LOUISE McBEE LECTURES

Dr. M. Louise McBee

The Louise McBee Lectureship in Higher Education honors Dr. Louise McBee, who held leadership positions for more than 25 years at the University of Georgia before serving for more than a decade as a champion for higher education in the House. Distinctiveness and distinction characterize the Louise McBee Lecture series in the Institute of Higher Education, which is one of the few annual lecture series in the United States that focuses solely on higher education. Founded in 1989, the series has brought numerous persons of great distinction to IHE and the University of Georgia to comment upon key directions and themes in higher education.

Among the lecturers have been distinguished scholars who study American higher education like Patricia Cross, Alexander Astin, and Patricia Graham. McBee lecturers have also included notable scholars from fields other than higher education studies who write and think about the academy in distinctive ways. For example, the distinguished Vanderbilt historian Paul K. Conkin lectured in 1992 on “The Mature but Anxious University: Hungry, Captive, Politicized and Deconstructed.”

Lecturers also come from outside the United States and have included Geoffrey Thomas, president of Kellogg College of Oxford University, who also serves as an IHE senior fellow. Thomas lectured on “Who Should Call the Tune in Higher Education? Notes from a Small Island.” James Downey, twice a visiting professor in IHE and former president of the University of New Brunswick and the University of Waterloo, expounded on “The University as Trinity: Balancing Corporation, Collegium, and Continuity.”

Some lecturers are primarily known for the leadership that they have exerted in American higher education. These include Hanna Gray, former president of the University of Chicago, Katherine Lyall, president of the University of Wisconsin System, and this year’s lecturer, Nils Hasselmo, former president of both the University of Minnesota and the Association of American Universities.

2007 Louise McBee Lecture
Patrick Callan
Founding President
National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education
October 31, 2007
11:00 a.m. in UGA Chapel

The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education is best known for its annual “Measuring Up” report cards, which evaluate and grade state higher education performance. Founding President Patrick Callan is an expert in the quality of higher education provided in each of the 50 states, public perceptions of higher education (e.g., affordability, access), and higher education state policy. Previously, he was executive director of the California Higher Education Policy Center, vice president of the Education Commission of the States, and executive director of the Postsecondary Education Commission for the states of California, Washington, and Montana. His latest report, which he co-authored, “Claiming Common Ground: State Policymaking for Improving College Readiness and Success,” identifies four state policy dimensions for improving college readiness and success: the alignment of coursework and assessments, state finance, statewide data systems, and accountability.

2006 Louise McBee Lecture
Nils Hasselmo
President
Association of American Universities (AAU)
October 20, 2006

Nils Hasselmo, former president of the University of Minnesota, became president of the Association of American Universities on July 1, 1998. Founded in 1900, the AAU comprises sixty U.S. and two Canadian public and private universities with strong programs of research and graduate and professional education. A native of Sweden, Hasselmo completed undergraduate and graduate degrees in Scandinavian languages and literature at Uppsala University. As a scholarship student in the United States, he received a B.A. at Augustana College, Rock Island, Illinois. He finished a Ph.D. in linguistics from Harvard University in 1961.

Louise McBee congratulates Nils Hasselmo after his lecture, entitled "My Universities."

After teaching at Augustana College and the University of Wisconsin, Hasselmo joined the faculty of the University of Minnesota in 1965. He served as chair of the Department of Scandinavian Languages and Literature and director of the Center for Northwest European Language and Area Studies, associate dean and executive officer of the College of Liberal Arts, and vice president for administration and planning. In 1983, he left Minnesota to serve as senior vice president for academic affairs and provost at the University of Arizona. He returned to the University of Minnesota as its 13th president in December 1988.

Hasselmo has served as chair of the National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges, the Big Ten Council of Presidents, and the Minnesota Higher Education Advisory Council. He has been president of the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study and the Swedish-American Historical Society, and chairman of the Swedish Council of America, an umbrella organization with 300 affiliates. He has served, or serves, on the board of the National Merit Scholarship Corporation, the Universities' Research Association, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the Council on Library and Information Resources, the American Scandinavian Foundation, and a number of other scholarly, educational, civic, and cultural organizations.

