Communal Studies Association Honors Communities

On October 1, 2011, at the banquet concluding the Communal Studies Association’s annual meeting (held this year at the historic Shaker Village at South Union, Auburn, Kentucky),Communities magazine received a big, and welcome, surprise: the CSA’s Donald E. Pitzer Distinguished Service Award.

Named in honor of Dr. Donald E. Pitzer, who has served the Communal Studies Association over the years as founder, board member, president, and executive director, the award recognizes “those…who have contributed greatly to the organization’s work.” Communities joins 14 previous recipients—including the Foundation for Intentional Community itself, which received the award back in 1997. (To find out more about the CSA, visit www.communalstudies.org.)

FIC Board members Deborah Altus and Harvey Baker were on hand to accept the award.

Thank you to everyone at the Communal Studies Association for this vote of confidence and boost to our spirits!

In the week following the award ceremony, we received many messages of congratulation, including this one, from the award’s namesake himself:

Dear Chris,

Congratulations on Communities magazines’ well-deserved receipt of the 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the Communal Studies Association! Since its inception,Communities has been the most consistent and informative networking organ for the modern communitarian movement. You and all who have edited and contributed to its incisive content can be rightly proud. I congratulate you, Laird Schaub, and all who have faithfully held Communities up as the standard voice in this most important field of human endeavor. You have treated truthfully and critically subjects of vital importance to the very survival of social life and civilized society. In many ways the world has already taken notice and begun to apply the trail of communal evidence you reveal in every issue. I wish you a strong second wind for doubling the years Communities has served the needs of communal groups and the broader world so well.

It was my privilege to be at the CSA awards ceremony last Saturday. I am attaching a photo of Harvey Baker, Deborah Altus, and me with the wooden plaque that was made at the Amana Colonies in Iowa and engraved beautifully by laser.

I have quoted you, Laird, and others in my recent addresses and publications, and send you my personal congratulations and best wishes.

Don Pitzer

Professor Emeritus of History
Director Emeritus, Center for Communal Studies
University of Southern Indiana
Evansville, Indiana