| Offisland.com is proud to introduce the esteemed and renowned educator
and writer, Dr. Lawrence Joseph Cunningham. We are honored to be able to
publish his noteable work in ancient Chamoru civilization and to have him
as part of the Offisland.com team. Click onto Marianas' Past
as Dr. Cunningham links the present to the past and unravels Guam and the
Marianas' history.
Dr. Lawrence Joseph Cunningham has lived in Hagat (Agat), Guahan (Guam),
since1968. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in 1943 and raised in
Ashland, Kentucky and Cincinnati, Ohio, he received a B.S. in Education
(1965) and a M. Ed. (1967) from the University of Cincinnati. In
1987 he earned his Doctorate in Education from the University of Oregon.
His major interest is in the research and development of curriculum materials.
After teaching a year in Covington, Kentucky, Cunningham and his wife
Cheryl Faith Napier, decided to see the world. They have traveled throughout
the United States, Micronesia, Japan, Southeast Asia, India, Nepal, and
Africa.
Cunningham taught a variety of Social Studies courses at Agat Junior
High.School, Inarajan Junior High School, and Oceanview High School in
Guam. He headed Oceanview High School's Accreditation Steering Committee
and School Learning Improvement Plan team, and served as Social Studies
Department Chairperson for all but three of his 25 years of secondary teaching
in Guam. He retired from the Guam Department of Education in 1993.
Lawrence and Cheryl have a daughter, Kim Thai. She is a graduate
of the University of Guam and teaches kindergarten at Price Elementary
School in Mangilao, Guam.
Cunningham has written many popular articles about the Mariana Islands'
past for the Pacific Daily News, American Pacific, New Pacific, Now, and
the Guam Recorder. He was winner of the Espiriton Hurao Award for
Chamorro Publications in 1978. In 1984 his book Ancient Chamorro
Kinship Organization was published. His research of the effects of expository
and narrative prose on student achievement and attitudes toward textbooks
was published by The Journal of Experimental Education and in the fifth
and sixth editions of Educational Research by Walter R. Borg and Meredith
D. Gall.
In 1992, Cunningham received the Governor's Literary Arts award for
his book Ancient Chamorro Society, 1992.
In 1993, Cunningham received the honor of the Ancient Order of the Chamorri
for his service to the people of Guam.
Since 1994, Cunningham has served as a Richard Flores Taitano Micronesian
Area Research Center Research Associate at the University of Guam.
He is researching and writing an ethnography of the Mariana Islands for
the Spanish period.
As an Adjunct Professor at the University of Guam, he was named to Who's
Who Among America's Teachers in 1996.
In 1997, Cunningham rewrote Janice Beaty's and Remedios L.G. Perez's
Guam Today and Yesterday as two books: Guam: A Natural History
and A History of Guam.
In 1998, Cunningham became the Outreach Coordinator for the National
Resource Center for Micronesian Studies, at the University of Guam. In
this job he has established the Micronesian Studies Summer Institute, the
Micronesian Studies Seminar Series, the Chamoru Intergenerational Conference,
the Micronesian Reference Library List, the Micronesian Curriculum Series,
and the Micronesian Linkages to Asia Essay Contest.
Cunningham is also known as L. Joseph the woodcarver. His ifit
wood creations, that frequently depict local legends, have been the official
gift of Guam to the heads of state of several countries, including the
President of the United States.
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