2022 - Susan Glanz

2022 Winner of the PETER BASA AWARD of the

American Hungarian Educators Association

Awardee’s Name: Susan Glanz
Professional Title: Professor of Economics
Address: St. John’s University, College of Professional Studies, New York, NY Email: zsuzsa19745@gmail.com
Her professional curriculum is to be found here: https://www.stjohns.edu/academics/faculty/susan-glanz-phd

Nominator: Judith Kesserű Némethy
Professional Title: Clinical Professor emerita, New York University Address: 1 Washington Square Village Ap. 5T – New York, NY 10012 Email: jn2@nyu.edu

Date of submission: February 1, 2022

Indicate in the section below, why you believe the individual you are nominating meets qualifications for the Peter Basa Award:

Susan is a longstanding member of AHEA. She has contributed to our organization since the early 1980’s, delivering a paper at practically every conference and participating actively in the organization and programing of every conference. As a member of the program committee since the second half of the 1980’s, she has been chairing the section on Science/Economics to date.
In 2007, Susan was the head of the local organizing committee of our 32nd conference titled “Hungarians in a Larger World”, held at St. John’s University in Manhattan, NY.
lthough not attending herself our last three meetings, she has nevertheless continued to assemble the elaborate program of each conference, demonstrating her outstanding expertise as an engineer as well as her dedication to AHEA.

As someone who had the pleasure to work closely with her for years in the organization of AHEA, I recommend her wholeheartedly for the 2022 Péter Basa Award.

Letter of support from Katalin Voros, February 2, 2022:

Susan Glanz was president of AHEA for two terms, from 2004-2008. This was before AHEA went online (2009). Susan dealt with several important issues, such as celebration of the 30th anniversary of the AHEA, in 2005 at the annual conference in Budapest (CEU). Also during Susan’s term the Executive Committee approved and launched an e-journal to publish selected papers from the conferences. She arranged for the 2007 conference to be held at her place ofemployment, at St. John’s University, NY.

As far as I can remember (I joined in 2004) Susan was a member of the Program Committee. She took on the responsibility of assembling the submitted papers into a coherent 3-day program. This work required several reiterations each year, often with up to the last minute requests for time changes; this cascaded into a rearrangement of a good part of the program. Since the conferences are a major activity of the AHEA, involving all members, assembling a program to satisfy all needs is a major accomplishment. Both as president and Program Committee member Susan performed the tasks of these positions admirably and established herself in the history of AHEA with great credits.

I support Susan Glanz’s nomination for the Peter Basa Award without reservations.

KATALIN VOROS
R&D Engineering Manager Emerita
Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences University of California at Berkeley voros@eecs.berkeley.edu http://microlab.berkeley.edu/~voros

2020 - Judit Kesserű Némethy

Judith Kesserű Némethy is a retired professor at the Department of Spanish and Portuguese of New York University. Her main research and teaching interests include foreign language teaching methodology, second language acquisition, bilingualism, Spanish dialectology, ethnic, minority and diaspora studies. She has published many studies and books on the history of Hungarian émigrés in Argentina, on South American youth of Hungarian descent, on Hungarian instruction in Western countries, and on bilingualism of American-Hungarian teenagers. Being a Fulbright scholar and visiting

professor at the University of Szeged, she taught courses on Latin American Literature and on the History of the Hungarian Diaspora.

Dr. Némethy is past president of the American Hungarian Educators Association, for two terms; Executive Committee member of the Hungarian Scout Association in Exteris and administrator of scholarship applications to the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s (formerly Balassi Institute) Hungarian Language and Cultural Studies program for students of Hungarian descent.

Dr. Némethy, a long time member of the AHEA, has been active in organizing the annual conferences, and is the topic chair for Education during the submissions selection process. The theme of the 2012 conference, held at Long Island University, Brooklyn Campus, NY, was: Hungarian Borders, [Im]migrations, Diasporas. This was the beginning of a long and fruitful collaboration that resulted in the publishing of the book entitled 21st Century Hungarian Language Survival in Transylvania edited by Judith Kesserű Némethy (Contributors: Noémi Fazakas, Rita Fóris-Ferenczi, Orsolya Nádor, Attila Z. Papp, János Péntek, Krisztina Sárosi Márdirosz, Borbála Zsemlyei), that examines the present-day situation of Hungarian as minority language in Romania, being an important addition to the study of the Hungarian language in the Diaspora.

