. . . reflecting the fundamental belief that higher education institutions can and should operate in the public interest. Support CCE
CCE Block Party. Photo by Jonathan Asiedu ’24
Our Mission
The Center for Civic Engagement realizes Bard’s vision—to act as a private institution in the public interest.
CCE initiates programs, fosters sustained partnerships, and supports and connects student, faculty, and staff of Bard’s local, national, and international networks as they work to make a difference in the civic life of their communities.
Staff
Dedicated to promoting ideals that link democracy to the liberal arts, CCE staff work in partnership with local communities and with network partners to develop sustainable projects that address pressing societal issues.
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Jonathan Becker
Jonathan Becker
[email protected]
845-758-7816 Jonathan Becker is the director of the Center for Civic Engagement and Executive Vice President and Vice President for Academic Affairs at Bard. As director of CCE, Jonathan has general oversight of the center’s activities and coordinates programming among the center affiliates and the Bard’s national and international networks. He is also an associate professor of political studies specializing in Russian and eastern European politics, media and politics, and education reform.
Dr. Becker earned his B.A. from McGill University in 1987 and his DPhil. from St. Antony’s College, Oxford in 1993. He is the author of Soviet and Russian Press Coverage of the United States: Press, Politics and Identity in Transition (1999; revised and expanded edition, 2002), guest editor of a special issue of Education Studies/Voprosy obrazovania on Liberal Arts and Science Education (2015), co-editor of Svobodniye Iskusstva i Nauki na Sovremennom Etape: Opyt SShA i Evropy v Kontekste Rossiiskogo Obrazovaniya (2014), and author of chapters and articles in a variety of books and publications, including Voprosy Obarzovaniya, European Journal of Communication, Journalism and Mass Communications Quarterly, and Demokratiizatsiya. Prior to coming to Bard in 1997, he served as assistant vice president of the Central European University in Budapest and as the European director of the Civic Education Project. -
Erin Cannan
Erin Cannan
[email protected]
845-758-7453 Erin links the liberal arts with civic engagement through community partnerships, collaborative programming and development of opportunities that takes full advantage of Bard's vast network around the globe. As one of the founding staff members of Bard's Center for Civic Engagement (CCE), Erin has strengthened Bard’s local, national and global partnerships by enhancing curricular and co-curricular programs for students, faculty and community partners. Since 2012, Erin has launched a variety of initiatives that has centered civic engagement into Bard's mission as a "private institution acting in the public interest". Projects link the liberal arts to careers, community engagement, network building and civics. Initiatives include launching the Engaged Liberal Arts and Science (ELAS), BardWorks, Science Community Outreach, the Martin Luther King Jr. Day of Engagement, the Community Action Internship Award, Election@Bard, the annual Get Engaged Student Conference and the 100 Days Initiative (now called The Dissonance).
Erin co-led Bard's successful application for the 2020 Carnegie Engagement Classification and co-teaches ELAS and network courses focused on civic engagement. She has been the academic director for the U.S. State Department’s Study for the United States Institute (SUSI) since 2018. Erin co-leads the newly launched Open Society University Network (OSUN) Civic Engagement project which is integrating civic engagement throughout all 30 OSUN university partners with a focus on teaching, curricular development and co-curricular programming.
Erin joined the CCE staff after 15 years in the Division of Student Affairs at Bard where she served as Dean of Students and Vice President for Student Affairs. Her background in student affairs motivates her to connect the liberal arts and sciences with civic engagement to promote student well-being, learning and skill-building. In 2020, she was promoted to Vice President for Civic Engagement. -
Paul Marienthal
Paul Marienthal
[email protected]
845-505-1795 Dr. Paul Marienthal arrived at Bard in 1997. He directs the College’s Trustee Leader Scholar Program (TLS), encouraging students to act as hands-on social entrepreneurs inventing new approaches and creating sustainable solutions to initiate change. Paul provides leadership training, retreats, and grant-writing and reflection workshops. These social action programs provide tools for students interested in creating and developing self-initiated projects with a mission to bring theory to practice. With over 400 students participating annually, Paul fosters an environment wherein students realize their potential to make a difference, while promoting institutional principles linking liberal education and democracy.
