William Jewett Tucker Lecture

The annual William Jewett Tucker Lecture is intended to address the moral and spiritual life of Dartmouth students in support of the mission of the Tucker Foundation.

2013

Andrew Delbanco - "College: What is Was, Is and Should Be"

Thursday, April 25, 4:30 PM

Filene Auditorium in Moore Hall

Reception to follow in Goldstein Hall, Occom Commons

Andrew Delbanco is the Mendelson Family Chair of American Studies and the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, a prominent cultural critic, and an award winning author. In his most recent book and in his upcoming William Jewett Tucker guest lecture in Filene Auditorium on Thursday, April 25, at 4:30 pm, Andrew Delbanco addresses "College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be." Dr. Delbanco discusses the commercialization of American higher education and the need to preserve the college experience as an exploratory time for students to discover their passions and test ideas and values. He examines what it means and what it takes to educate citizens in our republic, noting that "a college should not be a haven from worldly contention, but a place where young people fight out among and within themselves contending ideas of the meaningful life, and where they discover that self-interest need not be at odds with concern for one another."

Dr. Delbanco was awarded the 2011 National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama "for his writing that spans the literature of Melville and Emerson to contemporary issues in higher education." He writes extensively on American literary and religious history. In 2001, he was elected a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and named by Time Magazine as "America's Best Social Critic." In 2006, Professor Delbanco received the "Great Teacher Award" from the Society of Columbia Graduates. A double graduate of Harvard University (BA (1973) and PhD (1980), Delbanco has been teaching at Columbia University since 1985.

Professor Delbanco is the author of many books, including, most recently, College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be (Princeton University Press, 2012), and The Abolitionist Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2012). Melville: His World and Work (2005) was published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, in Britain under the Picador imprint, and has appeared in German and Spanish translation. Melville was a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize in Biography, and appeared on "best books" lists in the Washington Post, Independent (London), Dallas Morning News, and TLS. It was awarded the Lionel Trilling Award by Columbia University.

This lecture is a part of the Leading Voices in Higher Education series sponsored by Dartmouth Strategic Planning.