The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and LRN Announce Student Winners of the 2017 Prize in Ethics

NEW YORK, Nov. 30, 2017 -- The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity and its partner in the Prize in Ethics, LRN, announced today that Darren Yau, a recent graduate of Wheaton College, is the first place winner of the 2017 Elie Wiesel Foundation Prize in Ethics.

Yau, a philosophy major, paints a highly personal portrait of the dignity of an immigrant in his winning essay, “Truthfulness and Tragedy: Notes from an Immigrant’s Son.” As Yau writes, “It is this ethic the immigrant brings as a gift to his or her new culture. If we are welcoming enough, we might carefully receive this gift and listen for bits of wisdom. If we are courageous enough, we might even imitate it.”

Other winning students include: Ana Dougherty of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Michael Ivory of Duke University, Ryan Duffy of Boston College and Eleanor Eagan of Middlebury College. The winning essays can be found on the Foundation’s website: http://eliewieselfoundation.org/prize-ethics/winners/.

The Prize in Ethics Essay Contest is an annual competition that challenges college students to submit essays on the urgent and complex ethical issues that confront us in the modern world. The Prize was founded in 1989 by Professor Elie and Marion Wiesel, and thousands of young people have written essays for consideration since its inception.

“The Prize in Ethics is designed to nurture a next generation of moral leaders, and I can’t think of a more important or urgent mission,” said Dov Seidman, CEO of LRN. “Through the Prize, college students across the country are challenged to grapple with – and write about – the most profound questions facing humanity through a moral lens. The competition challenges them to a lifelong journey of building – and then exercising – their moral muscle.”

“Elie said he wrote not to be understood, but to understand. The gift of the Prize is that Elie inspired these young leaders to do the same, and to take their understandings into the world,” said Seidman.

About The Elie Wiesel Prize in Ethics Essay Contest
The Elie Wiesel Foundation Prize in Ethics Essay Contest encourages students to write thought-provoking personal essays that raise questions, single out issues and offer rational arguments for ethical action. The contest is open to undergraduate full-time Juniors and Seniors who are registered at accredited four-year colleges or universities in the United States. All submissions to the essay contest are judged anonymously. Winning essays present original, imaginative, and intensely personal stories that are clearly articulated and convey genuine grappling with an ethical dilemma. For suggested essay topics and more information, visit http://www.eliewieselfoundation.org/prizeinethics.aspx

About The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity
Elie Wiesel and his wife, Marion, established The Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity soon after he was awarded the 1986 Nobel Prize for Peace. The Foundation’s mission, rooted in the memory of the Holocaust, is to combat indifference, intolerance and injustice through international dialogue and youth-focused programs that promote acceptance, understanding and equality. For more information visit www.eliewieselfoundation.org, “like” us on Facebook, or follow @eliewieselfdn on Twitter.

About LRN: Inspiring Principled Performance
LRN offers education, tools, and advisory services to help organizations develop values-based cultures and leadership, strengthen ethics and compliance efforts, and inspire principled performance. LRN's work is grounded in HOW^®, a philosophical framework for individual and organizational behavior in a world that is increasingly complex and interdependent. LRN's HOW Metrics^® is a suite of assessment solutions and methodologies that measure governance practices, culture, and leadership behaviors, and their impact on organizational performance. LRN's HOW Report^® provides a global, empirical analysis of how an organization's governance, culture, and leadership impact its performance and sustainability. Founded in 1994, LRN is a global company that has educated more than 20 million employees and has worked with more than 700 companies in 100 countries worldwide.

For more information, visit www.LRN.com and http://howmetrics.lrn.com/, find us on Twitter @LRN, or call: 646 862 2040, or contact Eric Mosher of Sommerfield Communications at 212 255 8386 or [email protected].