David Scobey BS, PhD

David Scobey is Director of Bringing Theory to Practice, a Washingon, D.C.-based project that works to renew the core purposes of a college education. From 1989 to 2005, he was a member of the University of Michigan faculty, teaching American Studies, U.S. cultural history, and the history of urbanism and architecture. In 1998, he founded Arts of Citizenship, a UM program. Between 2005 and 2010, he was the Donald W. and Ann M. Harward Professor of Community Partnerships at Bates College and the inaugural Director of the Harward Center for Community Partnerships. From 2010 to 2014, he served as the founding Executive Dean of the School for Public Engagement at The New School in New York City. In 2016-18, he was Senior Scholar for The Graduate! Network.

David Scobey has a Ph.D. from the Program in American Studies at Yale University, a Diploma in Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford, and a B.A. in English Literature (summa cum laude) from Yale University. His historical scholarship focuses on culture, politics, urbanism, and space in 19th-century America. He is the author of Empire City: The Making and Meaning of the New York City Landscape (Temple University Press, 2002), as well as other studies of U.S. cultural and urban history.