Mary Elizabeth Moore on John Cobb

At the 2025 Pando Sustainability Awards, Mary Elizabeth Moore, Chair of the Board of Directors of the Cobb Institute, accepted a posthumous World Changer Award on behalf of our dear John B. Cobb, Jr., who passed away some 10 months ago. An annual John Cobb People’s Prize was established for Pando Days participants in his honor.

Mary Elizabeth delivered a moving tribute to John and his legacy:

I invite you to go backstage to view the origins of Pando Populus. In 2013, I remember early conversations with John Cobb about the vision that became Pando Populus. He glowed when he talked about Eugene Shirley and the bold approach Eugene proposed for education – one in which students would address serious ecological issues while growing in knowledge, skill, collaborative ability, and ingenuity. John wanted a sea change in education, which he saw possible in Eugene’s dreams. 

John’s love of Pando began in early conversations with Eugene, and it lasted to the end of his life. In 2015, John contributed most of his pension and savings to sponsor an epic conference on Alternative Futures. Scholars, activists, and community leaders came together from across the world to deliberate what the future could be and how we might build that future in science, agriculture, education, economics, the arts, politics, business, and all aspects of life on this planet. Pando Populus was featured there because of its distinctive approaches to education, and Pando continued to be a major center of John’s energy and financial support. In his last weeks, he said to me, “I think Pando is one of the most significant developments in the process movement because it is making real environmental change and is changing people’s visions and actions to build an ecological civilization.” He added, “This is why I continue to make my largest contributions to Pando, from among all the important process organizations.”  

Eugene describes the three key values in the educational approach that he and John laid out: (1) project centered, with projects drawn from the real world and expected to make an actual difference; (2) transdisciplinary, because real-world projects don’t fit into disciplinary categories; and (3) values-oriented, with emphasis on the value of saving the world. 

(1) Project-Centered Education. John and Eugene shared a critique of education at all levels, namely that it most often focuses on abstractions, even when practical examples are added. Even when projects are involved, they are usually hypothetical. 

For example, Nike might sponsor a project-based task in a design school, but those new tennis shoes that students design for the class will not show up in Nike’s product line-up. Most educational systems make little space for classroom work that produces real change in the community.

Both John and Eugene saw potential for making real world change through real world education. Indeed, in its first year, Pando projects continued to live in the “real world” after the courses ended. Last year, 81% of the projects continued to thrive in their communities. This is a huge reward for the students and teachers, as well as for the communities themselves.

Pando has actually changed expectations of what is possible, and it has supported teachers and students who make these changes happen. 

(2) Transdisciplinary Education. John thought all education should be transdisciplinary, recognizing that the ideas and practices of all disciplines are completely interwoven in the real world. Thus, we need transdisciplinary approaches to learn about that world.

Pando’s project-based approach to education, because it is grounded in real-world challenges and solutions, is transdisciplinary through-and-through.  

(3) Values-Focused Education. All education is permeated with values, even when it claims to be value free. John advocated honesty about our values with critical discernment of the changes in educational values that are needed. He advocated for the educational purpose of world loyalty in the tradition of the philosopher Alfred North Whitehead.

John saw education as having a vital contribution to make to the common good. He recognized that universities were originally founded to save the world. What needs to be saved today is global disintegration, marked by climate change, losses in biodiversity, violence, meaninglessness, despair. Pando aims to build value-based education focused on the common good and supporting educators in doing so. Pando has inherited this vision from John Cobb.

I am a whole-hearted supporter of Pando’s project-based education, grounded as it is in the huge root system of the Pando Populus tree, or shall we say the Pando Populus forest. The root of one tree is connected to the root system of the gigantic forest such that the trees nourish and support one another. In fact, they are not individual trees at all, but one great system of trees.

My one enduring criticism of John Cobb is his comprehensive critique of education in general and higher education in particular. He painted a bleak picture of the near-complete lack of attention to local communities and global issues on the ground and the near-absence of transdisciplinary and purpose-focused education. After teaching more than 40 years in higher education and working with teachers at all levels of education, I argued with him that the examples of his ideals are already embedded in most educational systems and that his visions can be even stronger if informed by those very educators who implement them. John and I discussed this issue many times, more interested in the educational fruits than in convincing one another of a different view. The genius of Pando is that it actually responds to both John’s and my concerns, John’s in the ways that I have already laid out, and mine in the ways that you work closely with teachers, administrators, and students in your projects, as well as community leaders and organizations. You are genius, Pando!

I offer one last tribute to John today. I have thus far focused on his educational visions and relationship with Pando. I close with a wider picture of this extraordinary man (quoting from my eulogy of him):  

“John’s life was like a rainbow – an arc of beauty reaching across the sky – a bow of many colors and hues. Some people experienced his tenderness, some his endless challenges to address issues of justice, some his gems of intellectual wisdom, some his passions to protect and repair the earth and to reshape economic systems, some his spiritual depth. No one can catch a rainbow, but we can be touched with its wonder and light.” 

So it is with John Cobb’s life. So it is with Pando.

Mary Elizabeth Moore is an educator and writer. She is Dean Emerita of the Boston University School of Theology and Chair of the Cobb Institute.