Author E. Hughes Career Achievement Award

School of Leadership and Education Sciences

Stuart Grauer ’89 (EdD)

President and Head of School
The Grauer Foundation for Education/The Grauer School

Stuart Grauer, EdD, goes by the title of teacher, in the hope that his life’s work can help restore some of what is historical and true about this title. He is the founder of The Grauer School, president of The Grauer Foundation for Education and founder of The Small Schools Coalition.

Grauer has been interested in education since he was a young man, becoming the principal of a Swiss international school at the age of 29, but his path in leadership ties directly back to his mentors at USD. In 1991, he founded The Grauer School and is considered one of the nation’s top authorities on small schools and expeditionary education and consults and speaks widely about these topics. He has evaluated schools worldwide and taught graduate education courses. He was awarded a Fulbright Administrator Exchange to Argentina and, in 2012, an Ameson Foundation exchange to China.

Dr. Grauer’s writings and work have taken him many times around the globe and have been covered widely — including by The Discovery Channel, The New York Times, International Education Review, ASCD — and frequently in the local press, where he has been named “Peacemaker of the Year” and a “Legendary Local.”

His book, Real Teachers, has been called a “wise, lyrical, and liberating book” by professional reviewers, but Grauer favors the reading of a teacher from inner-city LA: “Not only did I lose myself in the eloquent narratives that Real Teachers provided, I felt a sense of affirmation that there is more to education than what we’ve been focusing on.”