2008 George Kiriyama Educational Excellence Award
The Cherry Blossom Festival 2008 committee and the George Kiriyama Educational Excellence Award committee have announced the selection of Mitchell T. Maki, Ph.D. as the 2008 award recipient.
 Dr. Maki received two nominations, which praised and lauded his accomplishments in higher education since 1989. His current position is dean of the College of Health and Human Services of California State University, Dominguez Hills.
Throughout his career, Dr. Maki has been dedicated to issues of multiculturalism and ethnicity. He has authored numerous articles on the topics of multiculturalism and social work practice. Dr. Maki is considered to be a leading scholar on the Japanese American redress movement. He was the lead author on the award winning book, Achieving the Impossible Dream: How Japanese Americans Obtained Redress. He is a highly sought after speaker and has spoken about the Redress movement at college campuses and conferences across the nation.
Dr. Maki works very closely with the Japanese American National Museum and the National Center for the Preservation of Democracy. He is constantly providing trainings to teachers and students on the Japanese American redress movement. Each year, Dr. Maki participates in a national teachers institute.
Dr. Maki currently serves on the advisory board for the California Civil Liberties Public Education Project. This board advises the California State Librarian regarding the funding of competitive grants for public educational activities and the development of educational materials to ensure that the events surrounding the exclusion, forced removal and incarceration of civilians and permanent resident aliens of Japanese ancestry will be remembered so that causes and circumstances of this and similar events may be illuminated and understood.
“One of the nominations said this of Dr. Maki: ‘If there were ever an educator who exemplifies the spirit of George Kiriyama, that person would be Dr. Mitchell T. Maki,’ and we totally concur,” stated members of the selection committee, Iku Kiriyama, Kiyo Fukumoto and Francis Nakano, Ph.D.
Dr. Maki will be presented at the Cherry Blossom Festival program on Saturday, April 5, at 12:30 on the main plaza of the JACCC in Little Tokyo.
|
