I am honored and pleased to be presenting the 2017 Sanford N. McDonnell Award for Lifetime Achievement in Character Education to a dear colleague and dear friend, Dr. Charles Haynes.
This award is named in honor of Charcter.org’s Founding Chairman Sandy McDonnell, who upon retiring as chief executive officer and president of McDonnell Douglas in l989 began a second 20-year career working tirelessly in advocacy and support for quality character education to be embraced by schools and communities. Through his words and actions, he was a role model of good character for all.
Since 1998 the Sandy Award has been given to people who have demonstrated a “long and steadfast commitment to the field of character education.”
So I want to take this opportunity for others to learn about today’s recipient Charles Haynes—a person who is well known and highly regarded in both the character education and civic education worlds for his long history of bringing together a wide range of groups with a wide range of beliefs to find common ground and work together for the common good.
Charles is founding director and former vice president of the Newseum Institute/Religious Freedom Center in Washington, DC where he also serves as senior scholar of the First Amendment Center, and syndicated columnist for “Inside the First Amendment.”
It sounds like Charles has three jobs rather than just one.
Charles is best known for his efforts to successfully find common ground on First Amendment conflicts. Over the past 2 decades, he has been the principal organizer and drafter of consensus guidelines on religion and values in schools which have been endorsed by a broad range of religious, civil liberties, and education organizations.
He is the coauthor of six books including First Freedoms: A Documentary of History of First Amendment Rights in America and Finding Common Ground: A First Amendment Guide to Religion and Public Schools.
His column, “Inside the First Amendment” appears in newspapers nationwide. He is a national and international expert to whom educators, reporters, legislators and leaders from other countries turn to understand controversies regarding religion and public education.
He has been profiled in The Wall Street Journal and on the ABC Evening News, and has made frequent appearances on television and radio including The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, The Today Show on NBC, CBS Evening News, CNN, National Public Radio, and BBC.
His expertise has been widely quoted in newspapers and magazines, including the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Time, and Newsweek
Charles does not just write about the importance of civic character. For decades he has joined with others to make it a reality. And Character.org has been the grateful recipient of Charles’ longtime support.
As a founding member of Character.org, Charles was part of a group that decided a national organization should be formed to advocate for character education to be of critical importance for our students and the future of our communities. From day one Charles took an active part in the formation of what this organization should be.
As one of his nominators, Diane Berreth, said, “It is not an overstatement to say that Character.org would not have been formed without Charles’ presence. His knowledge, thoughtfulness, and ability to bridge differences were critical to bringing together our first board and membership.
To this day Charles has continued to provide leadership as a member of the board.
It was Charles who led the effort to create the Eleven Principles of Effective Character Education, and develop the Schools of Character Recognition program, Character.org’s flagship program. During his time as board chair he led the change to identify not just 10 schools but support as many schools as could meet the Schools of Character Eleven Principles.
In the closing, I share the words of Kristie Fink, a nominator for this award, who wrote, “It would be difficult to name a person who has worked longer or more tirelessly over the past 2 and half decades to build capacity in schools and organizations across the country to develop strong, lasting character education initiatives for the benefit of youth and our nations’ institutions. In addition, Charles’ work is always rooted in promoting rights and responsibilities for all, and he effectively models what he preaches.”
