The Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize

Intent of the Ré Peace Prize Artist Paul Ré is recognized internationally for promoting world peace and harmony through his masterful creations. Since 1972, he has shown how serene and elevating art can act as a model for living and can inspire us to find our inner depth and express it outwardly through good works. In keeping with these ideals, the Peace Prize is given to that UNM student, faculty or staff member, alumnus or retiree who has promoted peace, harmony and understanding among people of the world, both within him- or herself and outwardly through tangible works. Also eligible are persons who regularly do volunteer work for UNM programs or UNM affiliates. These works may be on a local, regional, national or global level. Emphasis is on promoting both internal and external peace and fostering discussion of what really constitutes peace. The recipient of the award may be an artist but may also be an individual in any field who has pursued peace and harmony with creativity and dedication. Possible projects may be environmental, involve individual or social healing, integrative medicine, sustainable energy or green architectural design, art creation or preservation, human population control and family planning or any positive endeavor. Included is Conflict Resolution, but Conflict Prevention is to be particularly strongly emphasized.

Peace Prize Vision Statement by Paul Ré © 2006 I believe that we can greatly improve our world by encouraging and preserving the good in life – wisdom, beauty, insight, humor that enlightens – and using these positive forces to heal discord. This requires the integration and synergy of many fields – from art and science to engineering and philosophy – plus communication and common sense. Great advances can be made technically, for example, through cleaner and more efficient energy and transportation, but these must be combined with improvements in both personal habits and public policy. We must reduce waste, take only those natural resources that we really need and limit our population to a level that our biosphere can support.  

Global Peace must begin as Inner Peace within each individual. We can invite peace into our lives through thoughtful, healthy living and by offering courtesy, respect and friendship to others. There is a symmetry between the human rights we expect to receive and those we have an obligation to give. When we thoroughly integrate peace into all of our thoughts and actions, our life becomes a work of art. This is a very practical, influential and equable artform that everyone can practice. Ultimately, Peace becomes a natural way of living.  

Award Description The Peace Prize is meant to further the work of the recipient, but may also be used to create direct executions of or new interpretations of peace and harmony from Paul Ré’s original designs and/or his writings; for example, an extension of his widely shown exhibit of Touchable Art for the Blind and Sighted. The Prize will consist of a check to help the recipient carry forward his or her work, a 20" x 26" framed commemorative artwork created by Paul Ré, and a specially inscribed, signed, and numbered copy of the artist’s acclaimed monograph, The Dance of the Pencil, plus an award reception. Ré's latest volume, Art, Peace, and Transcendence: Réograms that Elevate and Unite from UNM Press received the 2016 New Mexico - Arizona Book Award for Philosophy and the 2019 Distinguished Favorite Award in Fine Arts from the Independent Press Awards. A specially inscribed copy of Art, Peace, and Transcendence will also be included in the prize.

The Paul Bartlett Ré Peace Prize is administered by the University of New Mexico Foundation. It has been endowed to operate in perpetuity and extends his decades of work promoting harmony in the world through art. Upon Paul’s passing, the endowment should approximately quadruple. In 2012, the eligibility for the Peace Prize was extended to also include all UNM alumni, a group that numbers about 160,000 persons in 129 countries. Paul's greatest reward, beyond the joy of creating the art itself, is when people are moved by his work toward peace and fulfillment.

2024 Paul Ré Peace Prize Virtual Reception

This 1 hour and 36 minute Peace Symposium enables viewers to share in diverse and innovative efforts that are helping to heal and harmonize our very challenged world. Please click on image at right to view

Click here to view the 2022 Paul Ré Peace Prize Virtual Reception

Click here to view the 2020 Paul Ré Peace Prize Virtual Reception

 

2024 Winners

  • 2024 General Category Winner: Katie Stone

    Katie Stone is the Executive Director of the New Mexico nonprofit, The Children’s Hour Inc., and was a volunteer producer of The Children’s Hour for more than 17 years at KUNM before the show went into national syndication. For two decades, Stone has been working to foster peace, understanding, and empathy among young radio listeners, as the founder and executive producer of "The Children's Hour," a public radio program designed for kids, but valid for any age, airs in 150 stations reaching an estimated 750,000 listeners. In her nomination, Katie states, “The Children's Hour has been a labor of love, aiming to make complex global issues accessible and relatable to children.”

  • 2024 Lifetime Achievement Awardee: Charlene Delaunay

    Charlene Delaunay, BA ’78, after earning her degree in Elementary Education she went on to teach for Albuquerque Public Schools, in Taiwan for the US State Department, and for the Navajo and Zuni Tribes. She is an award-winning writer and member of the Northern Arapaho tribe. For more than 40 years, Delaunay has written, taught, and promoted issues relating to civil rights, community outreach, and indigenous cultural traditions and practices.

