Kenneth
Dean Benne (1908-1992), through half a century of work, advanced
adult education as an innovator, associational leader, journalist,
philosopher, teacher and writer. Dr. Benne received a B.S. from Kansas
State University in 1930, an M.A. in educational philosophy from
the University of Michigan in 1936, and a Ph.D. in educational philosophy
from Columbia University in 1941. His professorships from 1941 through
1973 at the University of Illinois, Columbia University, and Boston
University influenced countless students, including many of the leading
scholars and teachers in the philosophy of education.
Dr. Benne was president of the Adult Education Association from 1955 through 1956. During the 1950's, Benne was instrumental in creating the Adult Leadership magazine, serving as assistant editor. Benne wrote extensively on the philosophy of adult education, of which his major works are Education for Tragedy and The Task of Post-Contemporary Education. He will be remembered as one of the most articulate philosophical interpreters of the nature and meaning of adult education.
Benne
is best known as a co-inventor of the laboratory
method of learning and change and as a
cofounder of the National Training Laboratory
for Group Development and its summer training
program in Bethel, Maine. He was also a
co-founder of the International Association
of Applied Social Scientists in 1971, and
he wrote extensively
about the laboratory method and change theory,
co-editing T Group
Theory and
Laboratory Training, The Laboratory Method of Changing and Learning,
and The Planning
of Change. Through all of his work and writings Benne expressed
a spirited character and ardent commitment to social transformation through
the re-socialization and re-education of adults in their human relationships.
"A
teacher affects eternity; he can never tell
where his influence stops."
-Henry
Brooks Adams