Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg to Reflect on State of Higher Education in Pitt’s American Experience Distinguished Lecture

PITTSBURGH—The future prospects of higher education in the United States will be the focus of the next American Experience Distinguished Lecture at the University of Pittsburgh. Pitt Chancellor Mark A. Nordenberg will present “Higher Education in 21st-Century America: The Promise and the Pain” at 7:30 p.m. March 24 in Ballroom B of Pitt’s University Club, 123 University Place, Oakland.

Nordenberg’s lecture will be informed by his leadership at the University of Pittsburgh, where he has served as chancellor since 1995, as well as by his broader leadership roles within the field of education. He serves on the executive committee of the Association of American Universities, and he is a past chair of both the Pennsylvania Association of Colleges and Universities and the Pittsburgh Council on Higher Education. He has served as cochair of a special legislative commission charged with studying the problems facing Pennsylvania’s urban schools, chaired a committee that examined issues of leadership and governance in the Pittsburgh Public Schools, and served as cochair of Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s education transition team and as a member of the Governor’s Advisory Commission on Postsecondary Higher Education.

Nordenberg, who will step down as chancellor on Aug. 1, came to the University of Pittsburgh to join the faculty of its School of Law in 1977 and previously served as dean of the School of Law from 1985 to 1993. His complete biography may be found here.

The American Experience Distinguished Lecture Series is cosponsored by the University Honors College and by the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy. The forum is named after former Governor of Pennsylvania Dick Thornburgh, who will be in attendance March 24 to introduce Chancellor Nordenberg.

The lecture is free and open to the public. Because seating is limited, registration is required. Register online at https://www.thornburghforum.pitt.edu/.

About the American Experience Distinguished Lecture Series
The late Pitt faculty member Robert G. Hazo created the American Experience program at Pitt more than 40 years ago to offer Pittsburghers the opportunity to gain insight into political and economic thought with the intent of enlightening the public’s political discourse. The program’s director is Edward L. McCord, director of programming and special projects in Pitt’s University Honors College and director of the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy.

About the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy
Established in 2007, the Dick Thornburgh Forum for Law and Public Policy at the University of Pittsburgh fosters public education and civic action on important public policy issues, building on the legacy of Pitt alumnus and emeritus trustee Dick Thornburgh (LAW ’57), a two-term governor of Pennsylvania and U.S. Attorney General under Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush. Among the forum’s goals are to promote able and principled governance at all levels, to advance the rule of law at home and abroad, and to assist the government’s response to the special needs of persons with disabilities, many of them wounded in service to their country.

About the University Honors College
The University of Pittsburgh dedicated the University Honors College more than a quarter century ago, in 1987. Its mission is to assist the larger University as it seeks to meet the special academic and extracurricular needs of Pitt’s most motivated and inquisitive undergraduate students by providing intellectual challenges, inspiring individual efforts, and fostering independence of mind and self-discovery. The University Honors College also seeks to attract Pitt students who have unusual talent, curiosity, drive, and philanthropic disposition.

###

3/13/14/klf/cjhm