Dr. Edmund W. Gordon (Ed.D. ’57), Richard March Hoe Professor Emeritus of Psychology and Education at Teachers College, is being celebrated as one of three recipients of the 2024 Harold W. McGraw, Jr. Prize in Education. Announced on Sept. 17, 2024, the prestigious award is bestowed by the McGraw Family Foundation in partnership with the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education (Penn GSE), and will recognize Edmund W. Gordon, Jody Lewen and Robert Lerman for their trailblazing work that has transformed lives and reshaped learning across generations. 

The recipient of the Pre-K–12 Education Prize, Gordon will be honored for his decades of work transforming education through his visionary leadership, pathbreaking scholarship and profound commitment to promoting equity and access to quality education for all students. A treasured member of the Teachers College community for nearly 70 years, Gordon has had an enduring, deep and wide impact on education, psychology and social science research. An early champion of supplementary education in its many forms — including preschool education, summer learning, tutoring and extracurricular activities — Gordon was an architect of the federal Head Start program, and is a leading proponent of calls for a re-envisioning of standardized testing. 

“Several of my most admired and respected friends and mentors are former recipients of the McGraw Prize in Education. I am very proud to join this selective group of scholars and practitioners,” says Gordon. “But it is not just my being included with my hero friends that I so appreciate. It is also being recognized as a significant contributor to the field of education. I consider pedagogy to be the most noble of the helping professions. There is no higher calling than that of helping in the cultivation of human intellective competence. It is such an honor to be thought of as having done such, well!”

The McGraw Education Prize has been awarded for more than 40 years to education leaders who have had a profound impact on our world, so that they might serve as an inspiration to others and extend their impact. The prize is awarded in three categories: pre-K–12 learning, higher education and lifelong learning. Gordon and the two other winners — Jody Lewen, Founder and President of Mount Tamalpais College (Higher Education Prize); and Robert Lerman, Professor Emeritus of Economics at American University (Lifelong Learning Prize) — will be honored at a ceremony on Nov. 13.

“Dr. Edmund Gordon’s prolific legacy as a researcher, educator and advocate has not only enhanced the fabric of Teachers College, but also that of our larger world,” says President Thomas Bailey of the scholar, whose portrait hangs in the Elliot and Roslyn Jaffe Trustees Room at the College. “The McGraw Prize in Education is a fitting honor and a reminder of how Professor Gordon’s vision and work have influenced so many of us over the years.” 

Born in 1921 and raised in the small segregated town of Goldsboro, North Carolina, Gordon dedicated his life to ensuring education access for students of color and low-income through his long career as an educator, scholar and policy advisor. A leading psychologist and educator with more than 400 articles and 25 books published, Gordon is also the John M. Musser  Professor of Psychology, Emeritus at Yale University. 

In the 1950s, Gordon — with his wife, the physician Susan Gordon — co-founded a comprehensive health clinic that provided services for children and families in Harlem. He later served as the first Director of Research and Evaluation of the federal Head Start program, helped write the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), and subsequently chaired the Gordon Commission on the Future of Assessment in Education, sponsored by ETS, which recommended sweeping changes in educational assessment.

“Dr. Gordon’s impact as a scholar, mentor and change-maker is monumental" says KerryAnn O’Meara, Vice President for Academic Affairs, Provost and Dean of the College. “In service of others, Dr. Gordon has inspired generations of students, faculty and alumni at TC and across the U.S. to center the educational outcomes and life opportunities of every child, changing systems so they are accountable to the needs of diverse students, schools, communities and families. We are thrilled that Dr. Gordon’s efforts continue to be recognized for their consequential effects on the world."

In 1973, Gordon established the renowned Institute for Urban and Minority Education (IUME) at TC — which was named after him for his 100th birthday in 2021 and renamed the Edmund W. Gordon Institute for Advanced Study during a 50th anniversary event in 2024. At its founding, IUME was one of the first organizations dedicated to the empowerment of Black and marginalized communities through advocacy, evaluation, interdisciplinary research and more. 

“Dr. Gordon’s innovative spirit and vision for the future are still felt every day,” says Ezekiel Dixon-Román, Director of the Gordon Institute, Professor of Critical Race, Media and Educational Studies, and mentee of Gordon. “We are continuing to build upon the solid foundation that Dr. Gordon began laying at the Institute with his namesake more than 50 years ago, and remain committed to his work of driving equity and transformation in education for socially precarious and racialized communities.”

Throughout its 50-year history, the Gordon Institute has been integral to the development of national bilingual and multicultural curriculum for the Head Start program, a program that Gordon helped create; expanded and served as a repository of research for the Education Resources Information Center (ERIC) Clearinghouse on Urban Education; and co-developed the first-ever Advanced Placement seminar on the African diaspora.

In addition to these storied accomplishments, Gordon — alongside his late wife, Susan — led the integration of schools in East Ramapo, New York; created a Psycho-Educational Diagnostic Clinic for children, and launched the CEJJES Institute, located in Rockland, New York.

A major influence at TC, with a named lecture series honoring his legacy of transformational scholarship, the 103-year old Gordon continues to lead, mentor and serve as an inspiration to all who know him. 

Save the date for the 11th Annual Edmund W. Gordon Lecture, featuring Dr. Hortense Spillers, Professor Emerita, and Gertrude Conaway, Distinguished Research Professor, Vanderbilt University, who will deliver the talk: “Telling Tales Out Of School: Race and Public Relations.”