Fazakas Noémi, PhD – Assistant Professor, SAPIENTIA – HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY OF TRANSYLVANIA
Sárosi Krisztina, PhD – Assistant Professor, SAPIENTIA – HUNGARIAN UNIVERSITY OF TRANSYLVANIA

Zsemlyei Borbála, PhD – Assistant Professor, BABES- BOLYAI UNIVERSITY, CLUJ- NAPOCA

February 8, 2018

2018 - Louise O. Vasvári

The Péter Basa Award
American Hungarian Educators Association

Louise O. Vasvári

has been an active and supporting member of the American Hungarian Educators Association since 1982. She has made our journal, Hungarian Cultural Studies, into a respected peer reviewed journal. Her many hours of editing, revising, and turning manuscripts into academically acceptable publishable form, as well as the organizational work of getting the journal together are admirable. She has put in many hours on the work of junior scholars and especially scholars from Hungary to make the papers conform

to American scholars’ expectations. Her tireless work for the journal inspires the admiration and gratitude of all who have worked with her. Her dedication to the work of young scholars, including those from Hungary, is outstanding. Open internet access to the journal (not restricted by a paywall) helps integrate Hungarian culture and scholarship and make it available to the entire world.

Lujzi has served several terms as Vice President of our association and has also been a frequent presenter at our conferences. She has brought fresh ideas to the AHEA board. She has been a perennial contributor in program planning, serving as chair for Cultural Studies or Literature sessions numerous times. She has helped the Program Committee to meet and discuss the program for conferences for many years, setting up the agenda and facilitating the smooth flow of discussion. She produces a preliminary outline and tentative break-down of the sessions, and frequently welcomes the Committee meetings in her home.

She has taught in Hungary with two Fulbright scholar awards for the University in Szeged and also had an appointment to the Central European University, sharing her US background and studies with the larger Hungarian and European community of scholars.

She has been supportive of the Hungarian Forum of the Modern Language Association and has also been active in the Hungarian cultural life of New York City.

For her contribution to the AHEA, and in particular for her leadership in making our journal a recognized and respected scholarly publication of which we can all be proud, we are pleased to name her as the recipient of this year’s Péter Basa Award.

James P. Niessen
President, American Hungarian Educators Association Cleveland State University
April 14, 2018

2016 - Katalin Vörös

The Péter Basa Award
American Hungarian Educators Association

The Executive Board of the American Hungarian Educators Association hereby presents this Award to

Katalin Vörös

whose outstanding contributions for the past two decades have left an indelible mark on the organization. She has been a very supportive and energetic organizer. The AHEA conference she hosted in Berkeley was one of the best we ever held, and certainly the one that received the most local support, both financially and in the number of people from the community attending the talks and even the banquet.

When the need for a Web presence was identified, she took the job, creating and to this day maintaining the Association's website with consistent and dedicated work and attention to detail.

Kati's absolutely unique and irreplaceable contribution to AHEA has been her role in the establishment and improvement of our journal, Hungarian Cultural Studies. Our journal started out as unedited Proceedings, and then several years ago when Louise Vasvári took over the editing we turned it into an open access online peer-reviewed journal. None of this would have been possible without Kati's technical expertise. After the journal’s modest beginnings as a compilation of proceedings, when we decided to upgrade the scholarly presentation, Kati conducted research and consultation with various academic presses until she found a solution that was reasonably priced and compatible with our needs with the University of Pittsburgh Press. Nobody else could have pursued these negotiations to a successful conclusion and implementation as she did thanks to her persistence and mastery of the technical details. In the two years since our transition to the Pittsburgh platform, she has had to be constantly active with refinements to procedures, interacting with the Pittsburgh staff, making changes to our back issues, and posting the roughly thirty-five articles we publish each year.

