Cooney, Joan Ganz, 1929-Sesame WorkshopEducation:
B.A., University of Arizona, 1951
Awards, Honors, etc.:
Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1995
National Women's Hall of Fame, 1998
Honorary degree, University of Pennsylvania, 2002
from Learning Network (factmonster.com)
Cooney, Joan Ganz, 1929–, American television producer, b. Phoenix, Ariz. After graduating (1951) from the Univ. of Arizona, Cooney worked as a newspaper reporter and television publicist for ten years before becoming a producer at WNET, a public television station in New York City. There she developed the concepts for children's programming that led to the incorporation (1968) of the Children's Television Workshop (CTW); Cooney has been president since 1970. Through Sesame Street, Electric Company, and other innovative programs, CTW has transformed children's television and learning. Cooney was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995.
Citation from University of Pennsylvania (honorary doctorate)
Co-founder and Chairman, Executive Committee, Sesame Workshop (formerly Children’s Television Workshop). Doctor of Laws, honoris causa.
Joan Ganz Cooney is a visionary television producer and media executive who pioneered educational uses of television for children. In 1968, believing that it would be possible to use television to communicate basic skills, model social behavior, and encourage a love of learning among inner-city preschoolers, Mrs. Cooney co-founded the Children's Television Workshop (now Sesame Workshop) and launched the first episode of Sesame Street in 1969.
Since that time, Sesame Street has been continuously broadcast in the US on more than 300 PBS stations and in 140 countries around the world, including more than 18 foreign-language co-productions. Sesame Workshop programs, including Sesame Street, The Electric Company, 3-2-1 Contact, Square One TV, Ghostwriter, CRO, Big Bag, and Dragon Tales, have won more than 79 Emmys.
Mrs. Cooney received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona and began her career as a reporter for a Phoenix newspaper before moving to New York to work as a television publicist. She produced several award-winning public affairs documentaries for New York's public station WNET/Thirteen before conducting the Carnegie Corporation-commissioned study about children and television that led to the founding of the Workshop.
Mrs. Cooney is active as a trustee to not-for-profit institutions and a director of Fortune 500 companies. She has been named to several presidential commissions and has received numerous honorary degrees. Among her awards are a Daytime Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, a Founders Award from the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and the Annenberg Public Policy Center's award for Distinguished Contribution to Children and Television. Mrs. Cooney was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995, the nation's highest civilian honor, and was inducted intothe National Women's Hall of Fame in 1998.
Tuning in with Joan Cooney
http://www.mbcnet.org/ETV/C/htmlC/cooneyjoan/cooneyjoan.htmCOONEY, JOAN GANZ
U.S. Producer/Media Executive
Joan Ganz Cooney is the one of the visionaries and the chief moving force behind the creation of Children's Television Workshop (CTW) and the most successful children's television show in the history of either commercial or educational television, Sesame Street. Before Sesame Street, successful children's programs were entertainment oriented and appeared on commercial television; educational programs were thought to be boring and pedantic and appeared on public television which garnered a small, more affluent audience. Cooney recognized that television could do more than entertain; it could provide supplementary education at a fraction of the cost of classroom instruction. She demonstrated that quality educational programming could attract and hold a mass audience and established an organization which continues to produce innovative programming for all ages. And, via Sesame Street a larger, more diverse audience discovered public television, bringing it to the forefront of the national consciousness.Cooney had an early interest in education, earning a B.A. degree in education from the University of Arizona in 1951, but she gravitated toward the mass media in part as a result of the influence of The Christophers, a religious group who emphasize utilizing communication technologies for humanitarian goals. Although she began her career as a reporter for the Arizona Republic in 1952, she moved into television in 1954, joining the NBC publicity department in New York, and by 1955 was handling publicity for the prestigious U.S. Steel Hour. However, public television offered greater opportunity to do in-depth analyses of major issues, and she moved to the non-commercial WNDT-TV (now WNET-TV) in 1962, where she produced a number of documentaries, including A Chance at the Beginning on a Harlem precursor of Project Head Start and the Emmy-award-winning Poverty, Anti-Poverty and the Poor
. At a 1966 dinner party at her apartment Lloyd N. Morrisett, Vice President of the Carnegie Corporation, wondered aloud whether television could be a more effective educator. Realizing that she could continue to produce documentaries without having a lasting effect on the disadvantaged, Cooney undertook a study called "The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education." This vision was the genesis of a proposal she submitted to Carnegie in February 1968, a proposal which resulted in the establishment of CTW and the creation of Sesame Street. Morrisett was particularly active in developing the proposal and raising the initial funds, and he remains a guiding force of CTW, as Chairman of the Board of Directors. But it was Cooney who articulated the creative vision and established the organization which brought it to reality.