Paul earned his B.A. from Stanford University in 1971, his M.A. from Antioch University in 1986, and his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 1991. Paul teaches classes in the fundamentals of interpersonal communication at a medium-security New York State prison. Founder of Bard’s Community Garden, Paul also oversees a community garden with the Bard Prison Initiative at Woodbourne.
He is the author of a short essay in Democracy Is Not a Spectator Sport (Blaustein, A., 2011). -
Bonnie GoadDirector, OSUN Program Development & Communications; Associate Director, CCE
[email protected]
845-758-7371Bonnie Goad
[email protected]
845-758-7371 Bonnie Goad -
Daniel CalingaertManaging Director, OSUN and Dean for Global Programs
[email protected]Daniel Calingaert
[email protected] B.A., Tufts University; M.Phil. and D.Phil., Oxford University. Serves as Managing Director at Bard of the Open Society University Network, which integrates learning and the advancement of knowledge across partner institutions around the world, promotes civic engagement, and expands access for underserved communities to higher education. Previously served as Executive Vice President of Freedom House. Taught at Georgetown University, Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, and American University; published extensively, including in the Journal of Strategic Studies, Journal of Democracy, Policy Review, and American Interest; and provided expert testimony nine times to the U.S. Congress. -
Cicily WilsonAssistant Dean for Civic Engagement, Director of Community Partnerships
[email protected]
845-416-2938Cicily Wilson
[email protected]
845-416-2938 Cicily joins the CCE staff after 9 years in Student Affairs at Bard most recently as the Director of Residence Life & Housing. Prior to working at Bard, Cicily's career centered on nonprofit management with a focus on public relations, community development and fundraising for many organizations including the Elie Wiesel Foundation, Brooklyn Conservatory of Music and Girl Scouts. Cicily, originally from Queens, NY, has lived in Kingston with her family for nearly 20 years. She serves as a Commissioner on the City of Kingston's Arts Commission and on the Board of Friends of Forsyth Nature Center and the Kingston Land Trust and has served on the Board of the Junior League of Kingston. Cicily spends most of her time enjoying the Hudson Valley with her family, volunteering, and training for and running road races. -
Lucy HuffmanTrustee Leader Scholar Administrative Coordinator
[email protected]Lucy Huffman
[email protected] Originally from a small yet powerful community on Whidbey Island, in Washington state, Lucy has had an eclectic career with connecting at the core. After graduating from Lesley University with a BA in Photography she worked in galleries in Europe and New York City before finding a calling in the beverage industry. As a wine professional Lucy focused on education and community through tasting, traveling and shedding light on the whole process of food and wine production. After moving to the Hudson Valley she began working with farms and learning holistic farming practices as an orchardist. She is passionate about helping people connect personal ambitions with community goals to benefit all. As the Administrative Coordinator for the Trustee Leader Scholar program, she provides support to students becoming leaders in their communities. -
Sarah Deveer ’17
Sarah Deveer ’17
Special Events Administrator
[email protected] Sarah coordinates engagement opportunities both on and off-campus for students who are interested in community service, activism, voter rights, and science outreach. She is also one of Bard’s Transportation Coordinators, to help students get to those off-campus opportunities and academic fields for the Engaged Liberal Arts and Sciences classes. Before joining the CCE staff, Sarah earned her Bachelor’s degree through Bard’s Film Production and Electronic Arts department, specifically focusing in documentary and community connections. -
Chaya HuberAdministrative Assistant, Open Society University Network, Bard
[email protected]Chaya Huber
[email protected] Chaya provides logistic and administrative support for a team responsible for the implementation of multiple OSUN initiatives. She moved to the Hudson Valley in Summer 2020 from Los Angeles, CA. Chaya worked as a horse wrangler and chef around the Western US, in Montana, Arizona and Wyoming. In LA, she was involved in numerous volunteer opportunities involving improving city-wide bicycle infrastructure, supporting science-based garden and nutrition classes in elementary public schools, and teaching computer skills and resume building workshops at a community center. Prior to joining OSUN, Chaya worked with the Ulster County Department of Health in their Covid vaccine rollout efforts. Chaya received her BA from Yeshiva University, New York. -