Both the website and the journal are freely available, increasing the visibility of the association and providing value and prestige for the good work of members and contributors through our Web presence.

The important contributions of Katalin Vörös have shaped our Association to be accessible worldwide to scholars and others interested in Hungarian culture. Her contributions are large and sustained and demonstrate an unwavering commitment to the goals of the Association.

James P. Niessen AHEA President

2016

2014 - Kálmán Magyar

Kálmán Magyar
Director, American Hungarian Folklore Centrum, New Jersey

For many, many people in America, for decades, Kálmán Magyar has been and remains the face of Hungarian traditional music and dance.

Kálmán arrived in the US in the early 60’s after learning dance performance in Hungary. As a teenager, he immediately became involved in the New York-based dance group, Hungaria, which was made up of young Hungarians – he was one of the group’s first members. First a star performer, Kálmán, together with Judith, who joined the group in the mid 1960’s and eventually became his wife, soon became the artistic directors of the group, performing at innumerable events, including the World’s Fair in 1964. Because of limitations imposed by the Iron Curtain, Hungaria’s repertoire was often the result of research done by the Magyars, pulled from whatever musical and dance sources they could find, including books, performances of the Hungarian State Ensemble and records of classical composers.

In addition to working with Hungaria, Kálmán and Judith taught at many different American dance camps, and cultivated relationships with many Hungarian and American groups in the US, as well as fostering dance and music research in Hungary and Romania. One of the major records of the founder of dance and music research in Romania, Zoltán Kallós, was produced in the US by the Magyars.

Being the knowledgeable expert in field has not stopped Kálmán from doing the footwork. With Judith, Kálmán was the founder of a series of Hungarian Dance and Music Symposia beginning in 1978, offering the chance for Hungarian groups to become skilled in their culture and for Americans to participate in this world treasure. Working to control costs and make it possible for many people to come, Kálmán developed an agreement with camps on the West Coast to share the cost of bringing over Hungarian bands and teachers. He canvassed the Midwest and East for affordable campsites, and made all the arrangements. He found the musicians and dance teachers, applied for their visas, worked out airfare and transportation and all the arrangements they needed for their families.

At the Symposia, Kálmán was tireless in making sure everything ran according to schedule, doing the work of enrollment, checking food, bringing water, cooking midnight meals, and innumerable other tasks. If a camper had any sort of problem, he helped them, including finding and counseling a depressed teen who had run off into the woods. He did this all while having a great time himself. We couldn’t figure out when he slept!

Kálmán is always ready with advice for travelers in Hungary, and he often takes them out to see the sights in Budapest and elsewhere. In 199, Kálmán led a tour group to Romania to learn about traditional music, dance, and arts in a local context. He brought his group to many events and places, and introduced them to his friends in Transylvania. Those who came will remember this forever, and those who missed it hope he will go again soon!

Several years ago, Kálmán founded Centrum Management, in order to foster the touring of Hungarian musicians and dance groups throughout the US and Canada. Groups who were seen here through Centrum Management have included Rajkó Gypsy Orchestra, Kálmán Balogh, Szászcsávás, the Kodály String Quartet, the Hungarian State Folk Ensemble, the ensembles,Ifjú Szúvek, Üsztürü, Ökrös, and Düvõ, and Gypsy Spirit and Csárdás, Tango of the East, shows of the Budapest Dance Ensemble. Kálmán worked with his American friends in many places to find venues and lodging for these groups, often filling out the proceeds at various events out of his own pocket, as well as sponsoring himself the socializing with potential hosts that could lead to these tours.

