Recipient

Richard J. Kraft
Professor of Education
University of Colorado-Boulder, Boulder, Colorado

Richard J. Kraft, Professor of Education at the University of Colorado-Boulder, has been promoting service learning for the past 27 years. Dr. Kraft first instituted service learning into his undergraduate teacher education course in 1983 and the course has since become a required part of the University of Colorado-Boulder Teacher Education Program. In addition, he instituted similar service learning courses into the Master’s and Doctoral courses in the Education department.

Dr. Kraft is a founder of the Mexico partner project and has given speeches on service learning and experiential education in Ecuador, Chile, Botswana, Ghana, Ethiopia and Nicaragua. His publications include pieces in Report and Evaluation of Service Learning — Colorado (1993), Building Community: Service Learning in the academic disciplines (1994) and Education and Urban Society (1996).

Among his numerous honors for service, Dr. Kraft has received the University of Colorado Faculty Service Award (1989), the Kurt Hahn Award for service to the experiential education community (1993) and several grants for the publication of service learning and experiential education materials.

“Do we go only so far to embrace a vision of service in which people are serving others in need? Or do we expand upon that vision to include a more empowering model of service that acknowledges the strengths and weakness we all bring to a relationship, a vision that moves people away from the margins of society through partnerships based on equal concern, equal voice, equal opportunity to serve and explore new perspectives, a vision that allows each partner to learn from the other, an opportunity for every participant to grow in an environment that nurtures social, cognitive, emotional, physical, spiritual, and occupational growth.”

— Richard Kraft