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Richardson, Texas (Feb. 3, 2009) — Dr. Stephen Lipschultz, creator of the Think Like A King School Chess Software System, has been named 2009 Chess Educator of the Year by the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD).  The award will be presented at ChessFest, a collaboration and celebration of chess organized annually by McDermott Library and the Chess Program at UTD, and will feature a free, public presentation by Lipschultz at 7 p.m., Tuesday, Feb. 24, 2009 in the library’s McDermott Suite. The presentation is titled “Making Chess a Success at School: What Schools Need to Win the Game.”

“This is a good match this year having Steve Lipschultz with his top-ranked chess software giving a presentation at our university with its top-ranked chess team,” said Jim Stallings, Director of the Chess Program.

Lipschultz recognized the tremendous benefits of chess for students when he established an after-school chess program in his children’s school in 1994. He developed Think Like A King, which has been named the Official Scholastic Software of the U.S. Chess Federation, when he realized that many schools wished to offer chess programs but did not have the expertise nor tools to do so.  In 1999 he received a U.S. Department of Education Small Business Innovation and Research Grant Award in conjunction with his chess project.

Today, Think Like A King is used in more than 1,600 schools nationwide. Lipschultz emphasizes that his goal is not to create a new generation of highly competitive grandmasters. Instead, he wanted to make it easy for schools everywhere to use chess as a vehicle to teach children how to think, to use chess to create new peer-based role models of mental athletes, and in so doing show children that success in life comes from thinking.

Past recipients of the Chess Educator award are Susan Polgar, 2004; Sunil Weeramantry, 2005; Erik Anderson, 2006; David MacEnulty, 2007; and Beatriz Marinello, 2008. David MacEnulty, whose work using chess to transform the lives of inner city children inspired the movie, The Knights of the South Bronx, is also a contributor to the Think Like A King system, having authored the Chess Workouts curriculum portion of the software.

In addition to being president of Food for Thought Software, the company he founded and which created Think Like A King, Dr. Lipschultz is a full-time Chicago-area physician who specializes in Clinical Nutrition and Internal Medicine. He is a Clinical Associate Professor of Medicine at Northwestern University and a Senior Attending Physician at Northshore University Healthcare System.

The public is invited to a reception and the awards ceremony beginning at 6:15 p.m the evening of February 24. A light buffet will be provided. Please RSVP to Jim Stallings at james.stallings@utdallas.edu or call 972-883-2898 if you plan to attend the reception – or are interested in participating in a chess education seminar for Texas school district officials which will be held earlier that day.

About UT Dallas
The University of Texas at Dallas, located at the convergence of Richardson, Plano and Dallas in the heart of the complex of major multinational technology corporations known as the Telecom Corridor, enrolls more than 15,000 students.  The school’s freshman class traditionally stands at the forefront of Texas state universities in terms of average SAT scores.  The University offers a broad assortment of bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degree programs.  For additional information about UT Dallas, please visit the University’s Web site at www.utdallas.edu.

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Media Contact:  Jim Stallings, UT Dallas, 972-883-2829, stallings@utdallas.edu

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