York Professor Darryl Reed received the annual award for Outstanding Contribution to Cooperative Education and Training for 2015 from the Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE) at its annual meeting at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst on July 14.
ACE is an international organization operating in the United States, Canada and Puerto Rico committed to strengthen cooperatives and the cooperative movement by promoting innovative educational responses to social and economic changes. ACE works closely with the national cooperative trade associations in Canada (Cooperatives and Mutuals Canada) and the US (the National Cooperative Business Association), sector associations, colleges and universities, along with individual cooperatives and cooperative networks.
Reed is a Professor of Business and Society in the Department of Social Science, where he teaches and does research on cooperatives and the broader social economy. His particular areas of interest include the role of student co-operatives in higher education, Fair Trade movements, and the role of cooperatives in local and regional development in the South. For the past five years, Reed has served as the president of the Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation, the national professional association for cooperative researchers in Canada.
In his acceptance speech, Reed reasserted the importance of collaboration between cooperative practitioners, educators and researchers. He also argued for the the potential fruitfulness of collaboration between the cooperative sector and higher education by emphasizing the fact that co-operatives, like universities, are democratically controlled, work for the public good and have education as a core component of their mission.