Anita TarnaiProgram Manager, Network Collaborative Courses, Open Society University Network, Bard
[email protected]Anita Tarnai
[email protected] Anita is the program manager of the Open Society University Network (OSUN) network collaborative courses. Prior to joining the OSUN team, she developed and oversaw academic program initiatives for the Accelerated Study in Associate Programs (ASAP) at City University of New York (CUNY). Besides curriculum development, Anita is passionate about teaching and community empowerment through education. She has taught Russian language and Contemporary Civilization, a core curriculum class, while at Columbia University, first-year seminars at CUNY, and literature and creative writing courses in non-academic settings for veterans, the justice-involved, the mentally disabled, immigrants and survivors of intimate partner violence. Anita earned her Ph.D. from Columbia University in Slavic Languages and Literatures and Cultural Studies. Her research explores the impact of trauma on perception, language use, and aesthetic preferences in literature and the arts. -
Terry RoethleinCommunications Manager, OSUN
[email protected] | 845-758-0261Terry Roethlein
[email protected] | 845-758-0261 BA from the University of Connecticut and MPA from School of International and Public Affairs, Columbia University. Serves as Communications Manager at OSUN, where he coordinates website, social media, and e-mail marketing along with marketing materials and strategic communications. Also served as Communications Manager at the Center for Economic and Social Rights and the Center for the Study of Social Difference/Institute for Research on Women,Gender, and Sexuality at Columbia University. Has also volunteered media skills for ACT UP and Reclaim Pride Coalition. -
Wailly Compres ’18Brothers@ Consortium Manager
[email protected]Wailly Compres ’18
[email protected] Born and raised in Moca, Dominican Republic, Wailly Comprés '18 is the current Consortium Manager for Brothers@, a dual-beneficiary high-school retention and college persistence organization with the mission of improving the academic and social-emotional outcomes of YMOC in both secondary and post-secondary education. A Kingston resident, Wailly is completing a MPS in Social Justice Education at SUNY New Paltz. As a facilitator and student advisor, Wailly seeks to center student's passions, feelings and worries as he believes this opens his students' inner voices; their inner voice informs their goals and helps them articulate challenging experiences. His advising attempts to demystify what students have learned about academia (its abstraction and exclusivity) to begin making space for themselves and others in it. Wailly currently oversees the development of Brothers@ growing network of colleges and universities that seek to elevate the voices of Young Men of Color by attending to their needs. In his leisure time, Wailly might be hanging out with his partner and dog, cooking, camping, hiking, dancing or gaming with friends. -
Rana HajjajAl-Quds Bard Program Manager, Bard CCE
[email protected]Rana Hajjaj
[email protected] Rana earned her B.B.A. from the American University of Beirut, Lebanon, in 2009 and her MBA from Marist College, New York in 2017. Prior to coming to Bard, she served for five years at the Permanent Observer Mission of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC) to the United Nations (UN) in New York. She managed a wide range of issues including representation, donations and grant management, governance, finance and administration, and communications with the UN Headquarters, UN Specialized Agencies and Member States. She also served the IFRC in the Middle East North Africa Regional Office in Lebanon for two years. Prior to that, Rana managed two development programs in Beirut, assisting Palestinian and Iraqi refugees. -
Danielle BoveeAl-Quds Bard (AQB) Program Manager, Interim
[email protected]Danielle Bovee
[email protected] Danielle is the Al-Quds Bard (AQB) interim program manager. AQB is a partnership between Bard College and Al-Quds University in Abu Dis, Jerusalem, and confers US-accredited BA and MAT degrees from both institutions. Danielle manages the day-to-day implementation of the Bard degree-conferring programs, encompassing a broad range of program administrative functions, as well as medium to long-term planning and grant management.
