Background
Oakley, Francis Christopher was born on October 6, 1931 in Liverpool, England. Arrived in the United States, 1957, naturalized, 1968. Son of Joseph Vincent and Siobean (NiCurean) Oakley.
(This book addresses the phenomenon of leadership and its ...)
This book addresses the phenomenon of leadership and its exercise in the context of American higher education in general and in that of the independent, free-standing, non-sectarian liberal arts college in particular. It is well known that college and university presidents must deal with a variety of constituencies -- alumni, faculty, donors, trustees, students, townspeople, and in some venues, sports fans. Inevitably educational leaders must mediate among these sometimes conflicting blocs. But this book suggests that the "blocs" are often divided within themselves -- between older and younger alumni, students of different genders, races and ethnic groups, faculty members likely to divide over academic policy. If college presidents are so occupied as negotiators or "transactional leaders," do they have the time and energy and organizational support to pursue their higher goals -- yes, their visions -- through "transformational leadership?" This question lies at the heart of Frank Oakley's book even as he pursues a host of related matters. This study is the best I have seen on educational leadership, because the author has a thorough grasp of both the potential and the problems of collective leadership, and at the same time enhances the general study of leadership with sophisticated concepts of what he calls the "instructional" or "interpretive" dimension of leadership, encompassing both the meaning and the exercise of this complex process. After three decades serving as professor, dean of the faculty and then president of Williams, the author offers fresh insights into the exacting leadership required even of a smallish college of 2,000 undergraduates. He did serve as an accomplished transactional leader but he always clung to his basic belief -- the primacy of student and teacher as against other priorities. Of course all educators say this -- especially at Williams with its Mark Hopkins and the Log -- but Frank Oakley really meant it when he faced hard choices in faculty recruitment and tenure policy, student admissions, disciplinary judgments, campus demonstrations, and much more. The author is no armchair strategist -- he has jumped into the thick of the fight, on the campus and outside, when the freedom and integrity of liberal arts education seemed to be threatened. Here he joyously takes on a warren of critics who ganged up against American higher education in the late 1960s, when they wrote hysterical books with such titles as Academy in Anarchy, Academy in Turmoil, Degradation of the Academic Dogma, Exploding University and worse, or, later, as they contended that our higher education had become trivial, irrelevant, incoherent, dishonest. Warning that we must never become complacent, the author brilliantly rebuts these accusations with facts and figures, without losing his own poise and judgment. The work is helpfully organized in the chronological order of his evolving college presidency. Even in that short time momentous changes occurred at home and abroad, at Williams and most of the nation's 3,500 institutions of higher learning. The author had to face militant students who conducted demonstrations, a hunger strike, and even a student appeal to the courts. How he dealt with campus protest offers some of the most edifying pages of this work. Frank Oakley writes with a kind of stately elegance that enlivens both his analysis and his anecdotes (including the best Winston Churchill story I have heard). He writes also with a fine sense of humor, perhaps drawn from his British and Oxford experiences. All told, this is the fascinating, highly personal account of one man's leadership -- and conception of leadership -- of a fine old college facing constant change, heavy demands, and occasional crises. It is both a critical and heartening look at a college that in a marked degree transformed itself under the leadership of a college president who kept his values straight and his ammunition dry.
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( Originally published by Charles Scribners' Sons, 1974. ...)
Originally published by Charles Scribners' Sons, 1974. 'The perspective from which this book has been written is that of world history; the conviction determining its focus, that of Western cultural peculiarity or singularity; the belief suggesting its unifying theme, that it was during the medieval period - in particular, during the centuries from the eleventh onward - that the foundations were laid on which the edifice of Western cultural peculiarity was subsequently erected.' From the Introduction
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( In this book—the first volume in his groundbreaking tri...)
In this book—the first volume in his groundbreaking trilogy on the emergence of western political thought—Francis Oakley explores the roots of secular political thinking by examining the political ideology and institutions of Hellenistic and late Roman antiquity and of the early European middle ages. By challenging the popular belief that the ancient Greek and Roman worlds provided the origins of our inherently secular politics, Oakley revises our understanding of the history of political theory in a fundamental and far-reaching manner that will reverberate for decades. This book lays the foundations for Oakley's next two volumes, which will develop his argument that it is in the Latin middle ages that we must seek the ideological roots of modern political secularism.
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(From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neoli...)
From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neolithic era to the present, this book traces the history of kingship around the world and the tenacity of its connection with the sacred. It considers the many forms that kingship took during this period, including: the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt; the emperors of Japan; the Maya rulers of Mesoamerica; the medieval popes and emperors; and the English and French monarchs of early modern Europe. It explores the panoply of governing roles that kingship involved - administrative, military, judicial, economic, religious and symbolic - but focusing on its connection with the sacred. It draws on the insights of cultural anthropology and comparative religion, as well as the on the resources provided by historians.
