HWS News
21 April 2023 Celebrating Charter Day
Hobart College celebrates its founding with Charter Day festivities on Friday, April 21. The event will include an awards presentation, a keynote address from Professor of Religious Studies Michael Dobkowski, and an alumnus address from Trias Postdoctoral Fellow Daniel Schonning ’16, who will begin a new appointment as the Director of the HWS Debate Program in August 2023.
One of Hobart’s largest annual celebrations, Charter Day is held each spring to commemorate the granting of Hobart's charter by the State of New York on April 10, 1822. Hobart students receive awards in recognition of their academic achievements, community service and leadership; and new members of the Orange Key, Chimera and Druid societies will be honored.
In traditional fashion, deans, students, alums, faculty and staff will assemble at 4 p.m. on the steps of Coxe Hall. At 4:05 p.m., they will proceed to the flagpole on South Main Street, then to St. John's Chapel, where the ceremony begins at 4:30 p.m.
Dobkowski is the author, coauthor or editor of more than 10 books including The Tarnished Dream: The Basis of American Anti-Semitism, The Politics of Indifference: Documentary History of Holocaust Victims in America, Jewish American Voluntary Organizations and Nuclear Weapons, Nuclear States and Terrorism. His recent work has focused on Judaism and violence and anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.
Schonning joined the Colleges in 2021. He is the author of poems and essays that have appeared in Seneca Review, Speculative Nonfiction, pulpmouth, the Pinch Journal and Sycamore Review. At the Worlds Universities Debating Championship in Madrid, Spain this year, Schonning judged the octofinals and the EFL final round.