Prior to joining the Bard community, Danielle worked for a private study abroad company to develop and manage customized short- and long-term education programs in Spain, Puerto Rico, Argentina, and Cuba. She obtained her B.A. at the College of Saint Rose and later a M.A. in Medieval and Golden Age Spanish Literature from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she also taught language courses. -
Sarah NeighborsAl-Quds Bard Program Assistant
[email protected]Sarah Neighbors
[email protected] Sarah works with the AQB program manager in day-to-day implementation of programs at Al-Quds Bard in Palestine. From the Kitsap Peninsula in Washington state, she completed her BA in History at Whitworth University in Spokane, WA. Prior to Bard, she was a Consular Officer and Equity, Diversity and Inclusion chair at the Consulate General of Canada in Seattle. She has a background in legal administration and project management, as well as education, having spent 3 years teaching abroad in Spain. She has practiced yoga for 15+ years and is a certified instructor.
CCE Fellows
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Kate Flynn
Kate Flynn
Dr. Kate Flynn has over twenty years in research, teaching, programme development and project delivery. Her expertise covers critical peacebuilding, democratization, ethnic conflict, migration, development, contested heritage, and public policy in divided and transitional societies. Current research focuses on evaluating the effectiveness and impacct of civil society programmes funded by foreign aid. She has worked at universities in South Africa, Ukraine, Israel and the UK, and led research projects covering Northern Ireland, South Africa, and Cyprus. She is also Research Fellow at the Archbishop Desmond Tutu Centre for War and Peace Studies, Liverpool Hope University, UK. -
Cammie Jones
Cammie Jones
Originally from Dallas, TX, Cammie has consistently created pathways towards social justice and civic engagement in higher education for over 15 years. She is a first-generation college student and holds a B.S. in Kinesiology from the University of Texas at Austin and a M.A. in Higher Education Administration from Louisiana State University A&M. Cammie is the CEO and Founder of J. Jones Consulting, LLC and also serves as the Bard Center for Civic Engagement and Open Society University Network (OSUN) Senior Fellow. Cammie served as an Assistant and Associate Dean of Experiential Learning and Civic Engagement during her prior tenure at Bard. Furthermore she has served in high level executive roles at Dutchess Community College, Marist College and Barnard College. She has taught fall and summer courses on empowerment of women at Bard and OSUN, including Women and Leadership, Women and COVID 19: Activism, Leadership, and Global Engagement, and most recently Women and the Pandemic, to help amplify the voices of the next generation of leaders. She has also organized a number of international and domestic conferences on civic engagement, young leadership development, and the future of women's rights. Cammie has dedicated her life to service and leadership, sitting on several boards and committees for local nonprofits and receiving numerous accolades for her contributions to higher education and community engagement. She recently received the 2021 ATHENA Award from the Chamber Foundation Inc., as well as the 2012 Forty Under 40 Class from the Dutchess County Regional Chamber of Commerce, the N4A 2014 Professional Promise Award for Region 1, the AWCC 2017 Forty Under 40 Class, and the 2017 Arc of Dutchess Peggy Martinko Community Trailblazer Award from the Arc of Dutchess. -
James Ketterer
James Ketterer
James Ketterer is Dean of of the School of Continuing Education at the American University in Cairo. He previously served as Dean of International Studies at Bard College and Academic Director of the Bard Globalization and International Affairs program - and he taught in Bard’s Political Studies and Global and International Studies programs. Prior to that he served as Egypt Country Director for AMIDEAST. From 2007-2011 he was Vice Chancellor for Policy and Planning and Deputy Provost at the State University of New York (SUNY). At SUNY, he also was director of the Center for International Development and program officer at the Center for Legislative Development. In government, he served on the staff of the New York Commission on Higher Education, the National Security Council staff at the White House and as policy analyst at the New York State Senate. He worked on elections for the United Nations, the African-American Institute and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and has carried out consultancies for USAID in the Middle East, Africa and Asia. He was a Boren Fellow in Morocco and a Rotary Ambassadorial Scholar in Tunisia. He is a fellow at the Foreign Policy Association, serves on the board of the Swedish Program at the Stockholm School of Economics, is on the organizing committee of the 2020 Transatlantic Dialogue at the University of Luxembourg and is a Senior Fellow at the Bard Center for Civic Engagement. He was a board member for the World Affairs Council of the Hudson Valley and has given talks across the US for the American Committees on Foreign Relations.
