Year: 2017

It is with great sadness that the American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE) announces the death of Board member John B. ‘Jack’ Tieder, Jr. who passed away on December 3, 2017 following a period of illness. Jack has served on the AALE Board since 2010. Most recently he was a member of the Finance Committee. Jack’s leadership, broad business experience, and dedication to liberal education and life-long-learning will be sorely missed by AALE and its members. Following is the Memoriam published by Watt, Tieder, Hoffar and Fitzgerald LLC, the law firm Jack founded and served as senior partner. 

John B. Tieder, Jr.
May 8, 1946 – December 3, 2017

We mourn the passing of our dear friend, mentor, founding partner and oracle of construction law, Jack Tieder, this past week. Jack opened the doors of the firm forty years ago and crafted the very foundation of our construction, international and government contracts practice. Under his guidance and example, the firm rose to prominence to become one of the elite firms in our area of practice both in the United States and throughout the world. His indefatigable spirit, intellectual curiosity, commitment to the profession and exuberant wanderlust advanced the development of construction law around the globe. Jack had an influential presence in every major construction-related legal organization from the American College of Construction Lawyers to the International Bar Association, the London Court of International Arbitration, the International Academy of Construction Lawyers and many more. Over the last four decades, he personally trained, tested and challenged scores of attorneys in our firm. He then would board a plane to lecture eager lawyers in Eastern Europe, Russia, China and the Middle East. He pursued this passion right up to the end of his life. Attorneys, clients, and consultants from around the world join us in sorrow. Many of you may receive our firm’s newsletter and are familiar with Jack’s frequent articles bringing to life exotic locations from his travels. He was a brilliant, demanding, learned, and creative attorney with a thirst for life and a sense of humor that shines through in his writings. These qualities also combined to make him one of the world’s most formidable opponents in any legal contest. In recent years, Jack gravitated towards serving on arbitration panels and dispute review boards on many large, complicated construction projects. Regardless of the outcome of those matters, his thoughtful, well-reasoned decisions typically were lauded by the participating parties. In sum, we and the world have lost one of the paragons of construction law. We can only remember his teachings, his discipline, his spirit and his exacting standards and then carry them forward into the firm’s fifth decade. Please join us throughout this coming year in celebrating Jack’s legacy and remembering how much he contributed to the practice of construction law, literally, everywhere.

The American Academy for Liberal Education (AALE) held annual elections on June 13, 2017. The Board of Trustees welcomes new members: Geoffrey Baum, Joshua Hochschild, Gary Kelly, and Amy Richards.  Joining the Council of Scholars are Melissa Matthes and Kelly Sorensen.

Mr. Geoffrey Baum is the Director of Media Relations at the Milken Institute in Santa Monica (CA).  A former C-SPAN executive producer, he has also worked for Public Radio’s Marketplace and ABC News, and served as assistant dean of the USC Annenberg School for Communication & Journalism.  Baum is a member and past president of the California Community Colleges Board of Governors and has served as a governing board member of Pasadena City College.  He holds an M.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of Southern California and a B.A. in Economics and Literature from Claremont McKenna College (CA). 

Mr. Joshua Hochschild is Monsignor Robert R. Kline Professor of Philosophy at Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg (MD).  He served as inaugural Dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Mount St. Mary’s University and Director of the university’s freshman liberal arts seminar, the Veritas Symposium.  Hochschild is the author of The Semantics of Analogy: Rereading Cajetan’s De Nominum Analogia (University of Notre Dame Press, 2010) and co-editor of Virtue’s End (St. Augustine’s Press, 2008) and Ethics Without God? (St. Augustine’s Press, 2008).  He received a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame (IN) and a B.A from Yale University (CT). 

Mr. Gary Kelly is a private consultant, attorney and political scientist who resides in New York (NY).  He has held assignments for the Asian Development Bank, the United States Agency for International Development and the World Bank.  Kelly served as a consultant in the formulation of the successful World Trade Organization accession strategy for Georgia, and creator of a World Bank model for civil society input into parliamentary process in Albania in the development of reform legislation. He holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from Fordham University (NY), a JD from the University of Maryland School of Law, and a B.A. from the University of Maryland-College Park. 

Ms. Amy Richards is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Templeton Honors College-Eastern University in Saint Davids (PA).  Her area of specialization is Ethics. Richards’ administrative responsibilities include the design and implementation of a new M.A.T. in Classical Education at Templeton Honors College and admissions assessment for Templeton Honors College and its Summer Scholars Program.  She holds a Ph.D. in Philosophy from the University of Virginia, and a B.A. in Biochemistry and Philosophy from Eastern University-Templeton Honors College (PA).  

Ms. Melissa Matthes is Professor of Government and Humanities at the US Coast Guard Academy in New London (CT), where she teaches courses in the History of Political Theory, African American Political Thought (Modern), Religion and Politics, Feminist Political Thought, and Women, Religion and Globalization.  She is the author of The Rape of Lucretia and the Founding of Republics: Readings in Livy, Machiavelli, and Rousseau (Penn State Press, 2000).  She is a member of the Board of Directors of the Foote School (CT).  Matthes received a Ph.D. from the University of California-Santa Cruz, a M.Div. from Yale Divinity School (CT) and a B.A. from Williams College (MA). 

Mr. Kelly Sorensen is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Religion, and Assistant Dean at Ursinus College in Collegeville (PA).   He teaches and writes about ethical theory, biomedical ethics, environmental ethics, and metaethics.  His work has appeared in The Journal of Philosophy, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice, Kantian Review, the Journal of Moral Philosophy, Bioethics, Neuroethics, Criminal Justice Ethics, and the Journal of Medical Ethics.   Sorensen holds a Ph.D. from Yale University, a M.S. from the University of Utah, and a B.S. from Brigham Young University (UT).