Michael Shinagel

Michael Shinagel is a graduate of Oberlin College, AB 1957, and Harvard University, AM 1959 and PhD 1964, with honorary degrees from International University of Ecuador (1997), Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (2003), and Universidad Alta Direccion, Panama (2008). He served with the US Army in Korea (1952-54). While studying for his doctorate at Harvard, he was associate director of the Office for Graduate and Career Plans as well as a teacher in the freshman English program, the Harvard...See more

Michael Shinagel is a graduate of Oberlin College, AB 1957, and Harvard University, AM 1959 and PhD 1964, with honorary degrees from International University of Ecuador (1997), Universidad Argentina de la Empresa (2003), and Universidad Alta Direccion, Panama (2008). He served with the US Army in Korea (1952-54). While studying for his doctorate at Harvard, he was associate director of the Office for Graduate and Career Plans as well as a teacher in the freshman English program, the Harvard Extension School, and the English department's tutorials. He taught in the Cornell University English department (1964-67); the Union College English department, where he was chair and rose to full professor (1967-75); and at Harvard as a lecturer in university extension and a senior lecturer in the department of English (1976-2020). His teaching career spanned sixty years. His administrative career after his early years at Harvard included acting assistant dean of admissions at Cornell (1966-67), chairman of the English department at Union College (1967-73), and at Harvard director/dean of continuing education (1975-2013), director of Summer School (1976-80), director/dean of university extension (1975-2013), and master of Quincy House (1986-2001), for a half-century of academic administration. He is the author or editor of eight books, ranging from Daniel Defoe and Middle-Class Gentility (Harvard Univ. Press 1968) and A Concordance to the Poems of Jonathan Swift (Cornell Univ. Press 1972) to The Gates Unbarred: A History of University Extension at Harvard (Puritan Press 2009), Holocaust Survivor to Harvard Dean (Xlibris 2016), and The Third Age at Harvard (Xlibris 2021). In retirement, he is an active member of the HILR along with his wife, Marjorie North. See less