Lifetime Achievement Awardee

Richard Couto

Richard Couto (PhD, University of Kentucky) had a background of practice and scholarship in community leadership. At Vanderbilt University from 1975 to 1988, he pioneered campus and community collaborative programs that connected the student movement of the 1960s; community leadership in Appalachia and in rural, predominantly African American counties of western Tennessee; and the current programs of civic engagement in higher education. He won several national awards for this work including a Kellogg National Fellowship. He was a founding faculty member of undergraduate and PhD programs in leadership and a senior fellow at several programs, including the James MacGregor Burns Academy at the University of Maryland. Five of his 14 authored or edited books have won national awards. This includes his edited work, the two-volume Political and Civic Leadership Reference Handbook (SAGE).

Richard Couto Awarded the Marist College Distinguished Alumnus Medal.

Oral history is an excellent method for collecting and interpreting memories and fostering new knowledge. Dr. Phil Scarpino, past president of the National Council for Public History and Professor of History at Indiana University, exhaustively researches each recipient prior to conducting his interviews and uses the highest standards prescribed by the American Oral History Association. Oral histories with ILA Lifetime Achievement Awardees are conducted in partnership with the Tobias  Leadership Center at Indiana University.

Oral History with Richard Couto
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