jonathan daube will speak at evening graduate commencement

Thu., May 22

Dr. Jonathan Daube • president, manchester community college

During his many years as a leader in education, Dr. Jonathan Daube has established a remarkable reputation, known nationally and internationally for his intellectual gifts, his dynamic leadership, and his astute insights into contemporary educational issues.

As president of Manchester Community College for 21 years, he has thrust Connecticut's largest community college into the national and state limelight with a massive building program and an innovative curriculum. Indeed, Manchester holds the distinction as the only community college in the country recognized for excellence by the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. The designation recognizes Manchester's "remarkable history of nurturing and encouraging students' academic and intellectual abilities and motivation."

Dr. Daube's retirement next month caps a lifetime dedicated to the highest ideals of education. During his years as president, he has argued eloquently in favor of several critical changes in education, from encouraging faculty diversity to building community alliances to keeping education accessible.

Dr. Daube grew up in England, where his father was a law professor at the University Auberdeen in Scotland and Oxford University. Following in his father's footsteps, Jonathan earned his master's degree from the University of Aberdeen and studied at the University of London before moving to the United States, where he received his doctorate from Harvard University. His early career included teaching positions in grammar and high schools in England and the United States and a stint as superintendent of schools in Martha's Vineyard.

He became a collegiate educator in 1967 when the Carnegie Corporation sponsored his teaching of sociology and educational administration at the University of Malawi in Central Africa. Back in the United States, he held positions as professor and director of the Union Graduate School in Ohio, president of Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts, and special assistant to the chancellor of higher education at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. In 1987, he moved to Connecticut to become president of Manchester Community College.

Besides elevating Manchester Community College's reputation as an outstanding public two-year institution that now serves 15,000 students each year, Dr. Daube has continued to emphasize the importance of education as a continuum. His vision in this regard has grown into reality with the Great Path Academy, which, when it opens in 2009, will be the first public high school constructed on a college campus in Connecticut. Great Path Academy will enable its students to immerse themselves in a college community, encouraging them to accelerate their post-secondary school studies by taking college as well as high school courses. Governor M. Jodi Rell has praised this project as an "innovative and exciting opportunity" for high school students who might not otherwise attempt to go to college.

Dr. Daube served as a member of the board of directors of the American Association of State Colleges and Universities, a visiting member of the The Hartford Courant's editorial board, and a member of the board of electors of the Wadsworth Athenaeum. He is also a corporator of the Eastern Connecticut Health Network, Inc., and will continue to serve as president of the board of directors of the University of Aberdeen Development Trust USA, the group that promotes outreach and fund raising for this university.

In retirement, Dr. Daube will teach a course at the University of Massachusetts, write, and spend time with his three young grandchildren.