Kálmán has been tirelessly involved in Hungarian events in New Jersey, and in the work of many Hungarian organizations, including churches, community centers, athletic centers, and museums. Many times he has been the MC of Hungarian Day in New Brunswick, and he will pitch in wherever necessary—one time I saw him playing drums at the Hungarian Day dance! Kálmán works with local museums, including the American Hungarian Foundation in New Brunswick and the Hungarian Museum in Passaic, with local exhibits and events. He has acted as a go between for Hungarians throughout the US for all these decades. Knowing everyone, helping them to meet each other, he is an unparalleled resource for finding out what is happening in the Hungarian world in the US and Europe. His computer skills in the websites Hungaria.org and Magyar.org have put this information at the fingertips of everyone.

Finally, there is the tremendous help that Kálmán has given the American Hungarian Educators Association. As one of the early members, he recognized the importance of fostering Hungarian research, whether in Hungary, Romania, Slovakia, or the far flung lives of Hungarian émigrés. Modestly saying that he is not a scholar and casting himself in a supporting role, he has contributed an incredible amount of energy and wisdom to the organization’s events, and he occasionally presents a paper, himself.

Kálmán’s contribution is astonishing in its depth of knowledge, his dedication, his organizational skills, his presentational and personal skills. He is the perfect person to receive this award!
Best wishes,
Judith Olson, M.Phil., NYU

2012 - Ruth G. Biro

2012 AHEA Péter Basa Award Brooklyn, NY April 28, 2012

The American Hungarian Educators Association established the Péter Basa Award in to recognize outstanding contributions to the advancement of the purposes and activities of the AHEA. The award is presented every two years to the most deserving member of our association.

Today we are proud to present the 2012 American Hungarian Educators Association Péter Basa Award to RUTH BIRO, to honor her early, sustained, and long lasting commitment to the goals of the Association.

Ruth was one of the founding members AHEA in 1974 and her dedication to the work of the Association did not diminish throughout the years. This dedication says a lot both of Ruth and the AHEA itself. Ruth is not Hungarian by birth, yet she dedicated her scholarly life to doing research about Hungary and she found a receptive home in the organization. She has served the organization in several capacities throughout the years, from secretary, treasurer, nominating committee chair and VP.

Ruth has attended nearly every conference and has presented papers on a wide variety of education/library topics, such as Comenius in Sárospatak, Children’s and Young Adult Literature about Hungary in English, Raoul Wallenberg in Hungary, Women and Children in WWII in Hungary, Hungarian-English Picture Dictionary on the Hungarian Language and Culture; Righteous Gentiles in the Hungarian Holocaust, King Matthias Corvinus: 15thCentury Bibliophile, Literature on Hungary as Refuge for Polish Jews in WW I, Hungarian Activist Margit Slachta, Documenting Hungarian-American Materials, Educational Exchange Programs with Hungary, Hungarian Themes in Multicultural Education.

Dr. Biro has actively supported ethnic and multicultural programs to broaden awareness, within the United States, of Hungarian contributions to civilization. We can just list a few of her publications. Not only did she publish on Hungary and Hungarian topics, she has trained generations of students at Duquesne University to appreciate and understand Hungary. Some of her recent publications that fall in this category are:

Biro, Ruth G. and Judith Lechner, comps. “Children’s Books by and about Hungarians and about Hungary,” International Reading Association World Congress on Reading.

Children’s Literature Symposium: Bridging the World through Hungarian

Children’s Literature. Budapest: Eotvos Lorand University, 2006. Annotated list in Hungarian and English 27 pp. Published on 2006 website: http://www.reading.org/association/meetings/wc_handouts.html

Biro, Ruth G. and Christina Levicky. “Literature for an Interdisciplinary Holocaust Course: Books on the Hungarian Holocaust for Comparative Cultural Study,” Teaching the Holocaust in Catholic Schools. Ed. Kathleen
McSharry. Greensburg: National Catholic Center for Holocaust Studies, Seton Hill University, 2008, 101-110.

Biro, Ruth G. “Representations of Budapest in 1944-1945 in Holocaust Literature,” Comparative Central European Holocaust Studies. Eds. Louise O. Vasvari and Steven Totosy de Zepetnek. Purdue University Comparative Culture Series. West Lafayette IN: Purdue UP, 2009, 3-17.

