The Levinger internship honors George K. Levinger (1927-2017) and Ann Cotton Levinger (1931-2017), longtime leaders and supporters within Karuna Center who shared a lifelong commitment to advancing peace and social justice—both in their own communities and around the world.

George K. Levinger was born to a Jewish family in Berlin and fled Nazi Germany as a child after Hitler’s rise to power; Ann Cotton Levinger grew up in Laurel, Mississippi as a Presbyterian daughter of the Jim Crow South. The two met at an international peacebuilding conference in California in 1950, and they soon joined the Quaker meeting in Ann Arbor, Michigan, where George completed his Ph.D. in social psychology and Ann received her Bachelor’s degree. In the 1960s, they became active in the civil rights right movement and in protests against the Vietnam War. During the war, Ann worked as a draft counselor, helping young men file for conscientious objector status; she subsequently earned a doctorate in Education and became a school psychologist in New Salem, Massachusetts. George, as a Professor of Psychology at the University of Massachusetts, did pioneering research on interpersonal attraction and close relationships, and he also published articles on the psychology of conflict and peace. After retirement, Ann and George participated actively in the Quaker Alternatives to Violence Project, teaching conflict resolution skills to prison inmates in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Ann led discussion groups with young parents at a local family center, and George became active in an organization sponsoring affordable housing for low-income people, as well as working with the National Priorities Project, which critically analyzes federal budget priorities. George served as a Board member of Karuna Center from 2003-2009.