Christopher Loss

Assistant Professor of Public Policy and Higher Education

Ph.D., University of Virginia, 2007

Joined faculty in 2007

Christopher Loss holds doctorates in higher education and in history from the University of Virginia. Prior to joining the faculty at Vanderbilt University, Loss was a research fellow in the Governance Studies Program at The Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. He also worked in academic administration for four years in the Office of the Vice President and Provost at the University of Virginia.

Professor Loss specializes in twentieth-century American history with an emphasis on the social, political, and policy history of American higher education. His publications include peer-reviewed articles in the Journal of American History, the Journal of Policy History, and the History of Education Quarterly, among others. He won the 2006 James Madison Prize, awarded annually to an outstanding article on the history of the federal government by the Society for History in the Federal Government. His dissertation, "From Democracy to Diversity: The Politics of American Higher Education in the Twentieth Century" (University of Virginia, 2007) won the 2008 American Educational Research Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award (Division J - Higher Education) and the 2009 Politics of Education Association's Outstanding Dissertation Award. His first book, based on his dissertation, is entitled Between Citizens and the State: The Politics of American Higher Education in the Twentieth Century. It will be published in the Politics and Society in Twentieth Century America Series at Princeton University Press in 2011.

Currently, Loss is serving as a fellow on the Teagle Foundation's National Forum on the Future of Liberal Education. And in 2010, Loss won Peabody College's Award for Excellence in Classroom Teaching. His next book project will examine academic expertise and its challengers in the post-1945 United States.

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Selected Publications | Awards
CV | Media Mentions

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