Biro, Ruth G. “Hungarian Women and the Holocaust: Memory and Memorialization in Literature,” The Legacy of the Holocaust: The World Before, the World After. Eds. Zygmunt Mazur, Stephen Gaies, Arnold Krammer, and Wladyslav Witalisz. Krakow: Jagiellonian UP, 2010, 59-76.

Biro, Ruth G. “Hungarian Women Remember the Holocaust in Their Literature: Lessons in Resiliency in Overcoming the Consequences of Persecutions,” Holocaust Persecution: Responses and Consequences. Eds. Nancy Rupprecht and Wendy Koenig. Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, 2010, 167-183.

During her 49 year tenure at Duquesne University, Ruth endeavored to deepen student appreciation for Hungarian culture. Her activities, both in and out of the classroom, helped promote understanding of the disciplines that comprise the study of the humanities together with the aesthetic, intellectual, political, and religious dimensions of Hungarian culture. Some of the publications listed above could be included here also.

Ruth has served on doctoral committees on Hungarian topics at universities in the Pittsburgh area, she has worked at the Hungarian Nationality Room of University of Pittsburgh, she is a member of the Hungarian Association of Friends (Magyar Baráti Közösség), of the William Penn Association, of the Hungarian Professional Society of Pittsburgh, of the Hungarian Social Club, of the American Hungarian Social Club, of the Hungarian-American Chamber of Commerce.

Congratulations to Ruth, as the second recipient of the Péter Basa Award of the American Hungarian Educators Association.

Judith Kesserű Némethy, AHEA President April 28, 2012

Enikő Molnár Basa

2010 AHEA Péter Basa Award Szeged, June 6, 2010

The American Hungarian Educators Association established the Péter Basa Award in 2009 to recognize outstanding contributions to the advancement of the purposes and activities of the AHEA.

Péter Basa was a founding member of the AHEA in 1975 and was active in it until his death in 2000. Beyond that, he supported a number of Hungarian cultural programs and American-Hungarian initiatives. He contributed freely of his time and energy to ensure the continuing development and long-term existence of the AHEA.

He was responsible primarily for recognizing the need to orient the activities of the Association toward the broader aspects of Hungarian culture and, with this in mind, he stimulated the interest and participation of educators active in Hungarian studies. In recognition of his vision, sustained efforts, and contributions to the growth and development of the AHEA, this award carries his name.

Our first awardee is Enikő MOLNÁR Basa, to honor her total dedication to the success of the AHEA.

Enikő was there at the time of the initial establishment of the organization and since then we witnessed her tireless efforts on behalf of Hungarian scholarship, conference planning and management of the affairs of AHEA from day one. Our organization has completed 35 years under her capable leadership.

Enikő obtained a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill in 1972. Shortly thereafter, Enikő joined the Library of Congress, becoming Senior Serials Cataloger of the National Serials Data Program. She retired in December 2004. During these years, Enikő published a number of monographs on Hungarian literature, on Madách, Petőfi, Csokonai, Molnár, Kosztolányi, Radnóti, among others. She also wrote the chapter on Hungarian Literature in the Review of National Literatures published in 1993.

Her studies in Hungarian literature, combined with her organizational work as cataloger, provided the basis for her many contributions to the development and well being of our Association. Since the inception of AHEA, Enikő has been indefatigable as its Executive Director, convening and facilitating its conferences, maintaining its correspondence, files, and historical documents. She has edited the AHEA newsletter and initiated the association’s e-Journal; she founded the Hungarian section of the Modern Language Association and sustained it for years, ensuring Hungarian presence in that institution. She also is the liaison to a number of Hungarian cultural institutions in the United States and Canada. It is the nominators’ firm belief that without Enikő’s dedication, there would be no AHEA. This fact was also recognized by the Hungarian Government, which in 1997 granted her the Presidential Gold Medal of Hungary.

Congratulations to Enikő, as the first recipient of the Péter Basa Award of the American Hungarian Educators Association.
Judit Kesserű Némethy, AHEA President

Judit Kesserű Némethy and award recipient Enikő Molnár Basa