Andrew Delbanco: “College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be”

The 2012 Lowell Lecture features Andrew Delbanco, recent winner of the National Humanities Medal. The lecture takes place Wednesday, April 4, in Sever Hall, room 113, at 8 p.m

Once named by Time Magazine as “America’s Best Social Critic,” Delbanco offers a trenchant defense of a college education, and warns that it is becoming a privilege reserved for the relatively rich. In arguing for what a true college education should be, he demonstrates why making it available to as many young people as possible remains central to America’s democratic promise.

Delbanco is Levi Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, and is the author of numerous books including the award-winning Melville: His World and Work (2005). His essays appear regularly in The New York Review of Books, New Republic, New York Times Magazine, and other journals, writing on topics ranging from American literary and religious history to contemporary issues in higher education.

A book signing will follow the lecture, with copies of Delbanco’s newly published, College: What it Was, Is, and Should Be, available for purchase.

This event is free and open to the public.