Evenings at Avenues with Andrew Delbanco 

Andrew Delbanco is Julian Clarence Levi Professor of the Humanities at Columbia University where, for the past two decades, he has devoted himself to the teaching of undergraduates and to serious examination of the institution that provides it, the American college. His recent book "College: What it Is, Was and Should Be" is an examination not only on the history and ideals that shaped those institutions but also on the history and ideals we hope they will transmit to our daughters and sons.

In 2012, the year "College" was published, President Obama awarded Mr. Delbanco the National Medal for the Humanities for "his writings on higher education and the place classic authors hold in history and contemporary life."  But Professor Delbanco's most notable achievement perhaps, like that of any great teacher, has been the questions he's encouraged us to ask about a place somewhere between "adolescence and adulthood" that at its best can provide "guidance, but not coercion, for students trying to cross that treacherous terrain on their way toward self-knowledge."