APRIL 28, 2010

The Mass Gerontology Association will present Associate Professor Richard Rowland with the Louis Lowy Award at the Annual Meeting of the Association on May 6, 2010 at the Florence Heller Graduate School at Brandeis University. Professor Rowland teaches Macro Practice in the Older Adults & Families, Health and Mental Health Concentrations.

The Mass. Gerontology Association Louis Lowy Award was created in memory of Louis Lowy the founder of MGA. Louis Lowy was a pioneer in the gerontology field, a holocaust survivor and a long time professor at the Boston University School of Social Work. Dick Rowland was one of Professor Lowy's students at the BU School of Social Work.

The criteria for this award is a lifetime of leadership and measurable contributions to the field. â Dick not only teaches theory, practice, and programs, but also exposes his students to the actual workings of legislative bargaining and what it takes to be successful,â said James J. Callahan, Ph.D., a Professor Emeritus from the Heller School at Brandeis University.

Dick Rowland started as an advocate for low-income populations during the Great Society years of the 1960s. He then went to work for the Mass Association of Older Americans and the Legislative Council of Older Americans as the association's person on Beacon Hill. In 1983, Governor Dukakis named him Secretary of Elder Affairs where he advocated for better programs for elders, increased financing for local councils of aging (grassroots), and higher salaries for the employees of home care agencies. He taught at UMASS Boston in a special program to educate older persons to be effective advocates in their own right.