Note: this announcement was originally published on August 23, 2021. Updated March 2022 with information about the Cogan Fellowship.
With great sadness, we announce the death of Dr. John Cogan, one of the three founders of the CIDE program and a lifelong advocate for international education. Dr. Cogan received the University of Minnesota Award for Global Engagement in 2007, a tribute to his meaningful career that explored civic education, citizenship education, and the internationalization of higher education. His research focused primarily on Southeast Asia and, in 2015, he received an honorary doctorate from Chulalongkorn University, Thailand’s oldest and most prestigious university.
Professor Cogan worked with dozens of universities, giving lectures, workshops, and invited presentations on international development education, citizen education, and global education reform in Japan, the United Kingdom, Germany, Sweden, Thailand, the Netherlands, Hong Kong, South Korea, and Canada. He collaborated with researchers across the world to address education policy issues.
Throughout his career, he used his experience in comparative and international development to advance educational institutions across the globe; in particular, he worked extensively in the Asia-Pacific region and conducted technical assistance and program development with schools, universities, and ministries of education in Hong Kong, South Korea, Japan, and Thailand. In addition, he created several consortia in Europe, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.
Professor Cogan’s publications are central to the field of international education and to the academic study of citizenship education in the international sphere. During his career he published five books, 17 book chapters, 85 journal articles, and 25 technical reports that addressed education in a global context. His key themes of scholarship were civic education and citizenship in a global context, global education in pre K-12 social studies settings, the internationalization of higher education, social studies education, education in developing nations, and comparative studies of education. His last book, Citizenship Education in Japan, was published in 2020 by Bloomsbury Academic in London, with two co-editors.
During his career as a faculty member at the University, he served as advisor to approximately 120 graduate students and was the advisor of record on 20 Ph.D. dissertations, most dealing with international education. He has served on numerous University committees in the international arena, including 20 years on the CEHD Committee on International Education. He received the Beck Award for Distinguished Teaching, one of the highest honors in the college.
Several colleagues in OLPD who were closest to John have sent their thoughts about him and his legacy. We share a few of these reflections as way to honor the memory of this treasured colleague:
“John should be credited for assembling the people and the departmental home for CIDE. He worked tirelessly to craft the dimensions for a top-quality graduate program. In his years as CIDE coordinator, he was always there to do what was best for CIDE and its faculty and students.”
“He was a committed teacher and scholar and had an extensive following among our graduate students.”
“There are so many things which I admired about John. But probably his signature strength was his commitment to uplift others, both students and colleagues. Among my multitude of friends across the planet, he was a giant. His kindness and huge heart also stand out among his many virtues.”
“John was an avid fan of the Minnesota Gophers basketball teams and men’s football. He was always eager to share his joys and frustrations the morning after a game.” “I was just getting ready to see if he and I could have breakfast at Al’s to figure out the upcoming football season.”
“There is an Asian saying that those who live a good life always helping others will walk on with no prior suffering. That was John, who passed peacefully. He will be missed dearly by hundreds, both here and in Asia. What a loss to his family, OLPD, the university, and the world!”
John will be sorely missed by all who knew him.
Honoring Dr. John Cogan’s Legacy
If you would like to honor the memory of Dr. John Cogan (1942-2021), please consider a gift to the John and Grace Cogan Graduate Research Fellowship.
Professor Cogan and his wife, Grace, established this fellowship in 2007 to support scholars in the Department of Organizational Leadership, Policy, and Development (OLPD). It supports MA or PhD students in OLPD doing thesis or dissertation work.
Over the years, this fund has supported over a dozen graduate students, including current CIDE PhD candidate Zhuldyz Amankulova, who states:
“This fellowship makes a critical contribution towards my doctoral research and will enable me to focus on expediently producing a strong dissertation. Born and raised in Kazakhstan, I came to the University of Minnesota following a career as an administrator at Nazarbayev University. I explore issues of equity and access in education with a particular focus on the conditions that facilitate or constrain the pursuit of educational and career aspirations of marginalized students in order to develop targeted interventions to support them. I am committed to expanding partnerships between the University of Minnesota and the universities in Kazakhstan to promote collaborative research and exchange ideas and best practices.“
Your gift will grow the endowment and permanently increase support for a critical period in graduate students’ careers.
