Athens, Ga. – One of the nations’ foremost proponents of American higher education and its evolving role in shaping society, University of Michigan President Emeritus James J. Duderstadt, will visit UGA to deliver the 2009 Distinguished Lecture in Engineering on Oct. 2 at 10 a.m. in the Chapel. Admission is free and the public is invited to attend.
Duderstadt’s lecture will draw on material found in his many books and articles, which utilize the prism of higher education as a tool through which to understand the challenges facing American society.
“Today’s society demands citizens who remain active learners throughout their lives, and hence it requires educational institutions capable of meeting their learning needs whenever and wherever they occur. In a very real sense, higher education is both driving and being driven by technological, social and economic forces at work throughout the world,” Duderstadt wrote in the introductory chapter of his 2000 book, A University for the 21st Century.
Duderstadt is president emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering at the University of Michigan. Since completing his term as president in July 1996, Duderstadt has directed the University of Michigan’s program in Science, Technology and Public Policy. From the center which bears his name, Duderstadt heads the Millennium Project, a University of Michigan laboratory where new paradigms of learning institutions can be designed, constructed and studied.
“James Duderstadt embodies the forces of invention and innovation driving change in American higher education,” said Dale Threadgill, director of the Faculty of Engineering at UGA. “His numerous books dealing with the role of the university in the information age inform the discussion at many levels and demonstrate how higher education can and must continue to impact society by providing the leaders of tomorrow by educating the citizens of today.”
The UGA Faculty of Engineering was established in 2001 to advance comprehensive engineering at the University of Georgia. With more than 100 members from twenty-four departments in nine schools and colleges across campus, the Faculty of Engineering provides an entrepreneurial setting for engineering academic programs in the unique environment of UGA. For more information, see www.engineering.uga.edu.