History of the Crimmel Colloquium at St. Lawrence

On October 15, 1996, Professor Henry H. Crimmel, about three years before his retirement from the Philosophy Department at St. Lawrence University established a generous endowment in honor of his parents to fund an annual colloquium on liberal education. According to the by-laws of the Colloquium;

1. "The colloquium shall address issues of fundamental importance to the liberal arts college and to liberal education."
The four issues of fundamental importance are:
(i) "The ideal of liberal education."
(ii) "The proper relationship of liberal arts college to society."
(iii) "The liberal arts curriculum and the academic environment."
(iv) "The role of college teacher and the faculty organization."

2. "The colloquium shall be conducted in the spirit of Socratic dialogue in the sense that it shall promote the critical examination of the diversity of ideas about the liberal arts college and the ideal of liberal eduacation."

Each year the colloquium is organized by a coordinator randomly selected from a pool of faculty who are willing to serve in that capacity.

So far there have been four colloquia held. The format introduced by the first coordinator and followed by the succeeding four has been to have a lecture on a topic of liberal education by one or two speakers of national reputation. Some members of the faculty act as respondents to the lecture(s). Next day the speaker(s) meet with the interested faculty and the respondents and an exchange of ideas takes place over a luncheon. The luncheon meeting may turn into a semi debate.

The first colloquium was held in October 1997 under the coordination of Professor Richard Jenseth of the Department of English and Director of the University Writing Program. The principal speaker was Professor Todd Gitlin of the New York University.

The coordinator of the second colloquium was Professor William Fox of the Department of Education and the principal speaker was Dr. Chester Finn, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute,Washington D.C. It was held on November 9-10, 1998.

In October 1999, the third colloquium took place under the coordination of Professor Bernard Lammers, Professor of Public Law and Government. There were two principal speakers, Ms. Candice de Russy, a Trustee of the State University of New York and Professor Alan Kors of the University of Pennsylvania.

The Fourth colloquium was held on October 26-27, 2000 with Professor Mark McWilliams of the Department of Religious Studies as its coordinator and Professor Judith Berling of the University of California at Berkeley as the principal speaker.

The coordinator of the fifth colloquium for the year 2001 was Professor Chanchal Singh of the Department of Mathematics. The colloquium took place on October 17-18. The principal speakers were Professor Bruce A. Kimball, University of Rochester and Mr. Dinesh D'Souza, a research scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.

The coordinator of the sixth colloquium for the year 2002 was Peter Bailey, Professor of English. The colloquim took place on September 17-18. Manning Marable, Professor of History and Political Science at Columbia University was that year's colloquium lecturer.

The coordinator of the eighth colloquium for the year 2004 was Professor Alan Schwartz of the Department of Environmental Studies. The colloquium took place on October 19. The principal speaker was David Orr, Distinguished Professor of Environmental Studies and Politics at Oberlin College.