Cooney proposed taking advantage of commercial production techniques, such as the fast pacing and repetition of advertisements and the multiple formats of Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In to give life to the curriculum. Although she hoped the program would educate all preschool children, she stated that if the needs of disadvantaged children were not met then the program would be a failure.
Cooney also recognized that educational programs often fail because they are planned by educators and implemented by production personnel. Shortly after the creation of CTW in March 1968, therefore, she established a series of seminars in collaboration with Gerald S. Lesser (a Harvard educational psychologist who became Chairman of the Board of Advisors). Production personnel (under David D. Connell, Executive Producer) worked with educators, child development experts, and research personnel (under Edward L. Palmer, Director of Research) to plan the show. Cooney, as Executive Director of CTW, established the guidelines, stressing the importance of exploiting the unique features of television to present a well defined curriculum designed to supplement rather than replace classroom activity. She indicated that there was to be no star but rather a multiracial cast including both sexes and that the primary goal was to produce an excellent program not more academic research. The working environment she established was one that fostered mutual confidence and participation among its diverse members.
Once her vision was articulated, Cooney developed an organization that guaranteed the production team the freedom to focus upon the creative task. Although required by funding agencies to establish an affiliation with National Educational Television (NET), CTW remained semi-autonomous and self-contained, utilizing some administrative functions of NET but retaining all rights to the program. Cooney traveled the country, insuring morning air time for the new show. CTW also utilized unprecedented means of informing the potential audience, enlisting commercial networks in promotional efforts. These efforts were coupled with more personal means of reaching disadvantaged families, using sound trucks and door-to-door representatives, for example, in Harlem.
Sesame Street first aired in November 1969, on nearly 190 public and commercial stations, and by all measures has been a continuing success. In large scale studies, the Educational Testing Service of Princeton concluded that Sesame Street generally reached its educational goals. The show also rapidly gained a mass audience, which it currently maintains. And, there have been numerous critical measures of success, including a Peabody Award and three Emmys after the first year and fifty-eight Emmys to date.
After the first successful season, CTW dissolved its relationship with NET, and Cooney became its President. The impetus was there to develop other projects, so Cooney guided the fund raising and creative vision for a second show airing in 1971 called The Electric Company. This program providing basic reading instruction for eight to twelve year olds. Although by 1973 Cooney described her work as mostly administrative, her vision of utilizing the unique features of television coupled with methodical planning and research to produce programming to address identified needs was evident in other innovative CTW productions, including Feelin' Good (1974), The Best of Families (1977), 3-2-1 Contact (1980), and Square One TV (1987).
Since the role of foundations is usually to provide start-up money, and since government support of public television has declined, Cooney has extended the influence of CTW productions and insured the organization's survival by guiding the licensing of an array of commercial products and developing foreign distribution and production agreements. Product and international revenues have often provided as much as two-thirds of the budget, helping to sustain CTW and provide money for new projects. Cooney has also led CTW down the narrow road between commercial and public television, developing tax-paying subsidiaries which operate in commercial broadcasting, such as Distinguished Productions which produced Encyclopedia in 1988 in collaboration with HBO.
In 1990 Cooney stepped down as President to become Chair of the CTW Executive Committee, thus allowing her more time for creative development. Still actively involved in the creation of Sesame Street, she also focuses upon strategic planning, with more recent projects involving interactive software and a multimedia project entitled Ghostwriter which debuted in 1992.
Joan Ganz Cooney has enriched children's television with her vision, has altered the public perception of and introduced record-setting audiences to public television, and has raised the level of expectation for children entering school. Fittingly, among the many honors that she and CTW have received was a 1970 Christopher Award.
