Dr. Lee Gurel passed away on July 24, 2023. Gurel was the benefactor of the long-running APA/Clark University Workshop for High School Teachers. He was endearingly referred to by some TOPSS Committee members as the “Grandfather of High School Psychology,” for his remarkable support for high school teachers. In addition to his support of the annual Clark University workshop, Gurel established additional funds through generous gifts to the American Psychological Foundation (APF) that have been used to provide professional development opportunities for high school psychology teachers, revise TOPSS unit lesson plans, and offer “direct reinforcement and enrichment of the teaching of and the teachers of high school psychology.” The APF Lee Gurel Fund for High School Psychology continues to support efforts such as developing and maintaining regional psychology teaching networks. Gurel strongly believed in the value of high school psychology and was especially fond of supporting professional development and networking opportunities for teachers. He was delighted to meet and engage in discussions with classroom teachers, and they were likewise delighted to meet and talk with him.
The annual APA/Clark University Workshop was first held in the summer of 2005, and the final three-day summer workshop was held in July 2023. Gurel’s financial support enabled 25 high school psychology teachers to travel to the Clark campus each summer to learn from experienced teachers and university faculty. Approximately 425 teachers attended the workshop during the seventeen summers it was held. The workshop quickly became APA’s premiere professional development opportunity for teachers and gained a reputation as being an excellent learning experience. It also became a model for how other higher educational institutions could support teachers in delivering a high-quality learning experience. Many past workshop participants went on to become members of the TOPSS Committee or otherwise get involved in APA and TOPSS work.
Gurel, whose family moved to Worcester, Massachusetts when he was three, was a 1948 alumnus of Clark University; he graduated 56 years after APA was founded at Clark in 1892. His master’s and doctorate degrees were from Purdue University, and his career was spent working for the Veterans Administration, at the Washington, DC, VA Hospital, and at the American Psychiatric Association. He was active in APA governance and APA’s Division 18 (Psychologists in Public Service) and became an APA Fellow in 1971. His first gift to APF in the 1990’s enabled the APA library to be enriched with up-to-date computers. Additional library upgrades established a virtual reference center that provided access to the library collection.
Gurel firmly believed in the great value of education and said many times that his support of teachers was his way of “repaying a debt” he owed his own public school teachers. In 2016, he shared the following comments in a PTN article:
“I could not believe any more strongly than I do in the importance of education in general and of psychology in particular. I see them as having so much to offer our society. That said, let me ask if there aren’t many days when you question whether you are having much impact on your students. Then, allow me to list a few names: Sloan, Couming, Shaugnessy, Powers, LaCouture, Wilmott. Not names to be found in the References section of psychology texts. They are the names of some of the wonderful public school teachers I had for Geography, Math, English literature, Latin, French, and English comp, respectively.
When I tell you I am 89 years old, an age when memory is decidedly less than perfect, you will likely guess where I’m taking you.
Yes, my point is that teachers do have a profound and unforgettable impact on students … In a word, I am indebted beyond measure to the wonderful teachers I have had. They escorted a three-year-old immigrant without a word of English to his being editor of the Clark University student newspaper, to publishing in professional journals…
It is that feeling of indebtedness that underlies my support for teachers and for education in general.” (Gurel, 2016)
Gurel’s philanthropy went far beyond high school psychology. At Clark, he sponsored two annual awards for outstanding students in psychology and Asian Studies, funded a scholarship for undergraduate psychology majors with financial need, and supported Clark’s Mosakowski Institute in urban education. Gurel also made generous gifts to the Northern Virginia Community College that were used to support the psychology department, the school library, and students in need. His contributions and generosity were recognized by APA through a Presidential Citation in 2018.
Lee Gurel, PhD, was humble, kind, accomplished, and remarkably generous. He had a profound impact on hundreds of high school teachers, and through them, many thousands of students. He will be sorely missed.
