Judy Wurtzel Tapped to Co-Direct Aspen Institute Program on Education & Society
Washington, DC, March 20, 2008 – The Aspen Institute is pleased to announce that Judy Wurtzel, who has been serving as a senior fellow, has agreed to become Co-Director of the Aspen Program on Education and Society effective April 1, 2008.
Judy Wurtzel has been a major force both in expanding all the Aspen Education Program’s work and in improving its depth and impact. She has helped to develop the Aspen Urban Superintendents Network from a good dialogue into an in-depth program that helps districts to get critical analysis of their reform initiatives, assists them in developing and aligning district expertise in mathematics and literacy, and she is instrumental in creating unprecedented and effective cross-district initiatives. In our Aspen Congressional Senior Education Staff project, Judy has helped to strengthen the overall perspective and education resources we offer this group. And in our overall policy development and workshop efforts – most recently on the framework for development and performance management of teachers and school.
As Aspen Education Program Co-Chair Bob Schwartz, Academic Dean of the Harvard Graduate School of Education, says about Wurtzel’s contribution: “The Aspen Education Program has a new respected niche in the policy world, not just as a convener, but as a source of innovative ideas and proposals, as a synthesizer, and as a developer of powerful substantive networks. This transformation in the program’s identity and reputation is largely due to Judy Wurtzel’s vision, energy, and general smarts.”
For more than 20 years, the Education Program of the Aspen Institute has made significant contributions to institutional, state, and federal policies and strategies to improve educational opportunities for young people least well served in our current system. Through a variety of neutral convening activities including the Aspen leadership networks of Urban School Superintendents, State policy officers and Senior Congressional Education Staff and Aspen Program policy workshops, the program serves as both an objective forum and a network for fresh policy thinking and new strategies.
The Aspen Institute, founded in 1950, is an international nonprofit organization dedicated to fostering enlightened leadership and open-minded dialogue. Through seminars, policy programs, conferences and leadership development initiatives, the Institute and its international partners seek to promote nonpartisan inquiry and an appreciation for timeless values. The Institute is headquartered in Washington, DC, and has campuses in Aspen, Colorado, and on the Wye River near the shores of the Chesapeake Bay in Maryland. Its international network includes partner Aspen Institutes in Berlin, Rome, Lyon, Tokyo, New Delhi, and Bucharest, and leadership initiatives in Africa, Central America, and India.
# # #