The Historical Society of Rockland County is pleased to announce the 2013 Living Landmark Award Recipients:
EDMUND & SUSAN GORDON AND RICHARD & JAN DEATS
The Living Landmark awards will be presented on Saturday, September 21, 2013 at 12:30pm at The Regency Ballroom (Comfort Inn, Nanuet – 425 E. Rte. 59).
Tickets: Benefactor $100 per person; Sponsor $75 per person. (Kindly reply by September 7 to Clare Sheridan c.bowes.sheridan@gmail.com)
Commemorative Journal greetings, ads and sponsorships are also available.
About the Living Landmark Award: The Living Landmark award honors individuals who have demonstrated commitment and service and who have made a difference here in Rockland and beyond. In doing so, these individuals represent the County of Rockland’s spirit and history. The awards program was created to help bring awareness to the Historical Marker Program at The Historical Society of Rockland County.
About the HSRC’s Historical Marker Program: Since 1980, The Historical Society of Rockland County has been working with the community to identify and highlight historic sites in Rockland County through its historical marker program. Over 70 cast aluminum historical markers on posts plus 3 plaques on boulders have been erected since the historical marker program began in 1980. An earlier marker was installed in 1967. A notebook containing the text of each marker as well as photographs and further information about the sites is in the Historical Society’s library. Local historian and Historical Society member John Scott was, for many years, the driving force behind the historical marker program, currently, Marianne Leese, the HSRC Senior Historian, and Past President, heads the program.
The Historical Society of Rockland County is a nonprofit educational institution and principal repository for original documents and artifacts relating to Rockland County. Its headquarters are a four-acre site featuring a history museum and the 1832 Jacob Blauvelt House located at 20 Zukor Road, New City, New York 10956.
For further information contact The Historical Society of Rockland County.
www.Rockland History.org Phone: 845-634-9629; Fax: 845-634-8690
About Edmund & Susan Gordon:
Edmund W. Gordon is the John M. Musser Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Yale University, Richard March Hoe Professor, Emeritus of Psychology and Education, at Teachers College, Columbia University and Director Emeritus of the Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at Teachers College, Columbia University. Dr. Gordon also serves as Chairman of the Gordon Commission on the future of assessment in Education.
Professor Gordon's distinguished career spans professional practice, scholarly life as a minister, clinical and counseling psychologist, research scientist, author, editor, and professor. He has held appointments at several of the nation’s leading universities including Howard, Yeshiva, Columbia, City University of New York, and Yale. Additionally, Dr. Gordon has served as visiting professor at City College of New York and Harvard University. From July 2000 until August, 2001, he was Vice President for Academic Affairs and Interim Dean of Faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University.
Dr. Gordon has been recognized as a preeminent member of his discipline. He is an elected Fellow of various prestigious associations including the American Psychological Association, American Society of Psychological Science, the American Association for Orthopsychiatry and Fellow and Life Member of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1968 he was elected member of the National Academy of Education. Among his most recent honors is the “Edmund W. Gordon Chair for Policy Evaluation and Research” created by the Educational Testing Service to recognize his lasting contributions to developments in education including Head Start, compensatory education, school desegregation, and supplementary education. In 2005 Columbia University named its campus in Harlem, N. Y. the Edmund W. Gordon Campus of Teachers College, Columbia University.
Dr. Gordon has been named one of America’s most prolific and thoughtful scholars. He is the author of more than 200 articles and 18 books.
Susan Gordon has been a resident and an active citizen of Pomona, NY for over 50 years. As a young physician and graduate of Howard University College of Medicine in Washington, D.C., she practiced pediatrics in Rockland County, with an office in Haverstraw from1954-58. She is a Licentiate of The American Board of Pediatrics and a Fellow of The American Academy of Pediatrics. In 1958 Dr. Gordon became an Associate Professor of Pediatrics, first at New York Medical College and then at Columbia University's College of Physicians and Surgeons. For 25 years she taught at these two institutions and their teaching hospitals, Metropolitan Hospital, The Children's Hospital of the New York Presbyterian Hospital in the City of New York, and Harlem Hospital respectively. From 1978-1981, she has served as a member of The National Panel on the Measurement of the Program Effects of Head Start.
