Date: Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 9:39 AM

As you may know from an email that Amanda Crowell sent out a while ago (thanks, Amanda), the Program on Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government gives the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award every other year. $100,000 is awarded to an individual to recognize exceptional achievement of a leader/activist who has initiated social change and worked toward social justice, and whose selfless efforts have improved the quality of life in the US. I think there are many in our D&D community who deserve such recognition, and no one more than Sandy Heierbacher, without whom, we probably would not be connected to each other in a vibrant learning community; indeed, we probably wouldn't be identifying ourselves as part of one diverse but mutually supportive D and D community.

I have talked with the contact person at KSG about Sandy and have been encouraged to submit a letter of nomination, which I will do by the April 15th deadline. (Sandy was pleased to hear this, in her humble way!) Martha McCoy and Hal Saunders will write the two required letters of support. I'd like to include in the supplemental materials a document that says:

We, the undersigned members of the National Coalition for Dialogue and Deliberation (NCDD), whole-heartedly support the nomination of Sandy Heierbacher, Founder and Director of NCDD, for the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award.

If you would like to electronically sign this, please send an email with your name, organization, state and city to: nomination@publicconversations.org

Feel free to also send to the same address: 1) a few words about Sandy's leadership and/or 2) a testimonial about the impact that NCDD has had on your work and on the broader field. Even if the award doesn't come though, this will give us an opportunity to honor Sandy with our words and to offer her a lovely set of testimonials about NCDD that will be useful for other purposes.

Thanks for considering this request.

Maggie Herzig
Senior Associate, Public Conversations Project
Watertown, MA www.publicconversations.org Home Office: 781-862-4795

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From: Brandon WilliamsCraig
Date: Thu, Mar 27, 2008 at 1:55 PM
To: nomination@publicconversations.org


Sandy Heierbacher would be an ideal choice for the Gleitsman Citizen Activist Award. The exceptional achievement for which she deserves recognition is particularly in need of exposure because it reflects her often "under the radar" commitment to an emerging field that is also in need of widespread recognition and development. Dialogue and deliberation have been a part of the political landscape almost as far back as the written record itself, yet its social change and justice impacts fall away from public consciousness in an era wherein public service is being forcibly redefined as a politics of exclusion. Sandy's efforts are collaborative in scope and demonstrate singular leadership and vision at once, working directly to improve the quality of life in the US through the re-engagement of the populace in their own governance and co-creativity, in the case of the National Coalition of Dialogue and Deliberation through modeling the co-creation of one diverse but mutually supportive community capable both of acting in concert and of preserving the rights and unique contribution of each individual.
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"'True peace is not the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice." Rev. Dr. MLK Jr.
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