Dudley

Mary Jo Dudley, director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, was honored by the White House's Office of Public Engagement as a Cesar Chavez "Champion of Change" March 29, at an event in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building at the White House.

The event honored 10 leaders who, like Chavez, have "dedicated themselves to improving the lives of others throughout their community and across the nation," according to a White House announcement.

The Chavez Champions of Change recognition, created as part of President Barack Obama's Winning the Future initiative, is an administrationwide effort to celebrate the life and legacy of Chavez, with this week's awards occurring almost to the day of what would have been the civil rights leader's 85th birthday March 31.

Dudley, an associate member of the Department of Development Sociology, was honored for her work as director of the Cornell Farmworker Program, a collaborative effort of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, College of Human Ecology and Cornell Cooperative Extension.

The farmworker program works to improve the living and working conditions of farmworkers and their families, to raise awareness about farmworkers' contributions to society and to further their acceptance and full participation in local communities. In collaboration with students and faculty, the program's research and outreach efforts include: assessing farmworker needs in New York via data collection; developing educational materials and programs to address those needs; and responding to immigrant farmworkers' requests for information and training through on-farm workshops.

Dudley is a founding member of the Tompkins County Immigrants' Rights Coalition and is a member of the New York State Governor's Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force. In 2010 she received the James A. Perkins Prize for Interracial Understanding and Harmony, and the Kaplan Family Distinguished Faculty Fellow in Service-Learning Award, both from Cornell.

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar and America Ferrera, an actress who will play Helen Chavez in an upcoming biopic called "Chavez," participated in the Champions of Change event.