Awakened Society

Dr. Steven Rockefeller

Professor Emeritus of Religion at Middlebury College, where he served as Dean of the College. He received his Master of Divinity degree from Union Theological Seminary in New York City and his Ph.D. in the philosophy of religion from Columbia University. He is the author of John Dewey: Religious Faith and Democratic Humanism) and the co-editor of two books of essays, The Christ and the Bodhisattva and Spirit and Nature: Why the Environment is a Religious Issue. One major focus in his books and essays is the interrelation of spirituality, democracy, and ecology.

Professor Rockefeller was centrally involved in the creation of the Earth Charter, an international declaration of global interdependence with fundamental principles for building a just, sustainable, and peaceful world. Active in the field of philanthropy, for three decades, he served as a trustee of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, an international foundation, and chaired the Fund’s board from 1998 to 2006. He is the founding president of the Wendell Gilley Museum in Southwest Harbor, Maine, and of the Otter Creek Child Care Center in Middlebury Vermont. Since 2017, he has served as co-chair of the board of trustees for the Collaborative for Spirituality in Education, and he is the author of a new book, Spiritual Democracy and Our Schools.