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Brian Mateo
Brian Mateo
Brian Mateo is deputy director of programs and partnerships at Carnegie Council. He has over 14 years of leadership experience in higher education, both domestic and international. As an associate dean of civic engagement at Bard College, he worked with over 40 university and research institutions worldwide through the Open Society University Network (OSUN) on curriculum development, integrating programs, strategic management, student initiatives, and topics such as civic engagement, climate education, and refugee access to higher education. Mateo teaches courses on: Civic Engagement and Social Action and on Ethical Leadership. He has experience working with public diplomacy programs sponsored by the U.S. Department of State on U.S. foreign policy and has cultivated an alumni base of over 100 scholars from 59 countries. Mateo is also a term member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a Truman National Security Fellow, and a Climate Reality Leader trained under Vice President Al Gore. He is a former Carnegie New Leader, as well. -
Anthony Richter
Anthony Richter
Anthony Richter is Senior Fellow at the Bard College’s Center for Civic Engagement. Prior to joining Bard he worked for 37 years at the Open Society Foundations where he was George Soros longest serving philanthropic advisor, holding a variety of senior leadership roles. He joined Open Society in 1988 and established more than 20 of the foundations in the Open Society Foundations network throughout Eurasia, the Middle East, and South Asia. He also developed programs such as the Central Eurasia Project, Eurasianet, and Revenue Watch and led Open Society’s work backing the Arab Fund for Arts and Culture and other significant culture and arts programming. He previously was regional director of the Middle East North Africa and Southwest Asia and headed Open Society’s work in the former Soviet Union. Richter was founding chairman of the Revenue Watch Institute, and served on the boards of the Natural Resource Governance Institute, Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, and the Open Government Partnership.
He has written for The New York Times, the World Policy Journal, and other publications. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. Richter received his BA from Wesleyan University in Russian language and literature and a graduate degree in Slavic languages and literature from Columbia University and certificates from Harvard University and the Pushkin Insitute. His languages include Arabic, French, Persian, Russian and Ukrainian. -
Walter Russell Mead
Walter Russell Mead
Walter Russell Mead was the Henry A. Kissinger Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy at the Council on Foreign Relations and Richard von Weizsäcker Fellow at the Robert Bosch Stiftung. He is currently a Distinguished Fellow in American Strategy and Statesmanship at the Hudson Institute. Professor Mead is the author of God and Gold: Britain, America, and the Making of the Modern World (2008); Power, Terror, Peace, and War: America’s Grand Strategy in a World at Risk (2004); and Special Providence: American Foreign Policy and How It Changed the World (2001). He was the winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize and nominated for the 2002 Arthur Ross Book Award. In 2018 he was named Global View columnist at The Wall Street Journal. He writes articles, book reviews, and op-ed pieces for Foreign Affairs and other magazines and newspapers. From 2008 to 2011, he was the Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy at Yale University; and from 1987 to 1997, President’s Fellow at the World Policy Institute at The New School. He was a finalist for the National Magazine Award (essays and criticism) in 1997. Mead was the James Clarke Chace Professor of Foreign Affairs and the Humanities at Bard College from 2005-2024 and is currently a Senior Scholar at the Center for Civic Engagement and at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard. -
Juris Pupcenoks
Juris Pupcenoks
Juris Pupcenoks is an assistant professor of political science at Marist College, NY. A specialist in international relations and comparative politics, Juris completed a B.A. degree at Westminster College (MO), and M.A. and Ph.D. degrees at the University of Delaware. He previously taught at the University of Delaware and Washington College (MD). He has conducted field research in Muslim communities in the United Kingdom, Italy and the US, and published in journals including International Interactions, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Middle East Journal, and Journal of Muslim Minority Affairs. His monograph Western Muslims and Conflicts Abroad was published by Routledge in 2016. Broadly, his research focuses on understanding how different groups (be it diasporas, Americans or Europeans) mobilize politically and react to conflicts abroad. More specific research interests include diasporic and ethnic politics, humanitarian intervention, international security, causes of political violence, politics of Muslims and minorities in the West, and transatlantic relations. He is fluent in Latvian (native) and Russian, intermediate in French, and is currently learning Mandarin Chinese. His hobbies include traveling, running and tennis. -
