Bruininks receives Lifetime Achievement Award for disability work

Bob Bruininks (center) with current ICI director David R. Johnson and AUCD President Leslie Cohen.
Bob Bruininks (center) with current ICI director David R. Johnson and AUCD president Leslie Cohen.

Former University president and CEHD dean emeritus Robert Bruininks received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of University Centers on Developmental Disabilities (AUCD) on November 11 during its annual conference in Washington, D.C. The award is given “… to individuals making a lifetime commitment to serving people with developmental disabilities and their families,” and includes recognition of his work as founding director of the college’s Institute on Community Integration.

The institute, which marks its 30th anniversary next year, is a national leader in improving services, policies, and practices that impact people with disabilities across the lifespan.

In a nomination letter for the award, current ICI director David R. Johnson noted, “Over the past four decades, Dr. Bruininks has established himself as one of the pillars of disability research and policy in the United States. He has amassed a body of research and professional publications that has served to influence and guide professional practice, as well as disability policy, with a specific focus on intellectual and developmental disabilities…. He is one of those rare academics who is able to comfortably integrate research, practice, and policy to achieve broad levels of impact on the life circumstances of individuals with disabilities and their families.”