Winthrop Adkins

Adkins then worked with Paul Sharar and Sidney Rosenberg to develop Training Resources for Youth, a program that was implemented by 2,000 agencies in 40 states ever since its founding in late 1970s.

In 1966, Adkins became a founding faculty member of the York College, City University of New York, where he supervised the Search for Education, Elevation and Knowledge project. The project later turned into a program whose goal is to provide support for low income students. The program is still used today by the City University System.

In 1963, after obtained his doctorate in counseling psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University, Adkins immediately joined its faculty in order to work on his Career Pattern Study. For one year, he moved to Harvard University where he spent at its Center for Personality, studying achievement motivation with David McClelland. After his short lived Harvard appointment, Atkins indulged into War on Poverty and worked with YMCA of the City of Greater New York.

Adkins was born in Beirut, Syria (now Lebanon) to Turkish and Syrian missionaries Leslie John Adkins and Edith Sanderson. Adkins was a graduate of Phillips Academy and in 1955 became an alumni at Princeton University along with a classmate Ralph Nader. For 12 years, Adkins served in the US Navy starting from Naval Reserve Officers Training Corps and climbing up the ranks to a naval officer on the USS Salem and even serving on a flagship of the US Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean waters. While there, he also received training in Naval Justice School, served on various vessels as court marshal, and later became attendee of the Naval War College in Newport, Rhode Island. Following his service, Adkins returned to Columbia, where in 1958 he got his master's degree in psychology.

Winthrop R. Adkins (October 25, 1932 – July 16, 2015) was a professor emeritus of psychology and education at Teachers College, Columbia University.