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Francis.C.Oakley@williams.edu Francis Christopher Oakley, President Emeritus and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas, was born on October 6, 1931 in Liverpool, England. He was elected Scholar of Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1950 and studied at the Pontifical Institute of Medieval Studies in Toronto from 1953 to 1955 and at Yale University from 1957 to 1959. He received his B.A. and M.A. from Oxford University in 1953 and 1957, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Yale University in 1958 and 1960. He was awarded an LL.D. from Amherst College in 1986 and Wesleyan University in 1989, an L.H.D. from Northwestern University in 1990, from Bowdoin College in 1993, and from North Adams State College in 1993, a Litt.D. from Williams in 1994, and a LL.D from Notre Dame University in 2006. After teaching history for two years at Yale, Oakley came to Williams in 1961 as a lecturer in history, became a full professor in 1970 and Edward Dorr Griffin Professor of the History of Ideas in 1984. He was co-founder in 1969 of the Interdepartmental Program in the History of Ideas, serving as its chair in 1974-76, 1985, and 1989-1990, and was Dean of the Faculty from 1977 to 1984. He became president of Williams on July 1, 1985 and completed his term of office on December 31, 1993. A former president of the New England Medieval Conference (1983-84), President of the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America (1999-2002), Chairman of the Board of the American Council of Learned Societies (1993-97) and then its President (2002-2003), and Chairman of the Board of the National Humanities Center (2004-2007), he is the author of 13 books, including Community of Learning: The American College and the Liberal Arts Tradition (1992), The Conciliarist Tradition: Constitutionalism in the Catholic Church 1300-1870 (2003), and Natural Law, Laws of Nature, Natural Rights (2005) and of many articles and book reviews on topics in medieval history and higher education. He served on the editorial boards of The Journal of the History of Ideas and of Orion: Nature Quarterly. In 1986 he was elected Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, in 1991, Honorary Fellow of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and in 1998, Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He is married to the former Claire-Ann Lamenzo. They have four children and seven grandchildren. HIST 489T(S10) Western Political Thought in Transition (W) Oakley Center for Humanities and Social Sciences back to Faculty main page |
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