fran Hollon, the New York State Service-Learning Coordinator for his insightful leadership, and last — but not least — to my wife, Kathy. I love what I do and believe that students engaged in service-learning can affect the climate of our society and be advocates of social justice and change-agents. I truly am grateful for the opportunity of serving with our many students and teachers. It is an honor and a privilege that I treasure.”

State Farm Youth Leadership for Service-Learning Excellence Award

The State Farm Youth Leadership for Service-Learning Excellence Award recognizes K-12 service-learning programs and projects that demonstrate outstanding youth leadership.

The Purple Loosestrife Project
Niobrara High School, Niobrara, Nebraska

Four years ago a Niobrara High School biology class observed a Niobrara State Park conservation activity on the banks of the Missouri River, never dreaming it would inspire the outstanding service-learning now in place. Each biology class now partners with state and federal agencies to control purple loosestrife, an invasive plant that threatens the beautiful wetlands around Niobrara. The local economy is reliant on tourism dollars from those using the river and wetlands for recreation. Students are working to preserve the environment and, in turn, preserve the livelihood of their hometown.

“The students of Niobrara High School would like to thank individuals and agencies that support our efforts throughout the year. We appreciate the time they spend with us during the school year, and join with them in celebrating this recognition. As we work to protect the delicate ecosystems around our town, we always keep in mind the work we do is not just for ourselves but for generations to come. Niobrara will always be our hometown and we want to be an example of youth stewardship for the nation.”

Stellar Award

The Stellar Award honors the late Stella Raudenbush’s work as a community activist, teacher, and spiritual seeker and passion for children, social justice, community, diversity, urban education, and elders.

Lynn LaPointe
American Indian Family Center, St. Paul, Minnesota

Lynn F. LaPointe, whose given Lakota name is Wicahpi Sapa, meaning Black Star, is Sicangu Lakota from the Rosebud Reservation of South Dakota. He currently serves as the Service-Learning and Youth Program Coordinator for the American Indian Family Center in Saint Paul, Minn. Additionally, LaPointe has been a Youth Development Director for the YMCA of Minneapolis as well as President of the Natives, Africans, Asians, Latinos(as) and Allies (NAALA) professional group of the Association for Experiential Education. His experience as a program manager for cultural and tribal-based service-learning and experiential education programming, serving both urban and Reservation American Indian communities with the National Youth Leadership Council and the University of Minnesota, helped provide the basis of his youth program design ideals and educational philosophy on the reintroduction and strengthening of indigenous land-based knowledge.

For the past 10 years he has designed two week-long social justice-based, cultural and historical experiences amongst his people’s homelands in Minnesota and South Dakota for indigenous youth from across the country to interactively and respectfully experience the beauty and struggle of the American Indian from a Lakota perspective.

“Pila’maya – thank you, first and foremost to my Tiospaye, my extended family, for their never ending support over many years. Very special thanks to my wife Jennifer who has always provided balance. To my daughter Tahlia who has always given me reason. I extend my respect for those within NYLC over the past two decades who have allowed a Lakota boy from the Reservation to grow and prosper, as a student and as a service-learning educator. To my Oyate, my people, who persevered so that I could exist.”

William James National Service Lifetime Achievement Award

This award honors individuals who have demonstrated leadership, professionalism, and integrity and made significant contributions to the advancement of service-learning and national service over the majority of their professional lives. It is named after the philosopher and pacifist William James who described the foundation for nonmilitary service in the United States in a 1906 speech and subsequently in an essay entitled “The Moral Equivalent of War” (1910).

Don Eberly
Educator, New Zealand

Son of a Methodist minister from a small town in northern New York, Donald Eberly is proof that one person can make a difference. He has been steadfast in pursuing the national service ideal through writing and advocacy for national service and service-learning over nearly six decades, having first circulated his proposal for national youth service called “A National Service for Peace” in 1957.

Eberly has degrees from M.I.T. and Harvard, was drafted and served in the U.S. army, and taught in Nigeria. In addition to founding and directing IANYS, he also founded and directed the Coalition for National Service as well as the National Service Secretariat — where he was both “a visionary and practical pioneer,” says journalist and returned Peace Corps volunteer and trustee Robert Terry. “Don made the National Service Secretariat a treasury of experience serving legislators and entrepreneurs.”

Over the years, Eberly’s national youth service interests have led him to convene conferences, testify before the U.S. Congress and Canadian parliament, develop a national youth service plan at the request of a Presidential Commission, conduct a number of research studies, and evaluate projects on almost every continent. He has also headed a special division of federal selective service on nonmilitary conscription. Widely published, he most recently co-authored the book Service without Guns (2006) with Reuven Gal.

Eberly lives in New Zealand with his children and grandchildren, where he continues to write and advise on national service issues.

“Thank you for the honor of naming me a recipient of the William James Lifetime Achievement Award.

I have taken the liberty of associating myself with William James many times since first reading his essay, “The Moral Equivalent of War,” 50 years ago. Now, 100 years after
publication of that essay, perhaps I can feel somewhat justified in making that association.

My thanks are due to more people than I can name here. They include Peter Weiss and Harris Wofford, among the founders of the International Development Placement Association through which I found a teaching job overseas that enabled me to test the idea of national service; Tai Solarin, principal of Molusi College, Nigeria, who gave a newcomer to teaching and to Nigeria just the right amount of guidance; Don Fraser, former congressman who emboldened me to convene a conference on national service in 1966; Earl Eames, Jim Kielsmeier, Charlie Moskos, Michael Sherraden, Franciena Turner, and Bill Wirtz, whose support of the National Service Secretariat over 25 years helped keep national service in the public domain; John Maru of Papua New Guinea; S. A. Sofoluwe of Nigeria; Elisabeth Hoodless of the United Kingdom, Reuven Gal of Israel, Maria Nieves Tapia of Argentina, and Boniface Gambila of Ghana, all of whom helped extend the outreach of national service through their hosting of global conferences on the topic.

James’s ideas have been realized to some extent with programs like the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps in the United States, Zivildienst and Volunteer Social Year in Germany, and the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) in Nigeria. These programs and others have given us the knowledge and experience to refine and expand them so as to more fully respond to the challenges of illiteracy, poverty, youth crime, youth unemployment, environmental degradation, and the needs of the very young and the very old. These NYS programs have also demonstrated James’s insistence on the value of the service experience to those who serve, ranging from testing career options and realizing the educational value of the experience, to gaining increased self-esteem and self-confidence.

Here in the United States, we have made fairly good progress building national service as an institution. There are welldefined roles for the federal, state, and local governments; for all levels of education; for businesses and NGOs. However, there is plenty of room for national service to be better recognized and accepted by the general public. The challenge is to respond more fully to needs that can be met by those in national service to the extent that just about every American will know at least one person in, or served by, national service.

We have learned much less in the last century about the relationship of National Youth Service to war and peace. One is intrigued by Nigeria’s reaction to the civil war of the late 1960s. The nation’s leaders, opinion-makers, and university students endorsed a youth service that would assign university graduates to work in their fields of specialty in parts of the country where they did not grow up. The plan was adopted, several million young people have served in it since 1973, and studies have shown that it has increased understanding among the peoples of Nigeria. We need to explore the potential of similar initiatives, and of program designs where teams of young people from two or more countries serve together for a year or two.”