ODK Honors Pulitzer Winner James MacGregor Burns

March 2, 2004

James MacGregor Burns, senior scholar at the Jepson School of Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond, received the lifetime achievement award from Omicron Delta Kappa at its national convention in Norfolk last week.

ODK presented Burns with the Laurel Crowned Circle Award, the highest the national honor society for leadership gives. Burns won the Pulitzer Prize in 1971 for his second biography of FDR, "Roosevelt: The Soldier of Freedom." His book "Leadership," published in 1978, was the pioneering work that called for leadership education in the United States.

"Jim Burns was the nation's first scholar to connect ideas about transformational leadership, the responsibilities of leadership and leaders acting in service to others in a meaningful way," said ODK's president, Kenneth Ruscio. "His work has shaped our understanding of leadership in so many ways." Ruscio is dean of the Jepson School.

Keynote speaker at the convention was Robert Grey Jr., president-elect of the American Bar Association, first African American chair of the ABA's House of Delegates and partner at the Richmond law firm Hunton & Williams.

Founded in 1914 at Washington and Lee University, ODK recognizes and encourages superior scholarship, leadership and exemplary character.