Anne Schanche Ferro (A80)
The St. John’s College Alumni Association bestows the 2025 Award of Merit to Anne Schanche Ferro (A80) for Ms. Ferro’s achievements in the field of government and non-profit administration and her career-long leadership and dedication to transportation safety.
Anne Schanche Ferro (A80) held a variety of prominent leadership roles throughout her career: Administrator of the Maryland’s Motor Vehicle Administration; President and CEO of the Maryland Motor Truck Association; Administrator of the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA); and President and CEO of the American Association of Motor Vehicle Administrators (AAMVA). Throughout her career, Anne’s vision, leadership, and deep understanding of safety issues has led to numerous policy and program improvements. Anne has appeared multiple times before Congressional committees, offering testimony on a wide range of transportation safety issues from advocating the need for funding surface transportation safety projects to school bus safety. In 2024, Anne received the 2024 James J. Howard Highway Safety Trailblazer Award for more than three decades of leadership and advocacy for safer roads.
Anne exhibited a dedication to service early on as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Africa. Her professional journey started as fiscal counsel to the Maryland General Assembly, followed by joining the Maryland MVA, where she became its first female Administrator in 1997. In 2009, she was appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate to lead the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), where she implemented significant safety initiatives. In 2014, Anne joined AAMVA and as President and CEO, she facilitated collaboration across international stakeholders in the interest of the safety and identity security of roadway users.. Even after retiring in 2023, Anne continues advocating for road safety, serving on an advisory council for Kodiak AI (autonomous trucking) and as an advisor to a master’s degree program in transportation safety administration at Clemson University. She is an adult literacy tutor and after-school program volunteer for children.
Denise Fort (SF72)
The St. John’s College Alumni Association bestows the 2025 Award of Merit to Denise D. Fort (SF72) for Ms. Fort’s achievement in the field of environmental and natural resources law and policy and for her career promoting environmental sustainability.
Denise D. Fort (SF72) is an Emerita Professor of Law at the University of New Mexico School of Law. She resigned her position as a professor to focus on climate change, environmental flows and other environmental issues. Her current work is serving as an adviser to a foundation.
In past positions, Denise served as Director of New Mexico's Environmental Improvement Division (which she established as a separate agency from the Health Department during her tenure), as an attorney with New Mexico PIRG and Southwest Research and Information Center (focusing on uranium, coal, and WIPP), and as Executive Director of Citizens for a Better Environment (CA) (primarily environmental justice issues).
President Clinton appointed her to chair a national commission on western water, titled the Western Water Policy Review Advisory Commission. She was a member of the National Research Council’s Water, Science, and Technology Board and participated in numerous NRC reports. Other positions include serving as the Secretary of Finance and Administration for New Mexico and as an assistant Attorney General in the New Mexico Taxation and Revenue Department. She remains active in environmental advocacy.
Dr. Yonghwa Lee (AGI01)
The St. John’s College Alumni Association bestows the 2025 Award of Merit to Dr. Yonghwa Lee (AGI01) for Dr. Lee’s achievements in the field of education and for his dedication to the Great Books, discussion-based learning, and the vision of a healthier society built on thoughtful, open conversation.
Dr. Yonghwa Lee (AGI01) is a professor of English literature at Incheon National University (INU). Inspired by his postgraduate education at St. John’s College in Annapolis, he initiated the Great Books (GB) program at INU in 2019. The program is designed to help students develop their conversational and analytical skills through critical engagement with a range of primary texts.
In 2022, the INU GB Center was established, laying the foundation for collaboration between St. John’s and the Korean GB program. Believing that liberal arts and discussion-based education can foster free, collaborative, and independent minds, Dr. Lee has expanded his efforts beyond INU and built partnerships between St. John’s and other institutions in eastern South Korea.
Beginning in 2024, the College formally established partnerships to promote discussion-based liberal education in schools in the city of Chuncheon at both the pre-college and university levels. Together with Dr. Kyoung-Min Han—his wife and collaborator—he has worked to bring St. John’s and its discussion-based pedagogy to broader educational networks throughout the city of Chuncheon and Gangwon Province.
In August 2025, Dr. Lee returned to Annapolis as a visiting tutor for the fall semester, during which he gained further insight into how to apply St. John’s educational model more effectively within the Korean educational system. Each year, the Korean GB program attracts more students and faculty, advancing the vision of a healthier society built on thoughtful, open conversation.
Dr. Lee and Dr. Han have two teenagers, one of whom is currently a first-year student at St. John’s College, Annapolis.
Taeko Onishi (SF92)
The St. John’s College Alumni Association bestows the 2025 Award of Merit to Taeko Onishi (SF92) for Ms. Onishi’s achievements in the field of education and her decades-long commitment to creating educational institutions and inclusive environments where all students can thrive and express their best selves.
