Our Featured Presenters

Professor John C. Elder, College Professor Emeritus

John Elder joined the Middlebury College faculty in 1973.  His original appointment was in English, followed by a split-appointment in English and American Literatures and in Environmental Studies.  In 2007 he was appointed as a non-departmental College Professor.   Starting in 1981, he has also taught most summers at the Bread Loaf School of English, including at the Alaska, New Mexico, and North Carolina campuses as well as at the Mother Loaf.  He retired from Middlebury in 2010.

John’s special areas of interest as a teacher were in American nature writing, English Romantic Poetry, modern American poetry of nature, and Japan’s haiku tradition.  In the years immediately before his retirement, he has also enjoyed exploring the possibilities for service-learning and community-based education, through courses related to residents’ sense of place in the nearby town of Starksboro and to the challenges and hopes of eleven Addison County farmers.

Recording of John Elder’s Keynote Address:

[vimeo 273562986]

 

John Patrick Coby, Esther Booth Wiley 1934 Professor of Government, Smith College

Patrick Coby teaches courses in political theory and American political thought. He studied at the University of Dallas and the University of North Carolina and taught previously at Kenyon College and Idaho State University. He has authored five books and numerous articles and reviews. He is the recipient of the Smith College Faculty Teaching Award, the Sherrerd Prize for Distinguished Teaching and the Board of Trustees Honored Professor Award.