Distinguished Service Award
2024 Recipient: Ulrich H. Hardt
Portland State University
Ulrich H. Hardt, Professor Emeritus at Portland State University, has had the good fortune of supportive administrators and colleagues who valued his involvement in community and professional organizations. Not that he neglected his academic work since joining the faculty fifty years ago, where he taught twenty different courses, served as chair of Curriculum & Instruction and as Associate Dean in the College of Education, and was President of the University Faculty. He published 100 articles, edited ten books, and was given the George Hoffmann Award for Excellence and Achievement, the university’s highest faculty award.
Through a series of unusual events, this immigrant with English as a second language became President of the Oregon Council of Teachers of English and, concurrently, the State IRA Coordinator, and with the support of hundreds of enthusiastic teachers quadrupled the size of both organizations. Their state and Northwest regional conferences were legendary, as were conference profits, which made possible exciting projects like the six-volume Oregon Literature Series—described as “a national model” by the National Endowment for the Arts—the Oregon Writing Festival, now in its 40th year, and The Oregon Encyclopedia of History and Culture, a popular online resource getting 25 hits/minute and 1.5 million pageviews a year. Hardt’s cheerleading and mentoring roles were Managing Editor of the lit series, Chair of the festival, and founding Co-Editor-in-Chief of the encyclopedia. Oregon gave Hardt the Literary Legacy Award.
An NCTE member for 64 years, among other things Hardt has served years on the Board of Directors, the Standing Committee on Affiliates (SCOA) , Support for the Learning and Teaching of English (SLATE), and has chaired the Publications Review and Resolutions Committees.
If knowledge is power, the power of literacy is the antidote to darkness and is what makes humanity thrive in a forward-looking society. Teachers of literacy are the agents with one basic responsibility: to prepare their students to engage deeply with language, to understand it when they read and hear it, and to communicate effectively when they speak and write it.
We as professional literacy educators know our responsibility of teaching the functional skills, but we also know the emancipating property of literacy, the literary culture of the cultural heritage, enabling our students to live rich lives as participating members in a democracy. An inviolable charge.
Award Details
Overview
This award was established in 1950 as the W. Wilbur Hatfield Award and renamed the Distinguished Service Award in 1969. The award recognizes a person or persons who have exhibited valuable professional service to the profession, scholarly or academic distinction, distinctive use of the language, and excellence in teaching.
Criteria for the Award
The Distinguished Service Award (DSA) is given to a person (or persons), either volunteer or staff, who have exhibited valuable professional service (within the Council and outside) including scholarly or academic distinction at any level, distinguished use of language, and/or excellence in teaching. These criteria are good measures of acceptable candidates and help to ensure that recipients have a wide range of “service” that they provide to the profession. Nominations should be submitted on an individual basis, not by a group or on behalf of constituent groups (conferences, affiliates, assemblies, committees, etc.).
Current NCTE Executive Committee members are not eligible for this award. Recipients of this award are not eligible to receive any other Executive Committee approved awards in the same year, nor in the following year.
The NCTE Distinguished Service Award does not need to be awarded each year. This award should be bestowed only when the committee decides that nominations warrant presentation of the award. This award may be given posthumously.
Award Selection
The DSA Committee will select an award recipient from nominations solicited from the Board of Directors (BOD), affiliate presidents, and liaison officers. The Executive Committee will approve the committee’s selection. The BOD will affirm the final selection.
Distinguished Service Award Previous Recipients
2023 David Bloome, The Ohio State University, OH
2022 Franki Sibberson, SproutFive, Columbus, OH
2021: Linda Rief, University of New Hampshire’s Summer Literacy Institute and national and international presenter on issues of adolescent literacy
2020 Linda Christensen, Lewis & Clark College, Portland, OR
2019 Ernest Morrell, University of Notre Dame, South Bend, IN
2018 Keith Gilyard, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
2017 Peter Smagorinsky, The University of Georgia, Athens
2016 Anna J. Small Roseboro, Grand Rapids, MI
2015 Kent D. Williamson, NCTE, Urbana, IL (posthumously)
2014 Sharon H. Chaney, Union University, Hendersonville, TN
2013 Jerome C. Harste, Indiana University, Bloomington
2012 Beverly Ann Chin, University of Montana, Missoula
2011 Erika Lindemann, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
2010 Patricia Lambert Stock, Michigan State University, East Lansing
2009 William G. McBride, Colorado State University, Fort Collins
2008 Leila Christenbury, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond
2007 Carol D. Lee, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL and Sheridan Blau, University of California, Santa Barbara
2006 Evelyn B. Freeman, The Ohio State University, Mansfield Campus
2005 Ben Nelms, University of Florida, Gainesville
2004 George Hillocks, University of Chicago, IL
2003 Kenneth S. Goodman, University of Arizona, Tucson
2002 Richard Lloyd-Jones, University of Iowa, Iowa City (retired)
2001 Pat Graff, La Cueva High School, Albuquerque, NM and Stephen Tchudi, University of Nevada, Reno
2000 Rudine Sims Bishop, The Ohio State University, Columbus
1999 Roseann Dueñas Gonzalez, University of Arizona, Tucson
1998 John Mayher, New York University, NY
1997 Julie M. Jensen, University of Texas at Austin
1996 Sister Rosemary Winkeljohann, Millersville University, PA (retired)
1995 Robert Shafer, Arizona State University, Tempe
1994 Vivian I. Davis, Eastfield College, Mesquite, TX
1993 Yetta Goodman, University of Arizona, Tucson
1992 Richard L. Larson, Herbert H. Lehman College, CUNY, NY
1991 M. Jerry Weiss, Jersey City State College, NJ
1990 James R. Squire, Marlborough, NH
1989 James R. Gray, University of California, Berkeley
1988 Walker Gibson, University of Massachusetts, Amherst
1987 Charlotte Huck, The Ohio State University, Columbus
1986 Edward P.J. Corbett, The Ohio State University, Columbus
1985 Charlotte Brooks, Washington, D.C.
1984 Ruth G. Strickland, Indiana University, Bloomington
1983 Imogene Springer, Denver Public Schools, CO
1982 Edmund J. Farrell, University of Texas at Austin
1981 Marjorie Farmer, Temple University, Philadelphia, PA
1980 Margaret Early, Syracuse University, NY
1979 James H. Mason, Indiana State University, Terre Haute and Joseph Mersand, Jamaica High School, NY
1978 Priscilla Tyler, University of Missouri, Kansas City
1977 Virginia Reid, Oakland Public Schools, CA
1976 Alfred H. Grommon, Stanford University, CA and William Jenkins, Florida International University, Miami
1975 James E. Miller, University of Chicago, IL
1974 Richard S. Alm, University of Hawaii
1973 Louise Rosenblatt, Rutgers University
1972 Albert H. Marckwardt, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
1971 Alvina T. Burrows, New York University, NY
1970 G. Robert Carlsen, University of Iowa, Iowa City and Dwight Burton, Florida State University, Tallahassee
1969 Harold B. Allen and Muriel Crosby
Hatfield Award Recipients
(previous name of Distinguished Service Award)
1964 John C. Gerber
1962 Lou LaBrant
1960 John J. DeBoer
1960 J.N. Hook
1957 Max John Herzberg
1957 Dora V. Smith
1957 Charles C. Fries
1950 Robert C. Pooley