-Suzanne Williams-Rautiolla
JOAN GANZ COONEY. Born in Phoenix, Arizona, U.S.A., 30 November 1929. Educated at the University of Arizona, B.A. 1951. Married 1) Timothy J. Cooney, 1964 (divorced, 1975); 2) Peter G. Peterson, 1980. Reporter, Arizona Republic, Phoenix, 1953-54; publicist, NBC, 1954-55; publicist,U.S. Steel Hour, 1955-62; producer, Channel 13, New York City, 1962-67; TV consultant Carnegie Corporation, New York City, 1967-68; executive director, Children's Television Workshop (producers of Sesame Street, Electric Company, 321 Contact, Square One TV, and Ghostwriter), New York City, 1968-70, president and trustee, 1970-88, chair and chief executive officer, 1988-90, chair, executive committee, since 1990; director, Johnson & Johnson, Metropolitan Life Insurance Company. Trustee: Channel 13/Educational Broadcasting Corporation; Museum of Television & Radio; Columbia Presbyterian Hospital. Member: President's Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, 1971-73; National News Council, 1973-81; Council Foreign Relations, since 1974; Advance Committee for Trade Negotiations, 1978-80; Governor's Commission on International Year of the Child, 1979; President's Commission for Agenda for the 1980s, 1980-81; Carnegie Foundation National Panel on High Schools, 1980-82; National Organization of Women (NOW), National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, National Institute Social Sciences, International Radio and TV Society, American Women in Radio and TV. Honorary degrees: Boston College, 1970; Hofstra University, Oberlin College, Ohio Wesleyan University, 1971; Princeton University, 1973; Russell Sage College, 1974; University of Arizona, and Harvard University, 1975; Allegheny College, 1976; Georgetown University, 1978; University of Notre Dame, 1982; Smith College, 1986; Brown University, 1987; Columbia University, and New York University, 1991. Recipient: National Institute for Social Sciences Gold Medal, 1971; Frederick Douglass Award, New York Urban League, 1972; Silver Satellite Award, American Women in Radio and TV; Woman of the Decade Award, 1979; National Endowment for the Arts, Friends of Education Award; Kiwanis Decency Award; National Association of Educational Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award; Stephen S. Wise Award, 1981; Harris Foundation Award, 1982; Emmy Award, for Lifetime Achievement, 1989; named to Hall of Fame Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, 1989; Presidential Medal of Freedom, 1995. Address: Children's Television Workshop, One Lincoln Plaza, New York, New York 10023, U.S.TELEVISION (publicist)
1955-62 U.S. Steel Hour
TELEVISION DOCUMENTARIES (producer)
1962-67 Court of Reason A Chance at the Beginning Poverty, Anti-Poverty and the Poor
1968-90 Children's Television Workshop (executive)FURTHER READING
"The First Lady of Sesame Street." Joan Ganz Cooney." Broadcasting (Washington, D.C.), 7 June 1971.
Gilbert, Lynn, and Gaylen Moore. Particular Passions: Talks with Women Who Have Shaped Our Times. New York: Clarkson N. Potter, 1981.
Gratz, Roberta Brandes. "Sesame: An Open-End Play Street." New York Post, 8 November 1969.
Heuton, Cheryl. "TV Learns How to Teach...." Channels: The Business of Communication (New York), 22 October 1990.
Kramer, Michael. "A Presidential Message from Big Bird." U.S. News and World Report (Washington, D.C.), 13 June 1988.
Lesser, Gerald. Children and Television: Lessons from Sesame Street. New York: Random House, 1974.
Moreau, Dan. "Joan Ganz Cooney Created Sesame Street 20 Years Ago. Now It's an Institution." Changing Times (Washington, D.C.), July 1989.
O'Dell, Cary. Women Pioneers in Television. Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland, 1996.
Polsky, Richard M. Getting to Sesame Street: Origins of the Children's Television Workshop. New York: Praeger, 1974.
Sheldon, Alan. "Tuning In with Joan Cooney." Public Telecommunications Review (Washington, D.C.), November-December, 1978.
Sklar, Robert. "Growing Up with Joan Ganz Cooney." American Film (Washington, D.C.), November 1977.
