Matilda (Mati) Levy, who lost everything besides her immediate family, when she was expelled from her home in Sofia, Bulgaria to the provinces because of the Holocaust, was determined to give her family a better life. Shortly after World War II, she, along with her husband and two young children and the entire surviving Jewish community of Bulgaria emigrated to the newly formed State of Israel to proclaim Jewish self-determination. Through diligence of starting their life over in a new country, learning a new language, and surviving difficult conditions as a new immigrant with little means, she taught her children and grandchildren that anything is possible with hard work. She instilled her children Aviva and Emanuel and grandchildren Oren and Shay with the importance of formal and informal education as a means to solve the toughest problems.
Her daughter Aviva fell in love with history, reading, and learning of all kinds. She has become the go-to person in the family for tutoring and help with homework and informal education. Mati sent her son Emanuel to receive his PhD in Sociology at Columbia University, where he launched his academic career that has spanned decades in the US. She inspired her grandchildren Oren and Shay to be educators as well, Oren as a professor at Teachers College, Columbia University and Shay as an early childhood educator in the city of Tel Aviv.
Her belief that education could help solve adversity and the toughest problems is what inspired this award. The most crucial problem facing the entire world today is environmental sustainability (e.g., climate change and the loss of biodiversity). The climate crisis affects us all, especially those from marginalized communities, as such it affects our pursuit of social justice.
Given the pervasive nature of sustainability research across all disciplines and fields, the award’s committee invites nominations of papers from across all of Teachers College’s programs. The Matilda Levy Paper Award on Environmental Sustainability annually honors the author of the best paper written by a current Teachers College student. Only papers written in the current academic year are eligible for nomination. Any member of the Teachers College community, including, but not limited to faculty, students, staff, and administrators, may make nominations. Self-nominations are welcome. We encourage nominations of and from traditionally marginalized authors. Women, people of color, members of the LGBTQ+ community, people with disabilities and those from marginalized religions are especially encouraged to submit.
Paper nominations will be due each year at the conclusion of the spring semester in order for the committee to consider final papers, integrated projects, theses, and dissertations for the award.
To learn more about the experience of the Jewish community in Bulgaria during the Holocaust, please visit the Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.
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