Buies Creek, N.C.—Dr. Richard H. Kohn, professor of history and adjunct professor of Peace, War and Defense at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, will be the featured speaker at Campbell University’s annual Barden Forum. The lecture is scheduled for Monday, Oct. 25, at 7:30 p.m. in Harris Teeter Auditorium of Maddox Hall. Admission is free and open to the public.
Kohn is a specialist in military history and civil-military relations. He is expected to discuss President Obama’s relationship with the military.
Kohn is the editor, co-author or co-editor of several books on the military, including “Exclusion of Black Soldiers from the Medal of Honor in World War II,” “Civilians: The Civil-Military Gap and American National Security” and “Tarnished Brass: Is the U.S. Military Profession in Decline?” He has served as a Pulitzer Prize juror, a two-term president of the Society for Military History, a member of the Advisory Board of the U.S. Air Force’s Gulf War Air Power Survey and the Air University Board of Visitors. Kohn has chaired the research and full collections management advisory committee of the National Air and Space Museum and was a member of the National Security Study group that assisted the U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century, reviewing American national security policies and institutions from 1998-2001.
Most recently, Kohn served as a congressional appointee on the Independent Review Panel reporting to Congress on the Department of Defense’s 2010 Quadrennial Defense Review.
Educated at Harvard, Kohn received both masters and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Wisconsin. He has taught at Rutgers University, Dickinson College and the U.S. Army and National War Colleges. From 1981-1991, he served as Chief of Air Force History and Chief Historian for the U.S. Air Force.
The Barden Chair of Government was established at Campbell University in 1971 in honor of U.S. Representative Graham A. Barden, who was elected as North Carolina’s Third District representative in 1934 and served 26 years. A conservative from New Bern, N.C., Barden is best remembered for his involvement in education and labor legislation. The annual Barden Forum lecture series was begun in 1991 by Campbell University’s Department of Government, History and Justice.