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(In the early fifteenth century, the general council assem...)
In the early fifteenth century, the general council assembled at Constance and, representing the universal Church, put an end to the scandalous schism which for almost forty years had divided the Latin Church between rival lines of claimants to the papal office. It did so by claiming and exercising an authority superior to that of the pope, an authority by virtue of which it could impose constitutional limits on the exercise of his prerogatives, stand in judgment over him, and if need be, depose him for wrongdoing. In so acting the council gave historic expression to a tradition of conciliarist constitutionalism which long competed for the allegiance of Catholics worldwide with the high papalist monarchical vision that was destined to triumph in 1870 at Vatican I and to become identified with Roman Catholic orthodoxy itself. This book sets out to reconstruct the half-millennial history of that vanquished rival tradition.
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(This collection of studies in the history of political th...)
This collection of studies in the history of political thought from late antiquity to the early-18th century ranges broadly across themes of kingship, political theology, constitutional ideas, natural-law thinking and consent theory. The studies are linked together by three shared characteristics. First, all of them explore the continuities that existed during those centuries between legal/political thinking and theology. Second, nearly all of them transgress the sharp dividing line traditionally drawn between the "medieval" and the "modern" which did so much in the past to distort our understanding of intellectual developments in the 16th and 17th centuries. Third, all of them raise historiographic questions or probe the metahistorical/methodological questions which have arisen in the field.
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college president history educator
Oakley, Francis Christopher was born on October 6, 1931 in Liverpool, England. Arrived in the United States, 1957, naturalized, 1968. Son of Joseph Vincent and Siobean (NiCurean) Oakley.
Bachelor, Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, 1953. Master of Arts, Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, 1957. Postgraduate, Pontifical Institute Medieval Studies, Toronto, 1953—1955.
Master of Arts, Yale University, 1958. Doctor of Philosophy, Yale University, 1960. Doctor of Laws, Amherst College, 1986.
Doctor of Laws, Wesleyan University, 1989. Doctor of Laws, University Notre Dame, 2006. Doctor of Humane Letters, Northwestern University, 1990.
Doctor of Humane Letters, North Adams State College, 1993. Doctor of Humane Letters, Bowdoin College, 1993. Doctor of Letters, Williams College, 1994.
Member faculty Yale University, 1959-1961, Williams College, Williamstown, Massachusetts, 1961—2002, professor history, 1970—2002, dean faculty, 1977-1984, Edward Dorr Griffin professor history of ideas, 1984—1985, president, 1985-1994, president emeritus, since 1994, Edward Dorr Griffin professor history of ideas, 1994—2002, professor emeritus, since 2002. Interim president American Council Learned Societies, 2002—2003, president emeritus, since 2003. Honorary fellow Corpus Christi College, Oxford University, since 1991.
Senior fellow Oakley Center Humanities, Williams College, since 2002. Visiting lecturer Bennington (Vermont) College, 1967. Sir Isaiah Berlin visiting professor Oxford University, 1999-2000.
Merle Curti lecturer University Wisconsin, Madison, 2001. Étienne Gilson lecturer Pontifical Institute Medieval Studies, Toronto, 2002. Member Institute Advanced Study Princeton, 1981-1982.
Fellow National Humanities Center, 1991. Guest scholar Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, 1994. Chair board directors American Council Learned Societies, 1993-1997.
Trustee Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, since 1985, president board trustees, 1998-2005. Trustee MassMoCA Foundation, 1995-2004, Willamstown Art Conservation Center, 1995-1998, Williamstown Theatre Festival, 1985-1993. Trustee National Humanities Center, 1996-1902, 2003-2007, chairman board trustees, 2004-2007, Lake Forest College, 1997-2001.
Trustee Institute Advanced Catholic Studies, 1998-2005, vice chair, 2002-2005. Member MassMoCA Cultural Development Commission, 1988-2007. Member advisory council Center for Study of Religion, Princeton University, since 1999.
( In this book—the first volume in his groundbreaking tri...)
(In the past decade, criticism of the state of undergradua...)
(In the early fifteenth century, the general council assem...)
(This collection of studies in the history of political th...)
(This book addresses the phenomenon of leadership and its ...)
(From despots to powerless figureheads, and from the Neoli...)
( Originally published by Charles Scribners' Sons, 1974. ...)
(Book by Oakley, Francis)
Lieutenant British Army, 1955-1957. Fellow Medieval Academy American, American Academy Arts and Sciences. Member American History Association, American Catholic History Association, American Church History Society, New England Medieval Conference (president 1983-1984), American Council Learned Socs.
(chair board directors 1993-1997), The Century Association, American Cusanus Society (advisory board since 1997).
Married Claire-Ann Lamenzo, August 9, 1958. Children: Deirdre, Christopher, Timothy, Brian.