Charles Dorn will be bringing his expertise as an educational historian to bear next week as he heads to Germany to help convene an international conference looking at the role colleges and universities have played in public life since 1945.
The conference, titled Universities and the Public Good: Research, Education, and Democracy Since 1945, will take place in Hanover September 10 to 12 and will feature scholars from both sides of the Atlantic.
“Given this is such a fraught moment for higher education in the United States, the conference organizers, who work in Canada, Germany, and the United States, thought it would be fruitful to convene an international group of scholars to reflect on the transnational—especially transatlantic—history of colleges and universities since World War II,” said Dorn, who is Bowdoin’s Barry N. Wish Professor of Social Studies.
“In particular,” he continued, “we’re interested in the ways higher education has shaped the rise of liberal societies and articulated and maintained a commitment to the public good. Given my own research into higher education history and Bowdoin’s long-standing commitment to the common good, I was very happy to become involved.”
Dorn, who is on academic leave for the fall semester, is one of five conveners at the conference, which is supported by the Volkswagen Foundation and features nearly forty scholars from North America and Europe.
Dorn's research into the history of education investigates the civic functions adopted by and ascribed to centers of early childhood education, public schools, and colleges and universities in the US.