  • 2024 Lifetime Achievement Awardee: Selma Ćatović Hughes

    Selma Ćatović Hughes, BA ’00, has worked in architecture and design for more than 20 years. After earning her undergraduate degree in Architecture from the University of New Mexico, Ćatović Hughes developed a unique multidisciplinary artistic practice that she has presented at conferences in the UK, Finland, Luxembourg, Poland, Lithuania, Bosnia, Spain, and the US. Her mixed media art projects dealing with difficult histories, disputed territories, identity, heritage, and intergenerational memory in post-conflict society have been recognized through awards, research grants, and several academic publications.

  • 2024 Emerging Promoter of Peace Awardee: Mario Del Angel Guevara

    Mario Del Angel Guevara, MA’ 17, PhD ’23, after earning his master’s degree in Spanish, he was named assistant professor and co-director of the Curanderismo Traditional Medicine Program at the University of New Mexico. He earned a PhD in Spanish with a Concentration in Hispanic Linguistics. Del Angel Guevara was instrumental in creating and running the Summer institute on Traditional Medicine Without Borders that has drawn thousands of students and health professionals worldwide to learn curandismo. He has created free Spanish and English courses on coursera.org that have enrolled over 40,000 students from different countries who learn how to become their own healer and learn to empower themselves using elements of nature for minor illnesses and ancestral concepts that support the healing of emotional distress such as grief, stress, and anxiety. Del Angel Guevara was the recipient of the Sara Belle Brown Award for Excelling Community Service, November 2022 and was appointed a member of the Board for Human Rights for the City of Albuquerque, December 2022.

  • 2024 Emerging Promoter of Peace Awardee: Kelly Luzzi

    Kelly Luzzi, BFA ’17, MFA ’20, is a Native New Mexican who was raised in a household marked by poverty, violence, and childhood trauma. This difficult upbringing helped to shape her educational experience, where she came to regard school as a safe place. Now, as a teacher at Cibola High School, Luzzi created her empathetic but firm teaching style born out of her challenging background. She created a “classroom mediation” program to dialog with students about challenging issues including racism, homophobia, and violence. Her program focuses on creating a community among her students, fostering an environment where everyone is safe from bullying and oppression, allowing students to focus on learning and positive social interactions.

  • 2022 Winner:

    Kathy Powers, Ph.D.
    A nationally renowned scholar for her work on some of the most pressing issues facing us globally. As an Associate Professor in the UNM Department of Political Science and Affiliated Faculty in the UNM School of Law, Powers’ research focuses on the design of international institutions and law with respect to human rights, restorative justice, trade, and war. She has received numerous awards and accolades for her work on reparations within the Black Community and post-WWII reparations and transitional justice including a research fellowship from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Powers is the voice that provides informed and hopeful insights for how we can collectively imagine a better and more just community for all. Her résumé includes Wilson Center Fellow, Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, Washington, D.C. and External Faculty Member, Santa Fe Institute, Santa Fe, New Mexico. Dr. Powers is receiving this award for her extensive work in human rights and restorative justice.

  • 2022 Lifetime Achievement Awardees:

    Farhan Wilayat Butt
    UNM correspondence student, philanthropist, and social activist. Wilayat Butt has founded several water-relief projects throughout Pakistan resulting in more than 400 water wells. These projects have received numerous awards and honors from local and international organizations. Mr. Wilayat Butt also promotes awareness about interfaith peace and harmony in Pakistan through peace tours, interviews, and theater performances. Farhan Wilayat Butt is receiving this award for the Sindh Water Relief Project.

    Ken Carpenter, Ph.D.
    A retired UNM Director of International Programs and Adjunct Faculty, activist, educator, and author, has a lifelong commitment to nonviolence both abroad and in the United States. Carpenter has taught courses in international studies, peace and justice studies, human rights, and security studies, and created the UNM Community Safety and Human Security Program which prepares students for public service. Dr. Carpenter is receiving this award for his contributions to peace and environmental activism.

    Youn Ja Johnson-Blanchard
    UNM English Faculty. Johnson is a 3D artist, writer and educator of peace who has brought people together teaching them an appreciation for our common humanity and spirituality. Her work fuses East and West in the themes of peace, power of nature, the common ground of humanity and the overlap of religious traditions. Her collections are in the Republic of Korea, and the US, including “Tribute to Mother Earth” at UNM, Albuquerque Museum Collections, and Murphy Veteran’s Hospital in NM. Johnson-Blanchard is receiving this award for her art installations relating to peace.

    Sandra Wasko-Flood
    UNM Taos art student, poet, and educator. Wasko-Flood is the founder of the national nonprofit organization, “Living Labyrinths for Peace, Inc.” Using art as a tool for social changes, Wasko-Flood inspires healing and transformation within and among people through labyrinth building and education in schools and communities nationwide. Her teaching welcomes all nationalities and races to come together creating harmony and world peace. Wasko-Flood is receiving this award for Living Labyrinths for Peace.

