Submitted by Fred Hewett

Boston Ethical Community is pleased to announce that Juliet B. Schor of Boston College is the 2016 Humanist of the Year. Schor will accept the award at our meeting on April 10, 2016.

Professor Schor is a professor of Sociology at Boston College in Newton, MA. A graduate of Wesleyan University, Schor received her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Massachusetts. Prior to Boston College, Schor taught in the Department of Economics at Harvard University for 17 years.

In addition to her academic work, Schor has published extensively for general readers. Her 1992 book, The Overworked American: The Unexpected Decline of Leisure, was a national best-seller. This important volume examined the social currents underlying the increased working hours that Americans experienced in the latter part of the 20th century.

Several other works that Schor has published since then have examined various aspects of American consumerism.

Her most recent book is True Wealth, which appeared in 2011. This book addresses two great challenges of our times. The first is our ecological crisis — climate destabilization and the running down of ecosystems around the world. The other is economic — the standard models of economic growth are no longer sufficient to provide adequate employment as automation and globalization become more pervasive. True Wealth explores new visions of what a truly sustainable economy might look like.

Schor is currently on the advisory board of The Center for the New American Dream, a program designed to improve well-being by inspiring and empowering all of us to shift the ways we consume.

Schor has received numerous awards for her work, including the Leontief Prize from the Global Development and Economics Institute at Tufts University in 2006 for expanding the frontiers of economic thought.

Since 1974, the BEC has awarded our Humanist of the Year award to individuals who have demonstrated outstanding service to society and have made contributions to the promotion and understanding of Humanism. We congratulate Juliet Schor and look forward to hosting her at BEC on April 10.