Professor Emeritus Norman Graebner Delivers Lecture as Part of Campaign Launch Weekend
Jefferson Scholars Foundation Presents Storied Professor with Inaugural Award for Excellence

Editor's Note: Click here to listen to the lecture program in mp3 format. The program includes introductory remarks by Douglas S. Holladay Jr., Jefferson Scholars Foundation chairman, and Richard B. Payne Jr., Alumni Association Board of Managers chairman. Mr. Graebner's lecture begins at 21:00, with total program length of one hour, six minutes.

Click here to read Mr. Graebner's lecture.

October 2, 2006 | Norman Graebner, the Randolph P. Compton Professor of History and Public Affairs, Emeritus and an iconic figure to a generation of U.Va. students, delivered a special lecture on September 29 as part of the National Campaign Launch Weekend.

Hosted by the Jefferson Scholars Foundation, the Jefferson Trust, and the U.Va. Alumni Association, Mr. Graebner spoke on "Realism Amid the Perils of Partiality." In prefacing his remarks, Mr. Graebner noted how America "has had the propensity to be partial, when our founding fathers favored impartiality." It is Mr. Graebner's contention that partiality has led the nation into trouble almost from its beginning. (By partiality, he refers to American like and dislike of foreign governments, as expressed in efforts to support, oppose, or overthrow such governments.) He framed his lecture with lessons learned from the founding fathers and analysis of "wars of choice," including Vietnam and Iraq.

The event was part of the broad range of activities held to mark the launch of the Campaign for the University of Virginia, which will run through 2011. The Jefferson Scholars Foundation Capital Campaign is a $100 million component of the broader university's $3 billion effort.

Following the lecture, the Jefferson Scholars Foundation presented Mr. Graebner with its inaugural Award for Excellence in honor of his service to the University of Virginia and the acclaim he has brought to the University.

"For so many U.Va. alumni from the late 1960s through the mid-1980s, Norman Graebner was a defining figure of their University experience," said James H. Wright, president of the Jefferson Scholars Foundation. "He was, and is, a giant not only of the academy but of this place, and we seek to commemorate that."

Mr. Graebner embodied the teacher-scholar ideal long valued at the University of Virginia. He arrived at U.Va. in 1967 from the University of Illinois, where he was chairman of the history department from 1961-63. He taught previously at Iowa State University, with additional one year terms at Stanford, the U.S. Military Academy, Oxford, and Penn State.

He received his bachelor's degree from Milwaukee State Teachers College in 1939, his M.A. from the University of Oklahoma in 1940, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1949. Additionally, he holds an M.A. from Oxford University and six honorary degrees. His major awards include the Thomas Jefferson Award of the University of Virginia, the Harold Vyvyan Harmsworth professorship at Oxford University, and election to the Society of American Historians, the Massachusetts Historical Society, and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He has held numerous teaching and lecture appointments and has lectured at some 200 colleges and universities in the United States, Europe, and the Far East.

His first of eight books, Empire on the Pacific, published in 1955, remains the seminal study of America's 19th century push westward and the business interests that drove it. Since that work he has served as editor of nine more books and has contributed hundreds of articles, essays, and chapters of other books. He served thirty years as contributing editor of Current History.