  • 2022 Career Achievement Awardee:

    Ramiro Jordan, Ph.D.
    UNM Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Associate Dean of Engineering for International Programs is a scientist, innovator, educator, and entrepreneur who has championed equity, transparency, and peace throughout his career. Dr. Jordan utilizes Peace Engineering (PEng) - application of STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts and Math principles), sustainable practices, cultural sensitivity, and innovation - to promote and support peace globally. He has received numerous national and international Honors and Awards and has given over 100 Keynote presentations. Ramiro Jordan is receiving this award for his contributions to Peace Engineering.

  • 2022 Emerging Promoter of Peace Awardee: ist Item

    Reilly White, Ph.D.
    UNM Assistant Dean of Teaching and Learning, Associate Professor of Finance, Anderson School of Management. Dr. White is an educator, media commentator, and leads a team of current and former Anderson students which provide financial literacy education and mentorship to immigrants and refugees from disparate backgrounds. Dr. White’s team teaches financial literacy and workforce development to individuals to help them succeed in their new home and created a free 76-page Financial Literacy Handbook, translated into Spanish, Arabic, and Pashto. Reilly White is receiving this award for his contributions to supporting immigrant and refugee populations.

  • 2020 Winner:

    Sarah Bird
    For her work as an acclaimed author and activist in Austin, TX. Bird, a UNM alumna, feels her novel The Flamenco Academy is her love letter to New Mexico, and in particular, to Albuquerque and her beloved University of New Mexico. She feels that this novel most closely embodies the ideals expressed in Paul Ré’s work.

  • 2020 Lifetime Achievement Awardees:

    Dr. Robert Hitchcock
    An Adjunct Professor for the UNM Department of Anthropology, Dr. Hitchcock maintains a very active teaching profile, significant anthropological research, and student mentoring. He has dedicated his life to assisting traditional hunter-gatherer, subsistence agriculturalists, and pastoral communities across southern Africa as they negotiate the changing dynamics of the 20th-21st centuries

    Gerald Vizenor
    Vizenor has sought to raise the difficult questions of the nature of justice in a society that includes colonized peoples. His promotion of “survivance” of tribal peoples implies a process rather than an end, as the ways of tribal peoples continue to change. He also notes that the survival of tribal peoples as distinct from majority cultures is based in resistance, and through his works continues to criticize both Native American nationalism and Euro-American colonial attitudes that in themselves reject peace and peaceful resolutions to understanding cultural differences.

    Frank Martinez
    A visiting Research Scholar, UNM School of Architecture + Planning. A life-long community volunteer and advocate, Frank Martinez helped form the Citizens Information Committee of Martineztown (CICM) in 1971, created to protest the urban renewal condemnation of Martineztown, one of Albuquerque’s oldest neighborhoods.

    Christine Glidden
    Christine Glidden leads an all-volunteer non-profit called Women to Be which aims to end the gender violence and human rights violations done to women by depriving them of effective means of menstrual management. Women to Be fabricates and distributes ‘kits’ of underwear and washable sanitary pads to women and girls in Nepal, Zambia and Mexico. The project also offers a reproductive health class offering options to avoid unintended pregnancy.

  • 2020 Career Achievement Awardees:

    Dr. Mark Stone
    Dr. Stone has served as mentor and project advisor for the UNM Engineers Without Borders. He oversaw the feasibility study, design, and installation of a process to achieve safe drinking water access for the indigenous Tsimane people of Bolivia. He also serves as co-founder and faculty mentor of UNM4Nepal project, formed in response to the 2015 Nepal Earthquake.

    Beth Poquette Drews
    Beth established Mariachi Pantera de Oro, the second middle school mariachi program in Dallas ISD. Through the Mariachi program, Mexican American students learn and perform music from their Mexican heritage while non-Mexican American students are able to explore a new culture through music, thus promoting cultural understanding. Beth has taught her students to play Mariachi peacefully with dignity.

    Frank Blazquez
    Utilizing art to interrogate the negative forces of racism and discrimination, Frank Blazquez’s art project “Barrios de Nuevo Mexico: Southwest Stories of Vindication” forges ground to create meaningful discussion. Local art curators tried to dissuade Blazquez from street portraiture as it “had no place in art”. Contacted by the Huffington Post, Blazquez’s street portraits fit an upcoming story on the human condition. That led to his “Duke City Diaries” video series that have experienced hundreds of thousands of views on YouTube.

  • 2020 Emerging Promotor of Peace Awardees:

    Wild Friends Program at the UNM School of Law
    The program teaches 4th-12th grade students about nature and civics through hands-on research and environmental advocacy. Since 1991, over 12,000 students from across New Mexico have participated in the Wild Friends Program. Students choose a wildlife-related topic by ballot, learn about the topic as well as the democratic process, and draft a bill or memorial based upon their research.

