Event Title
Opening Plenary: "What is College For?"
Start Date
11-7-2016 6:00 PM
End Date
11-7-2016 8:00 PM
Description
At a time of rising public anxiety about the cost and value of liberal education, Andrew Delbanco, author of College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be, will speak about the past, present, and future of a distinctive institution: the American college.
How can we help students become active citizens and fulfilled human beings? How can we know if a college education is effective—and to what end? Educators must help to frame and answer these urgent questions; otherwise others will do it for us.
Speaker Bio
Andrew Delbanco
Andrew Delbanco is Alexander Hamilton Professor of American Studies at Columbia University. He is the author of several books, including College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be (2012), which is required reading on many campuses, and has been translated into Chinese, Korean, Turkish, Russian, and Hebrew. Melville: His World and Work (2005), a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, was awarded the Lionel Trilling Award by Columbia University, and has been translated into German and Spanish. His essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books and other journals, on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education. Professor Delbanco is a trustee of the Teagle Foundation and the Library of America, and Trustee Emeritus of the National Humanities Center. He has also served on the board of the Association of American Colleges and Universities, and as vice president of PEN American Center. In 2001, Delbanco was elected a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and in 2013 to membership in the American Philosophical Society. In 2006 the Society of Columbia Graduates honored him with its “Great Teacher” award. In 2011, he was awarded a National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama.
Opening Plenary: "What is College For?"
At a time of rising public anxiety about the cost and value of liberal education, Andrew Delbanco, author of College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be, will speak about the past, present, and future of a distinctive institution: the American college.
How can we help students become active citizens and fulfilled human beings? How can we know if a college education is effective—and to what end? Educators must help to frame and answer these urgent questions; otherwise others will do it for us.
Comments
Introduction by Dr. Mary Dana Hinton and Dr. Michael Hemesath, Conference Co-Hosts