The George Washington University has awarded Professor Miriam Galston with the Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Service. Endowed by former GW President Stephen Trachtenberg, the award recognizes exceptional service to the university.
Several GW colleagues submitted letters of recommendation on Professor Galston's behalf. Each noted her decades of work on a variety of university and law school committees.
Notably, Professor Galston has served on the Faculty Senate for nine of the past ten years and on many committees, including the Steering Committee for the Middle States reaccreditation review of the university in 2006-2007. Professor Galston was also instrumental to bringing the Bright Horizon Child Care Center to GW, and she has been a key advisor to the Center for the last two decades.
"I began doing university service within a year of arriving at GW in 1990, largely out of a sense of duty," Professor Galston said. "I felt responsibility to my law school—and I volunteered to do things there—and responsibility to the university as a whole. With service you're dealing with immediate and practical problems, and it's satisfying to be able to address things that are concrete, particular, and immediate. It provides a balance to the more theoretical and abstract aspect of one's academic life."