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Biography/Vita

Christopher C. Dahl

Christopher C. Dahl is President and Professor of English at the State University of New York at Geneseo.  He was appointed to his current post in February 1996, after having served as provost and interim president.  Before coming to Geneseo, he served as Dean of the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, from 1989 to 1994, and as a professor of English and chair of the Humanities Department at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, from 1973 to 1989.

A specialist in Victorian literature, Dahl received an B.A. in English, magna cum laude, from Harvard College in 1968, where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa, and his Ph.D. and M.Phil., also in English, from Yale University.  He is the author of Louis Auchincloss (1986) and articles on various topics of higher education and literature.  A long-time contributor to the annual MLA Victorian Bibliography, he was advisory editor of the North American Union List of Victorian Serials (1985).  He has served as president of the Research Society for Victorian Periodicals and the Project 30 Alliance for Teacher Education and Arts and Sciences.  As college president, Dahl continues to teach occasional courses in nineteenth-century British literature to undergraduates. 

Dahl was Chair of the Board of Directors of the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) in 2007-2008 and continues to serve on the board.  AAC&U is the leading US association concerned with the quality and public standing of undergraduate liberal education. Dahl is also a former president of the Council of Public Liberal Arts Colleges, a consortium of 25 colleges and universities dedicated to high-quality liberal arts education in the public sector.  He was the founding co-chair, with President Mark Gearan, of New York State Campus Compact, and served on the Committee on Racial and Ethnic Equity for the American Council on Education.  Locally, he was president of Rochester Area Colleges, a consortium of 19 area colleges and universities, and serves on the board of Rochester’s Center for Governmental Research as well as the Arts and Cultural Council of Greater Rochester.

Under his leadership, Geneseo has clearly defined its role and mission as a public liberal arts college and center of excellence in undergraduate education in New York State, consistently recognized as one of the best public undergraduate colleges in the nation in various college guides.  Geneseo opened a state-of-the-art Integrated Science Center in Fall 2006 which provides the technology and mentoring opportunities to prepare students for graduate school, anticipating their return to western New York as leaders in science and math education and researchers who will help drive a knowledge-based local economy.  Geneseo participated in a Knight Foundation Collaborative on strategic community partnerships that sought to relate the College’s multiple relationships with the regional community more closely to its liberal arts mission.