Horace Mann Awards

The Horace Mann Awards honor individuals who have won victories for humanity for their work or volunteerism. Recipients are recognized at the annual Horace Mann Awards event.

The Fifth Annual Horace Mann Awards will take place on March 27, 2008 at McCaw Hall. To learn more, please contact Eric Warn at ewarn@antiochseattle.edu.

About 250 people attended the Fourth Annual Horace Mann Awards at the Washington Athletic Club March 29, 2007. The event raised $36,000 for Antioch University Seattle's endowment, making this the most successful in the fund-raising event's history.

Ron Reagan was keynote speaker for the '07 event. Heralded for his speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, in which he spoke in favor of increased stem-cell research, Reagan, son of the late President Ronald Reagan, now makes his home in Seattle. He is the chief political analyst for KIRO Radio, where he hosts The Ron Reagan Show every weekday at noon. He is also a contributor to MSNBC and an active member of the Creative Coalition, a first amendment rights group.

Diamond sponsor for the 2007 Horace Mann Awards was BECU. For a complete list of the sponsors for the event, click here.

2007 Horace Mann Award Recipients

Jack Hamann, a Seattle journalist, dedicated three years of his life to clearing the names of 43 African American soldiers who were wrongly convicted by the United States government during World War II. After learning of a riot and the lynching of an Italian prisoner of war that had occured at Fort Lawton in Discovery Park, Hamann looked beyond the previous press coverage to unearth a botched trial. His painstaking research exposed the underlying prejudices of the government and led Rep. Jim McDermott to sponsor a bill in Congress to reopen the case. The House Armed Services Committee agreed, and Rep. Duncan Hunter directed the Pentagon to expedite efforts to overturn many of the verdicts, hopefully bringing to a close 60 years of quiet suffering for survivors and their families. Click to read more.

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Wendy Rosen, core faculty for the Center for Programs in Education, has increased the number of Native American teachers in Washington state through her leadership of Antioch's First Peoples' Program. This program, which is a partnership between Antioch University Seattle and the Muckleshoot Tribe, was designed to address the lack of cultural responsiveness that has hindered Native American education programs in the past. It is taught on-site at the Muckleshoot Tribal College in Auburn and prepares a cohort of 20 to 25 Native American prospective educators to teach in Native American communities every two years – a 20% increase over the number of Native American teachers currently practicing in Washington. To accomplish this feat, Rosen has willingly assumed numerous roles that go beyond that of most postsecondary faculty. Rosen serves as recruiter, coach, trusted advisor, fundraiser, cultural ambassador and diplomat. Click to read more.

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Susan Warner, M.A. in Education '99, is the savior of hundreds of teenage girls. As the director of public programs for the Museum of Glass in Tacoma, she founded the Remann Hall Women’s Project to reach out to the young women incarcerated at Remann Hall, Tacoma's juvenile detention facility, and teach them through the universal language of art. The project has produced large scale installations as well as exhibitions, plays and a book of poetry. More importantly, the program has helped the girls to turn their lives around and has lessened their chances of re-offending. Once the girls leave Remann Hall, they stay connected to the museum through Arts Connect, another program founded by Warner, which brings the girls to the museum for creative and social activities every Wednesday. Click to read more.

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2006 Horace Mann Award Recipients

Billy Frank was arrested for the first time at age 14 for fishing near his home on Frank's Landing. It was an event that would propel him to the front-line battles for Native American fishing rights in the '60s and '70s. What Selma, Alabama, was to African Americans, this fight was to Native Americans. It eventually led to Federal Judge George Boldt’s landmark ruling that upheld Native American fishing rights. Now the chairman of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, a position he has held for more than 30 years, Frank works on agreements between the tribes of Western Washington and local, state and federal officials to strengthen treaty-guaranteed fishing rights and environmental protection laws. "I've been through seven governors and I don’t know how many agency directors," he says. "Theyre political people and I've got to try to keep 'em on course. If they're all down the middle of the road, natural resources will survive. If they veer off to the left or right, you have problems. You have to stay the course. We have to be careful with what we have so we can protect our working watersheds."Click here to read more.

 

Wayne Greer, a 2002 graduate of the B.A. in Liberal Studies with teacher preparation program, was given an awesome task when he began teaching at T.T. Minor Elementary School in Seattle's Central District – create the state's only elementary school marching band. Now four years on, the Bullpup Marching Band performs on TV and at events all over the state. And its success has translated into the classroom. Band members learn fractions, Latin and Italian as they learn to read and play music. They also learn about responsibility and gain a sense of belonging. Says Greer, "A lot of people went out of their way to make my schooling a rich experience. Somebody once said to me, 'Want no less for your kids than what you have.' And what I have to give, I bring to them." Click here to read more.

2004 Horace Mann Award Recipients

Marsha C. Botzer, a 1988 B.A. and 1990 M.A. Psychology graduate, is the founder of Seattle's Ingersoll Gender Center, a nonprofit that provides services to those who explore and change their gender. She serves on the boards of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, the Pride Foundation and the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center and chairs the advisory board on sexual minorities for the Washington Department of Social and Health Services. As a member of the Seattle Commission for Sexual Minorities, Botzer spearheaded the movement to update Seattle's Municipal Code to provide protected class status for gender identity. As a result, transgendered individuals now have the same legal protections at their jobs as other Seattle citizens. "There is always room to change things," she says. "What I truly enjoy is moving systems toward equality in this culture. That's where my heart is."

 

Steven Reed and the Infectious Disease Research Institute are fighting diseases that attack the world's underprivileged – diseases most government and pharmaceutical companies neglect because they are thought to have no cure and are not profitable. Reed founded the Infectious Disease Research Institute (IDRI) in 1993. In partnership with Corixa, IDRI developed the first modern vaccine for leishmaniasis, a disfiguring and disabling disease that affects mostly children and causes hundreds of thousands of deaths annually. In addition, Reed led research teams involving scientists at IDRI, Corixa and GlaxoSmithKline to develop the world's first defined tuberculosis vaccine capable of being manufactured on a large scale. IDRI also is developing diagnostic tools and vaccines to prevent and treat Chagas disease, leprosy and malaria. "I like to figure things out," Reed says, "and be a champion for people who need one."

2003 Horace Mann Award Recipients

Kenneth A. MacDonald, one of the founders of the law firm MacDonald, Hoague & Bayless, strives to practice law with a social conscience and to nudge public policy in the direction of equality. Among the highlights of his long and distinguished career, MacDonald represented University of Washington faculty who refused to sign an anti-Communist oath in a case that went before the U.S. Supreme Court. He also served as Chair of the Washington State Human Rights Commission and President of the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington. "When I get up everyday, I have two goals," he says. "I have to be needed by somebody and I have to have something to do. If you drop either one of those things, you'll be in a nursing home soon."

 

Oliver W. Tuthill, Jr., an Antioch University Seattle psychology alumnus, has dedicated his life to increasing public awareness of emotional child abuse. In 1995, he founded a nonprofit film and video company called Autumn Tree Productions, which produces documentaries and public service announcements, many of them pro-bono. "I try to speak for those with no voice or those who aren't listened to," he says. In 2002, Tuthill received a Governor's Award in Media for the prevention of child abuse. Currently, he is working on a full-length feature film on the Lakota Sioux in South Dakota, examining the relationships between whites and Native Americans in the poorest county in the nation.