H.T.D. “Tim” Rost put a profound vision onto paper in 1970 when he produced a doctoral dissertation on how Baha’i writings could help shape universities and colleges inspired by the teachings of Baha’u’llah.

He took the opportunity to put that vision into action in the 1980s, when the educator from the Midwest joined the staff of the New Era School in Panchgani, India. He made moral development and “peace education” his priority through many years and helped organize two associated international institutions, the New Era Teaching Training Center and the Baha’i Academy.

Also an author and developer of Baha’i-inspired children’s education materials and a Baha’i pioneer in Uganda and Kenya, Tim Rost passed away December 7, 2011, in Panchgani. He was 79.

A message of tribute from the Universal House of Justice reads in part, “His many contributions to the advancement of the Faith as an international pioneer for over forty years and as an educator and author are recalled with admiration. Kindly convey the loving sympathy of the House of Justice to his dear wife, Radha, his children and other family members, and assure them of its supplications in the Holy Shrines for the progress of his noble soul throughout the worlds of God.”

Born in 1932, Harry Timbrell Dyson Rost was educated in Wisconsin through high school and into college. He accepted the Baha’i Faith in the Milwaukee area as a teenager. He later went to the University of Arkansas to earn a master’s degree in geography.

His career as an educator from that point paralleled a path of service to the Baha’i Faith and to humanity. From 1956 through 1962 he taught school on the Spirit Lake Indian Reservation in North Dakota, also helping raise and confirm area Baha’i communities. He lived and taught in Portland, Maine, while conducting book sales part time at nearby Green Acre Baha’i School. He took part in administration of Davison Baha’i School (now Louhelen) near Flint, Michigan.

Over those years he was appointed by the U.S. National Spiritual Assembly to the North Central Area Youth Committee, the North Central Area Teaching Committee and the Maine State Goals Committee.

As he earned his doctoral degree in education from the University of South Dakota, Tim spent considerable time as a part-time archivist at the Baha’i National Archives in Wilmette, Illinois, serving as a member of the National Archives Committee. Research in the Archives helped him complete his dissertation, The Possible Nature and Establishment of Baha’i Universities and Colleges Based upon a Study of Baha’i Literature.

In 1970 Tim took a step across the Atlantic and never moved back. He relocated to Uganda, devoting three years to direct teaching of the Baha’i Faith and helping consolidate its communities.

In 1973 he took a teaching post at Kenyatta University in Nairobi, Kenya. While there he met his wife, Radha, a physician.

In those years he developed a set of materials for Baha’i children’s classes, and also set out his vision for Baha’i-based education for a wider audience with his book The Brilliant Stars: the Bahá’í Faith and the Education of Children. It emphasizes the urgency of integrating spiritual elements such as reverence, virtues, morals and a world-embracing vision into education for all children.

The couple moved in 1984 to Panchgani, India, where the New Era School had been in operation for some time. The Rosts were part of a handful of Baha’is, guided by the Office of Social and Economic Development at the Baha’i World Center, who advanced the organization of the rural development and training projects associated with the school, many of which focused on health, literacy and animal husbandry.

As a result, Tim was instrumental in the 1987 founding of the New Era Development Institute, which brought together many of those development projects. Now known as the New Era Teaching Training Center, it has served the area’s population over the years with a curriculum integrating moral development with practical training in an array of areas as varied as hygiene, literacy training, grassroots energy technology, computer science, engine mechanics and training of educators. Tim served in a variety of leadership roles.

In a more academic vein, he helped organize and served on the board of the Baha’i Academy, which is dedicated to research in integrating universal human values into higher education, and provides training for individuals and institutions worldwide in integrating such values into their educational approaches.

Universal values were at the heart of Tim’s second book, The Golden Rule: A Universal Ethic. Those principles also were a foundation for his work in developing the “peace education” concept, which involves teaching students practical ways of showing respect and resolving conflicts rationally.

As he said in a 2006 lecture at an education conference in Norway: “In a peaceful society people would work together to resolve conflicts, develop morally, treat each other with justice, satisfy basic needs, and respect each other. In essence, they would live in unity. Our aim is not to achieve a perfect world. What we do want is much more unity and peace throughout the world.”