"TV's Switched-on School." Newsweek (New York), 1 June 1970.
Tyler, Ralph. "Cooney Cast Light on a Vision." Variety (Los Angeles, California), 13 December 1989.
Cooney had a wonderful idea to use television as an educational tool and she created the Children's Television Workshop. Back in the early '60s it was her radical notion that quality television programs - educational and fun - could be made for children. And the rest is history. The first CTW program was Sesame Street, which most of us have watched at some point in our lives. After Sesame Street came the Electric Company, whose main purpose was to help kids learn to read. And in the years since there have been programs like Contact: Three, Two, One, Contact, which tried to teach kids arithmetic and mathematical concepts.
Joan Cooney had the genius to bring together an idea and a very talented bunch of people, mostly quite young, and they set out to create a television program for kids that would be at once educational and fun. The Children's Television Workshop evolved into an enormous bureaucracy, which today is housed in elegant headquarters on the west side of New York City. Largely with the assistance of the Carnegie and Ford foundations, CTW's products became set pieces on every educator's agenda, and began to receive major funding from the U.S. Office (now Department) of Education and a variety of state and local educational bodies and institutions.
In the course of the program's development, Joan Cooney took the idea of Sesame Street to the commercial networks. They all turned it down. But public television did take it on, and started building itself very largely on the reputation Sesame Street enjoyed as having marked a historic breakthrough in TV for kids.
The National Society of Collegiate Scholars
If anyone has ever had a keen premonition about the education of preschool children, it is Joan Ganz Cooney. Although the name Joan Ganz Cooney may not be immediately familiar, her creation Sesame Street, surely is. Sesame Street has been a staple in the education of almost every child in this country and millions of children abroad since 1969. What's even more amazing about this inspirational woman is that Sesame Street is only one among innumerable accomplishments.
Originally from Arizona, Ms. Cooney earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona and began her long-running media career as a reporter in Phoenix. After relocating to New York, Ms. Cooney spent eight years as a publicist for NBC. Her next position as a public affairs producer for New York's WNET/Thirteen won her the first among a long list of career awards. As a prelude to her creation of Sesame Street, Ms. Cooney conducted a study in 1966 for the Carnegie Corporation of New York which led to the founding of the Children's Television Workshop (renamed the Sesame Workshop in 2000), the production company of the series that has become a household name.
Joan Ganz Cooney's accomplishments to this point would be enough to make any goal-oriented person beam with pride. This however is just the tip of the iceberg for Cooney. She is also a trustee of the National Child Labor Committee, The Museum of Television and Radio, The New York and Presbyterian Hospital and is a lifetime trustee of WNET Channel 13/Educational Broadcasting Corporation. In addition to also serving on the corporate boards of Johnson & Johnson and Metropolitan Life Insurance, she is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Cooney has previously served as a member of the President's Commission for a National Agenda for the Eighties, the President's Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, the Advisory Committee for Trade Negotiations and the Carnegie Foundation's National Panel on the High School.
With such an extraordinary collection of experiences and accomplishments, it is certainly not surprising that Ms. Cooney has Honorary Degrees from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Georgetown and Notre Dame, just to name a few.
Her tireless commitment to education coupled with her talent and ability have earned her countless awards. Among them, a 1989 Daytime Emmy for Lifetime Achievement, a 1990 induction into the Television Academy Hall of Fame, and a Foundatioin Award from the International Council of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences. An award of unparalleled caliber would certainly not be out of place here thus in 1995, Joan Ganz Cooney was awarded with the Presidential Medal of Freedom, which is, in fact, the highest civilian honor in the United States. Since that time, Sesame Street has been deemed "the quintessential children's educational program" by the Annenberg Public Policy Center which awarded Ms. Cooney for Distinguished Contribution to Children and Television.
Joan Ganz Cooney has touched hundreds of millions of people around the world through her unwavering commitment to education and the young people of the world. Ms. Cooney shares with NSCS the belief in scholarship, leadership and service and has been a member of the Honorary Board of Regents since 1998. The National Society of Collegiate Scholars is very proud to be associated with Joan Ganz Cooney—a truly phenomenal person