2005 Louise McBee Lecture
Maryann Feldman
Jeffery S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship
Professor of Business Economics, Rotman School of Management
University of Toronto
October 7, 2005, 11:00 a.m.
Title: "Academic Entrpreneurs: University Culture, Social Learning and Organizationial Change"

Maryann Feldman is the Jeffery S. Skoll Chair in Technical Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Professor of Business Economics at the Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. Prior to joining Rotman, Dr. Feldman held the position of Policy Director for Johns Hopkins Whiting School of Engineering and prior to that she was a research scientist at the Institute on Policy Studies at the University. Dr. Feldman is on the Advisory Panel for the U.S. National Science Foundation's Program on Societal Dimensions of Engineering, Science and Technology. Her research and teaching interests focus on the areas of innovation, the commercialization of academic research and the factors that promote technological change and economic growth. A large part of Dr. Feldman's work concerns the geography of innovation, investigating the reasons why innovation clusters spatially and the mechanisms that support and sustain industrial clusters.

2004 Louise McBee Lecture
Carol Geary Schneider
President, Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAU&C)
December 8, 2004, UGA Chapel
Title: "Liberal Education in an Era of Greater Expectations"

2004's Louise McBee Lecture speaker was Carol Geary Schneider, president of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), one of the leading national organizations devoted to advancing and strengthening undergraduate liberal education. Since becoming president, Dr. Schneider has initiated a major effort to rethink the broad aims of a 21st century college education so that liberal learning becomes a framework for the entire educational experience, whatever a student's choice of major and career. This new initiative, titled Greater Expectations: The Commitment to Quality as a Nation Goes to College is supported by four million dollars in grants from The Pew Charitable Trusts, The Carnegie Corporation of New York, and the US Department of Education. Dr. Schneider has taught at the University of Chicago, DePaul University, Chicago State University and Boston University.

2003 Louise McBee Lecture
Karen A. Holbrook
President, The Ohio State University
September 10, 2003
Title: "Leading With Courage"

Karen A. Holbrook is the thirteenth president of The Ohio State University. Prior to becoming president of Ohio State, she served as Provost and Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs at the University of Georgia. As provost at this university, she had the high regard and affection of students, colleagues and friends of the institution. On the Georgia campus she won a reputation as a person of great depth and warmth as well as that of a skilled administrator.

In her four years as the institution's academic leader, she took strong and central roles in the formation of two new colleges, the establishment of the New Media Institute, and the creation of the Biomedical and Health Sciences Institute. While at Georgia, she worked assiduously and successfully to advance the university's effectiveness in securing externally supplied research funding and was a tireless advocate in the improvement of undergraduate and graduate education.

A native of Iowa, Dr. Holbrook received her bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Wisconsin and the Ph.D. in biological structure from the University of Washington School of Medicine. She taught at Ripon College and the University of Washington School of Medicine before becoming vice president for research and dean of the graduate school at the University of Florida. She is a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and a member of its board. She also serves on the boards of the American College Testing service, the American Council on Education, and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

At Ohio State, Dr. Holbrook presides over an institution of 55,000 students, 21,000 faculty and staff, and an annual budget of $2.55 billion. In addition to her duties as president, she has taken on numerous other responsibilities in Ohio, particularly in areas pertaining to technological and economic development.

Reprints of lectures from the Institute-sponsored series are available free upon request while supplies last. Please make your request in writing and enclose a self-addressed mailing label to:

Louise McBee Lectures
Institute of Higher Education, Meigs Hall
University of Georgia
Athens, GA 30602-6772

You may also order copies online and read abstracts of lectures.


see also:	Lecture Abstracts and Online Ordering Previous McBee Lectures More about Dr. McBee