Kyaw Moe Tun
Kyaw Moe Tun
Kyaw Moe Tun completed his undergraduate education at Bard College at Simon’s Rock and Oxford University, and received his PhD in Organic Chemistry from Yale University. The transformative liberal arts and sciences education that he received abroad challenged him to find deeper meaning behind his actions. This notion has informed much of his ensuing work. He came back to Myanmar in 2014 to dedicate his life to the development of his native country. As a young social entrepreneur dedicated to creating the next generation of responsible and competent leaders for Myanmar, he believes that empowering youth is the most rewarding investment that a country can make to safeguard its sustainable future. He believes that a liberal arts and sciences education has the power to develop the types of innovative, adaptable leaders needed to address fast-changing sociopolitical trends and industrial disruptions seen worldwide. With this mission in mind, Dr. Kyaw Moe Tun established a well-regarded school known as Parami Institute in early 2017, in collaboration with Bard College. The Institute has been providing high quality and innovative liberal arts and sciences education programs to young Myanmar college graduates who want to take on challenges facing Myanmar. He raised millions of dollars from local and international philanthropists to transform the institute into a private nonprofit, residential, degree-granting university that would create next-generation leaders for Myanmar. This plan was curtailed by the military coup on February 1, 2021. In order to ensure Burmese students have access to civically-engaged educational opportunities, he assumed the role of a senior research fellow at CCE, Bard College in 2021. In that capacity, he quickly pivoted to incorporate Parami University as a private non-profit online synchronous university licensed by the Higher Education Licensure Commission, Washington D.C., to begin offering Associate and Bachelor degree programs (dual-degree programs with Bard College) in the fall of 2022 to students in Myanmar and other areas under authoritarian control. -
Leanne Ussher
Leanne Ussher
Dr. Leanne Ussher is an authority on the topic of local currencies, cryptocurrencies, and blockchain. Leanne is a Research Fellow at Wolfram Blockchain Labs where she is developing blockchain educational content, and soon to be Research Fellow at Copenhagen Business School where she will use network analysis to assess the social and economic impact of local complementary currencies on informal sectors in Kenya. Leanne is an Associate Editor at Frontiers in Blockchain, and advisor to the Economic Space Agency and Hudson Valley Current, two complementary currencies. Leanne has taught economics, finance, and social entrepreneurship at Queens College, City University of New York, University of Massachusetts Boston, and Bard College New York. Outside of academia Leanne was Senior Economist at Consensys working on blockchain ecosystems, and Securities Analyst at the Reserve Bank of Australia. -
David Woolner
David Woolner
David B. Woolner is the Senior Fellow and Resident Historian of the Roosevelt Institute, Senior Fellow of the Center for Civic Engagement at Bard College, and Professor of History at Marist College. He is the author of The Last 100 Days: FDR at War and at Peace, (Basic Books, 2017) and is editor/co-editor of five books, including Progressivism in America: Past Present and Future (Oxford, 2016), a work based on a conference the Roosevelt Institute organized in collaboration with the CCE and the Clinton Institute at University College Dublin. Woolner has organized a number of CCE events in collaboration with the Roosevelt Institute and FDR Presidential Library, including “US-Russian Relations from Tehran to Yalta and Beyond,” an international symposium held at Bard in the fall of 2018 aimed at gaining a deeper understanding of the historic ties and tensions inherent in the US-Russian relationship. The symposium featured a dual exhibition of documents, photographs and film footage drawn from the FDR Library selected by a group of Bard students enrolled in a special topics course on US-Russian relations during WWII. Additional historical materials were provided by the Yeltsin Presidential Library, in St. Petersburg, where the main exhibition was housed, supported by a smaller student-curated exhibition held at the Bard College Library and online. Woolner is one of the original drafters of the CCE’s U.S. Summer Foreign Policy Institute, has been visiting professor at Bard (fall 2012 & 2018), and has remained a member of the faculty of the Bard Prison Initiative since 2011. An advisor to the Ken Burns film, The Roosevelts: An Intimate History, and frequent commentator on the link between the past and the present, his media appearances include interviews with CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera, NPR, the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post. Woolner has held fellowships at Churchill College, Cambridge; University College Roosevelt, in the Netherlands; and at University College Dublin. He earned his MA and PhD from McGill University, and his BA, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota.