Francis Leo Lawrence

Infobox Person | name =Francis Leo Lawrence |
| for = | education =St. Louis University (1959)
Tulane (1962) | employer = | occupation = | title =President of Rutgers University | salary =$287,000 | networth = | height = | weight = | term = | predecessor = | successor = | party = | boards = | religion = | spouse = | partner = | children = | parents = | relatives = |
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Francis Leo Lawrence, born 1937, was the eighteenth president of Rutgers University, serving from 1990 to 2002. cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Francis L. Lawrence |url=http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/university_archives/lawrence.shtml |quote=President Lawrence is a native of Rhode Island who received his bachelor's degree in French and Spanish from St. Louis University in 1959 and his Ph.D. from Tulane in 1962. He rose through Tulane's academic and administrative ranks to full professor and chief academic officer (Provost and Dean of the Graduate School).|publisher=Rutgers University |date= |accessdate=2007-08-21 ] [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title= Rutgers's Next Leader? That's an Essay Question |url=http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9A05EFDC1330F933A25750C0A9649C8B63&scp=1&sq=%22Francis+L.+Lawrence%22&st=nyt |quote=No sooner had Francis L. Lawrence announced that he was stepping down as president of Rutgers University after 12 years than the maneuvering began to ascend to the $287,000-a-year post. |publisher=New York Times |date=March 10, 2002 |accessdate=2008-03-09 ]

Early years

Francis Leo Lawrence was born in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, where he graduated from Mount St. Charles Academy in 1955. Lawrence earned his bachelor's degree from St. Louis University in French and Spanish in 1959. He was awared an NDEA fellowship for graduate study and earned a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in French classical literature from Tulane University in 1962. Before his appointment as President of Rutgers University in 1990, Lawrence was Academic Vice President and Provost at Tulane University, where he had also served as Dean of Newcomb College and Dean of the Graduate School. He is married to Mary Kathryn Long Lawrence. They have four children and thirteen grandchildren.

Presidency of Rutgers

Lawrence's twelve year tenure at Rutgers was received with a mix of criticism and praise. He was praised for impressive fundraising efforts,the improvement of undergraduate education and for the increased academic quality of incoming students, as well as the construction of new academic facilities for the Mason Gross School of the Arts, the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Pubic Policy, and the Rutgers-Newark Center for Law and Justice. He was criticized in some quarters for the renovation of the football stadium and for decisions that led to greater support and success for "bigger time" athletic participation,which, some alleged, drained university prestige and diverted funds away from academic purposes. Nevertheless, he was also credited with building and retaining a distinguished faculty that earned several prestigious awards (including the Pulitzer Prize, the National Medal of Science, the MacArthur Foundation "genius" prize, Guggenheim Fellowships, and Sloan Fellowships). Comments made in 1994, in which Lawrence urged that higher education should not be denied to disadvanted students who might lack the "genetic, hereditary background to have a higher average" on standardized tests, were publicized in 1995 by a union in negotiations with the Rutgers administration and led to calls for his resignation and student protests,including one that brought a televised basketball game to a halt, as protesters staged a sit-in on the court.

Lawrence has served as President of the North American Society for French Seventeenth Centurey Literature, on editorial boards for several scholary journals, as the board chair of a monograph series, on the New Jersey Commission on Higher Education, and on the boards of several national higher education organizations. He retired from the office of president in 2002. As President Emeritus, he has returned to teaching, with an appointment as University Professor at Rutgers.

elected publications

*Molière,The Comedy of Unreason. Tulane Studies in Romance Languages and Literature, no. 2. New Orleans, 1968.

*The Influence of Rhetoric on Seventeenth Century French Literature. (Co-Editor) Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature, no.3 Seattle, 1975.

*"Dom Juan and the Manifest God: Molière's Anti-Tragic Hero." PMLA 93, 1978.

*Visages de Molière. (Editor, Author) Oeuvres et Critiques V.1: Paris: Editions Jean-Michel Place, 1981.

*Actes de New Orleans. (Editor) Papers on French Seventeenth Century Literature/Biblio 17, Paris-Seattle-Tuebingen, 1982.

*Leadership in Higher Education: Views from the Presidency. Transaction Publishers, 2006.

References

External links

* [http://www.libraries.rutgers.edu/rul/libs/scua/university_archives/lawrence.shtml Francis L. Lawrence] at Rutgers University