For 8 years Dr. Susan Gordon served on East Ramapo Central School District Board of Education, elected and served as President for 3 of those years. The Health Center of The Lexington School for the Deaf was named in her honor, where she served for over 20 years as a member and past president of their board. She most recently served as a member of the Board of Trustees of Nyack Hospital for a 4 year term. Dr. Gordon is a long-standing board member and serves as President on the Martin Luther King Multi-Purpose Center Board of Trustees. She was one of three women recognized at the African American Chamber of Commerce of Westchester & Rockland Counties, Inc. 2000 Women's History Month luncheon, on March 9, 2000. She was the recipient of the "Children's Champion Award," given by the Early Child Consortium of Rockland County, New York, 1999, and the classrooms and computer center of the Martin Luther King Jr. Multi-purpose Center, Inc. Spring Valley, NY was dedicated as the Susan G. Gordon, M.D. Education Corridor, January 22, 2000. On December 7, 2006 she was honored, along with her husband, by the Rockland County Commission on Human Rights and inducted into the Rockland County Civil Rights Hall of Fame.
About Richard & Jan Deats:
Richard Deats worked for the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) from 1972 until his retirement on June 30, 2005. A United Methodist minister, Deats taught social ethics at Union Theological Seminary in the Philippines from 1959 to 1972. Deats served FOR in different capacities: He was executive secretary, director of interfaith activities, and editor of Fellowship magazine and coordinator of communications. He taught workshops and lectured on active nonviolence in over a dozen countries, including South Africa, Bangladesh, the Philippines, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand, India, Haiti, Kenya, Lithuania, Russia, Colombia, Palestine and Israel. He led numerous Journeys of Reconciliation to Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union during the Cold War. Deats was part of an FOR peace effort in Iraq and he met with the PLO in Tunis, with Burmese liberation groups, and with indigenous movements in Ecuador. In 1986, he was part of an IFOR nine-week training project that contributed to the "people power" revolution in the Philippines.
A native of Big Spring, Texas, Deats holds a B.A. from Mc Murry University, an M. Div. from Southern Methodist University and a Ph.D. from Boston University. He was president of the Texas Methodist Student Movement and student body president at Southern Methodist University. Since his college days he has been active in the civil rights movement and was a member of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal Holiday Commission until it was terminated in 1996.
Deats' books include Nationalism and Christianity in the Philippines, Ambassador of Reconciliation: A Muriel Lester Reader, and How to Keep Laughing Even Though You've Considered All the Facts. He co-edited Active Nonviolence: A Way of Life, A Strategy for Change. His book, Martin Luther King, Jr., Spirit-led Prophet(1999), with a foreword by Coretta Scott King, is now in its third printing and his biography of Gandhi, with a foreword by Sister Mary Evelyn Jegen, is entitled Mahatma Gandhi. Nonviolent Liberator (2005). The King and Gandhi books (by New City Press) have German editions as well as English. Deats writings have appeared in such publications as The Christian Century, Sojourners, The Progressive, The Philippines Free Press, The National Catholic Reporter, The Other Side, USA Today, Newsday, Reconciliation International, and Fellowship.
Jan Deats is a graduate of Southern Methodist University School of Music, Jan is a classical pianist and music teacher at the Elizabeth Morrow School in Englewood, NJ, the Rockland Conservatory of Music in Pearl River, NY and Manhattan School of Music. She is also on the board and faculty of Summer Trios.
With cellist Alvin McCall, Jan is part of the McCall-Deats Duo. They have performed all over the United States, in Europe and in Russia. The McCall Deats Duo has been performing since 1985 when they started a chamber music series at the Rockland Conservatory of Music. This series has continued each year since then. The Duo has also performed in New York at Steinway Hall and at Carnegie Hall's Weil Recital Hall. They have performed all over the United States as well as in Germany, France and Russia. They played concerts for peace sponsored by the Fellowship of Reconciliation in California and Oregon and at the Triennial Council of the International Fellowship of Reconciliation in Cassagnes-Begonhes, France. Alvin McCall is a cellist with the St. Louis Orchestra.
Richard and Jan Deats have been married since 1956. They have four grown children, sixteen grandchildren and one great-grandchild
