Jonathan Cole Speaks in ‘Leading Voices’ Series

Susan J. Boutwell

Visit the Strategic Planning website for the most current “Leading Voices in Higher Education” information and schedule.

Sociologist Jonathan Cole is the next speaker in the “Leading Voices in Higher Education” series. He will discuss his book, The Great American University: Its Rise to Preeminence, Its Indispensable National Role, Why It Must Be Protected, at a lecture on Tuesday, May 8, at 4:30 p.m., in Rockefeller Center room 3. The lecture is free and open to the public.

Cole, a professor at Columbia University, is best known for his work on the development of the sociology of science as a research specialty. He served as Columbia’s provost and dean of faculties for 14 years through 2003. His recent scholarly work has focused attention on questions of scientific and technological literacy, intellectual property and new digital media, and current problems facing research universities.

About “Leading Voices in Higher Education”

The “Leading Voices” speaker series is part of Dartmouth’s strategic planning process, which began last summer.

Provost Carol Folt says, “We are drawing the best thinkers and innovators in higher education today. Ideas for the series are coming from our strategic planning working group members, who suggested speakers who will challenge and inspire our community as we work together to chart a course for Dartmouth’s future.”

Following Cole in the series is David Ferriero, archivist of the United States, on Monday, May 14. His lecture will begin at 4 p.m., in Moore Hall’s Filene Auditorium. The nation’s 10th archivist, Ferriero, will speak on “From the Records of the Continental Congress to Today’s White House Tweets: The Role of the National Archives.”

The Dartmouth community has heard from a number of Leading Voices speakers this year, including humanities scholar Cathy Davidson, author of Now You See It: How the Brain Science of Attention Will Transform the Way We Live, Work, and Learn; Pulitzer Prize-winning author Louis Menand, a writer at The New Yorker and Harvard professor who writes about the role of higher education in society; and Salman Khan, founder of Khan Academy, a free, online education source with almost 6 million unique users.

To begin the series, Dartmouth Professor Vijay Govindarajan, the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business at the Tuck School of Business, presented a strategic planning talk in which he asked the Dartmouth community to consider how education is changing.

“If we want to continue to be a leader, the question we need to ask is, ‘How is the world of higher education likely to change?’ If the 20th century is an American century, I say the 21st century is the global century,” said Govindarajan. “What are the implications of that for higher education?”