Details: Harry Lewis is Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science in the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, where he in his fortieth year of teaching. He created the undergraduate computer science degree program at Harvard and has helped launch many thousands of Harvard students towards careers in the field. Among the giants of the computer industry he taught while they were Harvard students are both Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
Professor Lewis holds the degrees of AB (1968), AM (1973), and PhD (1974), all from Harvard University in Applied Mathematics. He joined the Harvard faculty in 1974 and served as Dean of Harvard College from 1995–2003. His teaching, research, and writing have ranged across a variety of fields: mathematical logic, theoretical computer science, the impact on society of the digital information explosion, the role of sports in American society, and the future of higher education. His most recent books are Excellence Without a Soul; Does Liberal Education Have a Future? and Blown to Bits: Your Life, Liberty, and Happiness After the Digital Explosion. Both of these books have been translated into Chinese and have appeared in editions published in China.
Professor Lewis will sketch the history of American higher education, and how it was from the beginning (that is, from the founding of Harvard College in 1636) at least as much about civic and moral purposes as it was about skill training and economic development. Those civic and moral ideals for higher education have been challenged in recent years, and Professor Lewis will explain how issues of purpose may be resolved in the future. These matters are of critical importance today, as the U.S. feels economic competition globally and from China in particular, at the same time as many Chinese students seek higher education in the U.S. and many U.S. universities seek international talent and revenue.
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