    Dr. Myrriah Gómez
    Dr. Myrriah Gómez works with the Tularosa Basin Downwinders Consortium (TBDC), the grassroots organization formed to bring attention to the negative health effects suffered by the people of New Mexico after their overexposure to radiation from the nuclear device that was detonated in 1945 at the Trinity Site. TBDC advocates to include the people of New Mexico in the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990, which provides healthcare coverage and compensation to Downwinders from other parts of the country.

  • 2018 Winner:

    Dana Tai Soon Burgess
    For his work as an acclaimed choreographer, performance artist, and cultural figure. Burgess, a UNM alumnus, serves as a cultural envoy for the U.S. State Department as the first choreographer-in-residence at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery.

  • 2018 Career Achievement Awardees:

    Hakim Bellamy
    A national and regional Poetry Slam Champion, Bellamy earned a Master of Arts in Communications from UNM and was made Albuquerque’s first Poet Laureate in 2012. Among other honors, Bellamy was named a W.K. Kellogg Foundation Fellow, a Kennedy Center Fellow, and “Best Poet” in the Weekly Alibi’s Best of Burque poll every year since 2010.

    Dr. Anthony Fleg
    Founder and leader of Running Medicine. Fleg is a faculty member at UNM’s Department of Family and Community Medicine and founder of the Native Health Initiative (NHI) which includes Running Medicine (RM) among other programs. His work welcomes diverse people and organizations in the promotion of health and wellbeing, while nurturing understanding of others.

    Bridgit Luján
    As founder of Dulce Flamenco Internacional, Luján, an alumna of UNM, has sought to share flamenco in its purest form with communities throughout the U.S. and beyond. Her goal is to bring the deeper meaning and tradition to audiences and students so they can experience the social healing benefits flamenco provides to people experiencing marginalization at any level.

  • 2018 Emerging Promotor of Peace Awardee:

    Jami Porter Lara
    A UNM alumna, Porter Lara uses a 2000-year-old ceramic process to make objects that resemble a ubiquitous icon of modern life—the plastic bottle. Inspired by water bottles left by people crossing remote stretches of the U.S./Mexico border, her work re-conceptualizes the plastic bottle as a precious object capable of sustaining human life, and exposes the porous nature of “borders,” as well as the “nature” of art and pollution.

  • 2016 Awardees:

    Dr. David R. Muñoz
    For efforts in combining engineering and humanitarian efforts. Muñoz has used his knowledge in mechanical engineering and his passion for global peace and sustainability to help others

  • 2016 Lifetime Achievement Awardees:

    William M. Brown III
    Environmental conservation and sustainability work.

    Denise Elia Chávez
    Chávez is a novelist, short story writer, playwright, actor and teacher who focuses her writing and advocacy on the border corridor of southern New Mexico, West Texas and northern Mexico.

    Vincent Barrett (V.B.) Price
    For his work as a distinguished poet, human rights and environmental columnist, editor, journalist, architectural critic, novelist and teacher.

  • 2016 Emerging Promoter of Peace Awardee:

    Carolina Belmares-Ortega
    As a student, Ortega has been dedicated to helping others through her research and academic experience as well as her leadership experience.

  • 2014 Awardees:

    Peter Nardini
    Green World Health Net: a malaria prevention project which uses a solar powered fan to cool malaria nets so one can sleep under them; it also addresses climate change and poverty

  • 2014 Lifetime Achievement Awardees:

    Lynne Jackson and Mike Palter
    Peace-themed compositions, including the well-known We Dream a Brighter Day, which was commissioned by the United Nations for the 40th anniversary of UNICEF.

    Rudolfo Anaya
    The author of dozens of beloved works from Bless Me, Ultima to The Essays, he has long emphasized a deep respect for the environment and our sacred relationship with the earth.

  • 2012 Awardees:

    William M. Brown
    The Climate Reality Project and other environmental conservation efforts “Presenting Climate Change: The Art of Public Narrative” (speech by Bill Brown)

    Peace Talks Radio
    A series of more than 190 radio programs exploring a diversity of peace promotion topics

  • 2010 Awardees:

    Dr. Arti Prasad
    Founder-Director of the UNM Center for Life which provides holistic health care

    Peace Talks Radio
    (Paul Ingles, Suzanne Kryder, Carol Boss, and Nola Daves Moses) Journalism

  • 2007 Awardees:

    Stephen W. Littlejohn
    Mediation; significant books and articles about communication and conflict resolution

    Alternate
    Arti Prasad, M.D.
    Integrative Medicine

    Honorable Mentions
    William Gross
    Environmentally and culturally sensitive engineering

    Hakim Bellamy
    Poetry and cultural advocacy