The Peter E. Haas Public Service Award
Previous Recipients
| Year | Name | Cal Degree(s) | Area of Award |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1999 | Dwight Steele | ’35, J.D. ’39 | Environment |
| 2000 | Amy L. Lemley | M.P.P. ’98 | Community |
| 2001 | Joanna Lennon | ’70, M.S. ’81 | Community |
| 2002 | Armando de la Libertad | ’93 | Education |
| 2003 | Corinne S. Jan | ’76 | Community |
| 2004 | Barbara C. Staggers | ’76, M.P.H. ’80 | Health Care |
| 2005 | Chia-Chia Chien | M.P.H. ’74 | Community |
| 2006 | Jody Lewen | Ph.D. '02 | Education |
| 2007 | Washington Burns | B.S. '52, B.A. '57 | Community |
| 2008 | Frederick L. Moore | '96 | Education |
| 2009 | Judge Harry Pregerson | J.D. '50 | Community |
| 2010 | Joseph Myers | ’72, J.D. ’75 | Community |
| 2011 | Patricia A. Kinaga | M.C.P. ’77 | Community |
Dwight Steele* served for decades as a volunteer for grassroots environmental causes. He led successful coalitions to stop the filling of San Francisco Bay; helped establish the Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC); worked with the League to Save Lake Tahoe, the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency, and the Tahoe Transportation and Water Quality Coalition; and helped organize the Tahoe-Baikal Institute, which has education programs at Lake Tahoe and Russia’s Lake Baikal.
Amy L. Lemley helped establish the First Place Fund for Youth, a nonprofit organization that assists foster youth — in part by offering micro-loans for start-up housing costs — in their transition from foster homes to independence and adulthood. She also spearheaded the development of the Alameda County Foster Youth Alliance, a comprehensive network of community resources for foster youth who have recently “aged out” of foster care. High percentages of participants in these programs find employment and earn a high school diploma or GED equivalent.
Joanna Lennon worked at the grassroots level to provide the resources for East Bay youth and young adults to improve their lives through community service and public education reform. She is the founder and executive director of the East Bay Conservation Corps (EBCC), a nonprofit organization located in Oakland, California, dedicated to pioneering programs that promote the civic engagement of children and youth within the context of improving public education and strengthening the larger community.
Armando de la Libertad serves the needs of low-income Latino students in Southern California through a grassroots commitment to education. As chair of the volunteer-driven Orange County Hispanic Education Endowment Fund (HEEF), Mr. de la Libertad established a permanent $1 million, community-based endowment for merit-based scholarships targeting students of low-income families. Today Mr. de la Libertad is a banking professional devoted to individual and community empowerment through education.
Corrine S. Jan is a passionate and dedicated community activist who has devoted her life to providing access to essential services — from health to legal services — to seniors and minority groups in the Bay Area, with an emphasis on the Asian community. In addition, she provides non-English speaking communities increased access to legal services through the East Bay’s Legal Language Access Project and Neighborhood Law Corps.
Barbara C. Staggers is a board-certified pediatrician and adolescent medicine specialist who serves as a determined advocate for children. A leader in adolescent medicine and a national authority on high-risk health behaviors of youth, urban and minority youth, youth violence, and health care issues of multicultural societies, she has worked at the grassroots level to help disadvantaged minority youth in the East Bay. She founded Oakland’s first school-based clinic for teens at Oakland’s Fremont High School, providing youth with sex education and birth control, in addition to treating minor health problems.
Chia-Chia Chien has an unyielding commitment to public health and public service. She has worked beyond her profession to help promote awareness for mental health concerns of Asian Americans, an under-served community in this area. After retiring, she has continued with her passion to serve the mentally ill. In 2001, Ms. Chien founded the Chinese Mental Health Network, a philanthropic organization that already has actively supported work to enhance mental health in the Chinese community.
Jody Lewen is the director of the Patten University extension site at San Quentin State Prison. Unlike any other at a California penitentiary, this program enables prisoners to earn an associate of arts degree in liberal arts. Ms. Lewen faces numerous obstacles in maintaining the program. Yet many instructors, all of whom are volunteers, return repeatedly, and students are empowered to redefine their lives. To date, nearly 70 students have graduated.
Washington Burns has spent a decade working to improve the lives of low-income residents in West Oakland. As executive director of the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, Dr. Burns oversees a wealth of community-based health, arts, and education programs including an immunization clinic, a computer lab, as well as music, theater, and reading workshops for youth. The center is home to programs like Another Road to Safety, which works with families to prevent child abuse and neglect, and to keep children out of the foster care system.
Frederick L. Moore has helped carve a path to careers in the sciences for hundreds of students. While finishing his Ph.D. at UCSF, he made it his mission to expand access for others, cofounding the nonprofit Building Diversity in Science, which provides mentoring and resources to underrepresented minority students at Bay Area colleges and universities. More recently, he launched the Scientific Empowerment Movement, a statewide initiative that uses sports and entertainment to inspire urban high school students to pursue careers in science, medicine, and technology.
Judge Harry Pregerson has dedicated much of his life to helping underserved members of our society. He structured a consent decree that created thousands of affordable housing units for those displaced by the I-105 Century Freeway in Los Angeles. The Century Housing program also created training and employment programs for women and minorities, and established childcare centers. In recognition of his service, the I-105/110 freeway interchange was officially named after him.
Joseph A. Myers, a Pomo Indian of Northern California, is the executive director and founder of the National Indian Justice Center (NIJC), a nonprofit based in Santa Rosa, California. A graduate of Berkeley’s School of Law at Boalt Hall and a lecturer in Native American Studies at Berkeley for the past 20 years, Myers has been nationally recognized as a significant contributor to the improvement of justice and the quality of life in Indian country.
Patricia A. Kinaga M.C.P. ’77 combines her work as a civil litigator with volunteer advocacy and creativity to give a voice to Asian Americans with unmet needs. She produced About Love, one of the first U.S. films about domestic violence, and cofounded a safe house for women and children. She directed Mothers, Daughters, Sisters, the first documentary to confront the late diagnoses of breast cancer – and uncounted losses – among Asian women. She also cofounded the only U.S. nonprofit dedicated to improving the lives of Asians with physical and mental disabilities.
* Deceased