Taeko Onishi (SF92), a born and raised New Yorker, has been working in education for decades. During that time she has taught mathematics, traveled to and lived in various countries, worked with students from kindergarten through graduate school, been an administrator and a coach for teachers. After graduating from Stuyvesant High School, she received a BA in liberal arts from St. John's College, a master's degree in philosophy from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and second master's degree in mathematics leadership from Bank Street College of Education.
An advocate of a liberal arts education, Taeko has interests ranging from the most esoteric to the most mundane. She believes education can change the world by changing individual people's lives; allowing them to experience joy, appreciate beauty, learn about themselves and the humanness in us all. Taeko believes love is more powerful than fear.
Taeko has co-founded three schools with her longest stint, 18 years, being the founding principal of Lyons Community School, a public secondary school in Brooklyn. Her life's work always focuses on equity, Restorative Justice, descriptive inquiry and co-creating opportunities for people to care for our planet and each other, in particular those with few entitlements and privilege. Taeko currently serves as Director of Finance & Operations at Namahana School, the very first public, tuition-free middle and high school for children on the North Shore of Kauaʻi, Hawaiʻi.
Didi Schanche (A80)
The St. John’s College Alumni Association bestows the 2025 Award of Merit to Didi Schanche (A80) for Ms. Schanche’s achievements in the field of journalism in international affairs and national security, and her exemplary leadership bringing to the fore critical stories of global impact.
Didi Schanche (A80) is NPR's chief international editor overseeing the organization’s coverage of world events. Didi’s team of correspondents, based around the world, provides first-hand reporting on breaking news and specializes in coverage of issues of international policy and national security. NPR's award-winning international coverage is consistently recognized for its excellence.
A journalist since 1981, Didi landed her first reporting job as freelance correspondent for The Jerusalem Post in Cairo, Egypt. She returned to the United States and got a master's degree in journalism from Northwestern University's Medill School of Journalism in 1982. With the ultimate goal of becoming a foreign correspondent, Didi spent several months banging on doors and was hired by the Associated Press as a reporter based in Montgomery, Alabama. After two years, she was transferred to the foreign desk at AP headquarters in New York. Two years later, she was sent to Nairobi, Kenya, to cover East Africa.
Didi was East Africa Correspondent for the Associated Press for seven years, producing news stories and features from Sudan and Ethiopia in the north, to Zimbabwe and Zambia in the south. Much of the news in the region then, as now, concerned ethnic conflicts, civil war, drought, hunger, AIDS, and wildlife. She then transferred to Cyprus to edit AP's Middle East coverage. In 1995, she returned to the United States. She joined NPR in 2001.
In addition to her professional contributions, Didi served as a former member of the Board of Directors of the Friends of St. John’s College, a group that supports initiatives connecting the college and the greater Annapolis community.
Cary Stickney (A75)
The St. John’s College Alumni Association bestows posthumously the 2025 Award of Merit to beloved tutor Cary Stickney (A75) for his tremendous contributions to the Polity of St. John’s College, particularly its students, and for his dedication and commitment to education and the liberal arts.
Mr. Stickney was a beloved tutor on the Santa Fe campus of St. John’s College from 1980 until his retirement in 2020, serving also as director of the Graduate Institute from 1994–97. A passionate educator, he was known for his deep commitment to the liberal arts, especially as pursued here by St. John’s. Mr. Stickney’s big laugh and dedication to an open-minded, open-hearted classroom made a lasting impression on students and colleagues alike. Mr. Stickney found his life’s calling at St. John’s after dropping out of the Phillips Exeter Academy and discovering the College when he was sixteen. After completing his degree in Annapolis, he began teaching in Santa Fe at age twenty-six.
Mr. Stickney’s love of books was matched only by his love of music. He took great joy in sharing music with others, both with occasional performances of the country-style blues that he loved, as well as by co-leading “Tunes at Noon,” a weekly folk/bluegrass/Americana/Irish jam session where he played any instrument he could get his hands on, including fiddle, banjo guitar, penny-whistle, or sometimes just a pair of spoons from the dining hall. He also volunteered his musical gifts at the Penitentiary of New Mexico, offering warmth and care to incarcerated individuals.
Mr. Stickney loved every part of the St. John’s program, and he believed fiercely in the power of an education that fostered the search for one’s own deepest questions, and taught students and tutors to listen with attention and breadth to the questions and responses of others. He believed an open, disciplined conversation on a shared book was one of the highest possible pleasures of a well-lived life. He was always willing to take extra time and trouble in order to give his students the best possible access to the books and ideas he hoped might be their true teachers. Cary Stickney died peacefully at home on April 7, 2021, at the age of 66.
