Donald B. Kraybill (born 1945) is an American author, lecturer, and educator on Anabaptist faiths and culture.
[1][3] From 1979 to 1985 he chaired the Sociology and Social Work Department and from 1989 to 1996 was director of the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown.
[1][5] In October 2005, Young Center was awarded a $100,000 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities for a three-year collaborative research project entitled "Amish Diversity and Identity: Transformations in 20th Century America."
[6] The NEH grant enabled the researchers to investigate the Amish experience at the national level, giving attention to geographic expansion, the growth of diversity, changing conceptions of identity and evolving patterns of interaction with the larger society.
The team also explored how the Amish have contributed to shaping the identity of a nation that made exceptions in the areas of education, Social Security, and child labor for a religious minority living on its cultural margins.
[10] Elizabethtown College holds his papers in their Earl H. and Anita F. Hess Archives and Special Collections.
In August 2014, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the hate crimes convictions, a ruling that generated much response.
[13][14][15] Kraybill was selected to research and write a centennial history of Eastern Mennonite University, his alma mater, that was published in 2017.