David Allyn (born April 30, 1969) is an American author, educator, and consultant to nonprofit organizations. He is the former CEO of the nonprofit organization Oliver Scholars.

Personal life

Allyn is the stepson of the late John Wallach, founder of the nonprofit organization Seeds of Peace. Allyn graduated from the

Georgetown Day School Georgetown Day School (GDS) is an independent coeducational PK-12 school located in Washington, D.C. The school educates 1,075 elementary, middle, and high school students in northwestern Washington, D.C. Russell Shaw is the current Head of Sc ...

in Washington, D.C. He holds a BA from Brown University and a PhD from

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

. From 1996–1999, he taught at

Princeton University Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ...

. In 2014 he was named CEO of The Oliver Scholars Program. In February 2016 he was elected to the board of trustees of the

National Association of Independent Schools The National Association of Independent Schools (NAIS) is a U.S.-based membership organization for private, nonprofit, K-12 schools. Founded in 1962, NAIS represents independent schools and associations in the United States, including day, boa ...

(NAIS).

Books and articles

Allyn is the author of four books, including '' Make Love, Not War'' and ''I Can't Believe I Just Did That'', and has served as a faculty member at

and a visiting scholar at

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

at the Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. He is currently a visiting scholar at

The New School The New School is a private research university in New York City. It was founded in 1919 as The New School for Social Research with an original mission dedicated to academic freedom and intellectual inquiry and a home for progressive thinkers. ...

. His essays have appeared in ''

The New York Times Magazine ''The New York Times Magazine'' is an American Sunday magazine supplement included with the Sunday edition of ''The New York Times''. It features articles longer than those typically in the newspaper and has attracted many notable contributors. ...

'' and other publications. While an undergraduate at Brown University, Allyn co-authored a book on transferring from one college to another. He and his co-author (later wife) were profiled in ''

The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...

'' and featured on

CNN CNN (Cable News Network) is a multinational cable news channel headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia, U.S. Founded in 1980 by American media proprietor Ted Turner and Reese Schonfeld as a 24-hour cable news channel, and presently owned by ...

. He has also published articles in ''Nonprofit and Voluntary Sector Quarterly'', ''The Journal of American Studies'', '' Teachers College Record'', ''The Advocate'', ''The Washington Post'', ''

The New York Daily News The New York ''Daily News'', officially titled the ''Daily News'', is an American newspaper based in Jersey City, NJ. It was founded in 1919 by Joseph Medill Patterson as the ''Illustrated Daily News''. It was the first U.S. daily printed in t ...

'', ''

The Boston Globe ''The Boston Globe'' is an American daily newspaper founded and based in Boston, Massachusetts. The newspaper has won a total of 27 Pulitzer Prizes, and has a total circulation of close to 300,000 print and digital subscribers. ''The Boston Glob ...

'' and '' The San Francisco Chronicle''. As an expert on the 1960s, Allyn has appeared on Vh1, The History Channel, and CNN.

Plays

Allyn's play, ''Buying In'', was a semi-finalist for the 2017 Eugene O'Neill National Playwrights Conference. His play, ''Commencement'', was selected for the Baltimore Playwrights Festival. and won a Writers Digest award. His play ''Punctuated Equilibrium'' received a staged reading by the Hangar Theatre Lab in

Ithaca, New York Ithaca is a city in the Finger Lakes region of New York, United States. Situated on the southern shore of Cayuga Lake, Ithaca is the seat of Tompkins County and the largest community in the Ithaca metropolitan statistical area. It is named ...

. His play ''Writers Colony'' appeared in the Fresh Fruit Festival in New York City, and ''Baptizing Adam'' won the James H. Wilson Award for Best-Full Length Play. According to ''The New York Times'', Allyn is "a wicked observer of self-conscious people at their less than best."

Concepts

Allyn's original concepts include " strategic empathy," denoting the deliberate use of perspective-taking to achieve certain desired ends; "mission mirroring," the phenomenon that occurs when mission-based organizations become plagued by the very problems they were created to solve; and "sexual optimism (pessimism)," the view of human sexuality as benign (or dangerous).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Allyn, David 1969 births Living people Brown University alumni Harvard University alumni Columbia University faculty American essayists American male essayists American humorists Place of birth missing (living people) American chief executives of education-related organizations Princeton University faculty Georgetown Day School alumni