AERA Past President Maxine Greene, a professor emeritus and the founder and director of the Maxine Greene Center for Social Imagination, the Arts, and Education at Teachers College, Columbia University, died May 29 at age 96.
Greene, who served as AERA President in 1981-1982, was at the forefront of educational philosophy for well over half a century as a teacher, lecturer, and author. She lectured widely at universities and education associations throughout the United States.
Greene taught at New York University, Montclair State College, and Brooklyn College before joining the faculty at Teachers College, Columbia University, in 1965, where she established herself as a lone female voice among her male philosophy of education colleagues. She was named a professor of philosophy and education in 1973, and served as the William F. Russell Professor in the Foundations of Education from 1975 to 1998.
Greene received the AERA Distinguished Contributions to Research in Education Award in 1995, and was featured at the AERA 2008 Annual Meeting in a Presidential Session titled “From Bare Facts to Intellectual Possibility: The Leap of Imagination—A Conversation with Maxine Greene.”
She was the author of six books: Releasing the Imagination - Essays on Education, the Arts and Social Change; The Dialectics of Freedom; Landscapes of Learning; Teacher as Stranger: Educational Philosophy in the Modern Age (awarded the 1974 Delta Gamma Kappa Award for Educational Book of the Year); Existential Encounters for Teachers; and The Public School and the Private Vision.
Greene was also past president of the Philosophy of Education Society and the American Educational Studies Association; a member of the National Academy of Education; and recipient of 10 honorary degrees.
Greene earned a Ph.D. (1955) and M.A. (1949) from New York University and a B.A. from Barnard College, Columbia University (1938).