John Dewey Lecture
John Dewey Lecture
Information about 2008 John Dewey lecture will be coming soon.
March 29, 4 - 6:00
Great Lakes Room, Palmer Commons
Populism and John Dewey: Convergences and Contradictions
- Dr. Harry Boyte
The John Dewey Lecture commemorates this American educator, who formulated some of his most important ideas at Michigan, and influenced American education by his writings about the role of experience in learning, of schools and community in society, and of higher education in solving problems.
This years lecturer is Dr. Harry Boyte, co-director of the Center for Democracy and Citizenship at the University of Minnesota. For eleven years the Center has focused on developing practice-based theory about how to engage citizens in public life. Boyte was national coordinator for the New Citizenship, a bipartisan effort to bridge the citizen-government gap. He presented New Citizenship findings to President Bill Clinton, Vice President Al Gore, and other administration leaders at a 1995 Camp David seminar on the future of democracy. More recently, Boyte was a senior advisor to the National Commission for Civic Renewal, headed by former Senator Sam Nunn and former U.S. Education Secretary William Bennett.
In the 1960s, Boyte worked for Martin Luther King, Jr., as a field secretary for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. He has written seven books on community organizing, citizen action, and citizenship, including Building America: The Democratic promise of Public Work and CommonWealth: A Return to Citizen Politics. His writings have appeared in over seventy publications, including the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Christian Science Monitor. His commentaries on democracy have aired on National Public Radio and the CBS Evening News.
Boyte holds a doctorate in political and social thought from the Union Institute.