I was pleased to see that the Center for Business Education at the Aspen Institute recently announced the winners of the 2010 Shared Capitalism through Employee Ownership Dissertation Proposal Awards. This year’s winners are Karen Bernhardt-Walther, a doctoral candidate in economics at the University of Chicago Booth School and Natasha van der Zwan, a doctoral candidate in political science at the New School for Social Research.

The purpose of the award is to identify innovative research in business or business-related disciplines that is concerned with the impact or effectiveness of shared capitalism and/or broad-based ownership strategies in combination with participative workplace practices. The program is sponsored by the Aspen Institute in partnership with the Foundation for Enterprise Development and the Employee Ownership Foundation (EOF). The winners will receive honorariums and recognition at an upcoming awards ceremony in New York City later this month.

Congratulations to the winners, the finalists, and all those who submitted dissertation proposals for consideration by the judging panel. I am glad to see that the idea of employee ownership is alive and well in America’s universities.

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I have included some photos from my recent trip East. Two of the photos are of my old house on Grosse Ile (that’s my daughter Mary Ann, my caregiver Chris, and me in one of the photos), and the other photo is of the certificate issued by the Michigan Historical Commission registering the house as a Michigan Historic Site. I look forward to returning for another visit next year.

– Bob