Jeff Juris Memorial Scholarship Award

Jeffrey Juris Memorial Scholarship Award (“Award”)

Jeffrey S. Juris. Jeff Juris touched so many lives in profound ways, both personally and professionally, before he was taken tragically and prematurely from us on June 18, 2020. The Pandemic cruelly interrupted the ability of many of Jeff’s friends, classmates, teammates, colleagues and students to see Jeff at the end of his life and mourn communally in person. For those who knew him or knew of him, they know what we all know – Jeff was a force of nature: brilliant, nonconformist, loyal, witty, kind-hearted, quirky, innovative, generous (including in sharing his wisdom/insights), creative, hardworking, Socratic and an obsessive pursuer of excellence in all details to a dizzying degree. We miss him dearly and ask each of you to step up and help in this effort to keep his memory alive and institutionalize his legacy.

In Jeff’s professional career, he was an associate professor of Anthropology at Northeastern University in Boston. Jeffrey examined the issues, strategies, and tactics that inspired and shaped emerging forms of radical social movement activism. He paid particular attention to how activists use new digital technologies to build innovative networks that are locally rooted yet globally linked. Throughout his research in Barcelona, the U.S., and Mexico, he carved out a militant ethnographic approach that challenged the divide between activist and researcher, using his dual position as an organizer and anthropologist to generate practical knowledge and new theoretical understandings.

A growing group of us wants to create a new way to keep Jeff’s memory alive and we want you to join us. We also want to identify and support new generations of students who seem to embody Jeff’s interests so we can “seed” more "Jeff Jurises" in the world as another way to honor his legacy.

The Scholarship Award. We have created the Jeff Juris Memorial Scholarship Award in his honor to be awarded to students who embody Jeff’s ideals, values and life spirit. Our ultimate goal is to raise enough financial support to continue this Award in perpetuity and recognize the young “Jeffs” for the next generations. We plan to announce and distribute the first Award at the South Brunswick High School graduation this June (2024). Everyone who makes a donation of any size will receive an invitation to the Awards Ceremony in NJ with an opportunity to meet the inaugural winner on June 12, 2024.

Which Graduates Are Eligible? We have discussed this Award with the administration at South Brunswick High School in NJ where Jeff was a standout scholar, athlete and activist, and they have warmly invited us to work with them to bestow this Award during the graduation award ceremonies to one or more selected recipients each year. We hope to be able to expand in future years to bestow Awards to graduates of the universities at which he attended and taught.

Community Call to Action. We call upon you and the community who were touched by Jeff’s life either directly or indirectly from any phase of life, to open your hearts and contribute financially to help make this Award possible. Please do what you can to honor Jeff’s memory.

Award Committee of Volunteers. Administering this Award will require work such as finalization of the Award criteria, logistical coordination with the school(s), the publication and marketing of the Award, the annual review of submissions and the fair and impartial selection of the recipients for each Award. This undertaking, and all other activities stemming from it, will be the work of the rotating volunteers on the Award Committee. You may express your interest to serve on the Committee, which service is greatly appreciated and holds the promise to create new connections and reconnections within Jeff’s network that we feel Jeff would have encouraged and welcomed enthusiastically. If you are too busy now, please keep in touch and consider the possibility of helping down the road. The initial members are Paul and Jeff Sackaroff, Steve (Esteban) Pockross, Jon Philips, and Jay Bauman. We’re looking forward to having more join!

Please contribute and feel free to reach out to us directly at JurisAward AT gmail.com. Thank you for making this possible.

* A special thank you to Carla, Jeff's beloved wife and mother of their son, and Jeff's sisters, Andrea and Sharon, for helping with this effort.