Daniel Klingensmith

Dr. Daniel Klingensmith became VP and dean of the College on September 12, 2019 after serving one year as interim dean.

Klingensmith joined the MC faculty in 1998 and has served as professor of history since 2011. His teaching areas include modern world history, in particular, 20th century Europe and South Asia – the world wars, the Depression, the beginning of the end of European colonialism and the framing of alternatives to colonialism.

Prior to accepting the dean appointment, he was chair of the College’s Division of Humanities and chair of the Strategic Planning Task Force (2017-2018). He also has served as co-chair of the Core Curriculum Task Force, chair of the faculty, a member of the Faculty Tenure and Promotion Policies and Procedures Task Force, a member of the Strategic Plan Steering Committee and chair of the Academic Dean Search Committee in 2011-12.

He received the Maryville College Outstanding Teacher Award in 2004 and 2011.

Klingensmith holds a B.A. in History (magna cum laude) from Harvard University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in History from the University of Chicago. He was an ACA-Mellon Fellow at the Salzburg-Global Seminar in 2011 and a Fulbright Senior Research Fellow at the University of Calcutta in 2007.

The author of One Valley and a Thousand’: Dams, Nationalism and Development (Delhi, Oxford University Press, 2007), Klingensmith recently has focused his research on nature, society and economy in the interwar United States, British Empire and Europe.