Carly MurphySEPTEMBER 26, 2024 – Jeff Kurtti, a leading authority and historian on Walt Disney and his legacy, has been appointed Presidential Fellow at Chapman University. This academic year, Kurtti will collaborate with Chapman Professor Brian Alters, Ph.D., to explore the feasibility of initiating the first “think tank” at a research university to study the life, legacy, and global impact of innovator Walt Disney.
The project focuses on the origins and ongoing relevance of Walt Disney in the many areas he touched—from art to music, technological innovation to culture, science to business, among others.
“As a visionary whose career transected numerous industries and continues to shape everyday life around the world, Walt Disney remains woefully understudied from an academic perspective,” notes Alters.
The collaboration with Chapman, a research university known for interdisciplinary study and located mere miles from many Disney entities and historic resources in California, provides an exceptional opportunity for research, analyses and curation of the history of Walt Disney and the effects of his global impact. The yearlong project is expected to result in the development of scholarly papers, compendia, lectures and an academic advising committee as well as other intellectual efforts; concluding with a feasibility report concerning the initiating of a Walt Disney “think tank” at Chapman University.
“Walt Disney has had a transformational effect on countless dimensions of culture, innovation and business in our society,” said Kurtti. “By partnering with Chapman, we have the ability to take an academic look at his body of work, measuring his influence and separating fact from fiction.”
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About Jeff Kurtti
Kurtti is the most prolific nonfiction author in Disney history, with more than 40 volumes to his credit over 25 years. A leading authority on The Walt Disney Company, its founder, and its history, Kurtti is also a writer-director of award-winning documentary content, and a respected public speaker. For several years, he worked for Walt Disney Imagineering, the theme park design division of The Walt Disney Company, and then for the Corporate Special Projects department of Disney. Since 1995, Kurtti has enjoyed a career as an author, writer and consultant in the motion picture, theatre, and themed-design industries. He was creative director, content consultant and media producer for The Walt Disney Family Museum in San Francisco, and a producer of The Boys: The Sherman Brothers’ Story, a critically acclaimed documentary about the famed Disney songwriters.
About Chapman University
Founded in 1861, Chapman University is a nationally ranked private university in Orange, California, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. Chapman serves nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with a 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Students can choose from over 100 areas of study within 11 colleges for a personalized education. Chapman is categorized by the Carnegie Classification as an R2 “high research activity” institution. Students at Chapman learn directly from distinguished world-class faculty including Nobel Prize winners, MacArthur fellows, published authors and Academy Award winners. The campus has produced a Rhodes Scholar, been named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars, and hosts a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. Chapman also includes the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine. The university features the No. 4 film school and No. 66 business school in the U.S. Learn more about Chapman University: www.chapman.edu.
Media Contact:
Carly Murphy, Public Relations Coordinator | carmurphy@chapman.edu| Desk: 714-289-3196 | Mobile: 714-497-9683
