Prosser Gifford | |
---|---|
Born | New York, NY | May 16, 1929
Died | May 18, 2020 91) Woods Hole, MA | (aged
Nationality | American |
Occupation | Historian |
Title | Dean of Faculty Assistant to President Professor of History Acting Director Chairman Director of Scholarly ProgramsContents |
Spouse | Shirley M. Gifford |
Academic background | |
Alma mater | Yale University, 1951 (B.A.), 1964 (PhD) Merton College, Oxford, Rhodes Scholar, 1953 (B.A.), 1958 (M.A.) Harvard Law School, 1956 |
Academic work | |
Discipline | African History,U.S. Foreign Policy |
Institutions | Amherst College Swarthmore College,Yale University,Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars Merton College Charitable Corporation Library of Congress |
Prosser Gifford was a historian,author,and academic administrator. He held various positions at notable academic institutions including the position of first Dean of Faculty at Amherst College. He is probably best known for his work as Director of Scholarly Programs at the Library of Congress. He contributed numerous works to the fields of African History and U.S. Foreign Policy.
Prosser attended Buckley School (New York City) and Hotchkiss School in Lakeville,CT. He excelled at Hotchkiss;he graduated in only three years and won a prize for best essay in his second year. [1] He played soccer,hockey,and football,as well as ran track,a sport that he continued well into his adult life. He won the alumni award in 2010,and served later as a trustee for the school. [1]
For his undergraduate education Prosser attended Yale College and graduated with a degree in English Literature in 1951. He rowed crew his sophomore and junior years (1949–50),was editor at Et Veritas, a literary magazine,was included in Phi Beta Kappa Honor Society,and won numerous academic awards (Andrew D. White Prize,1949;Hart Lyman Prize,1950;Alpheus Henry Snow Prize,1951). [2] Upon graduation Prosser was selected as a Rhodes Scholar. He spent the next two years at Merton College in Oxford,reading for a degree in English. His time at Merton made a lasting impression on him,and he chose later to serve as the President of the Merton College Charitable Corporation (MC3) from 1998 to 2006. [3]
Upon returning to the United States,Prosser attended Harvard Law School and graduated with a law degree in 1956. While at law school he married Shirley (DeeDee) Mireille O'Sullivan,whom he'd known since childhood. They met at a regatta in Woods Hole,MA at the age of 11. [4] [5] Upon graduating from law school his first daughter Barbara was born. He then accepted a two-year position as assistant to the president at Swarthmore College where his second daughter,Paula,was born. His third daughter,Heidi,was born three years later.
After his work at Swarthmore,Prosser returned to his student status to pursue a PhD in history at Yale University. As part of completing this PhD he moved with his family to Lusaka,Northern Rhodesia during the time when it was becoming Zambia,where his children attended elementary school and his wife Deedee helped teach Physical Education in local schools. [1] In Lusaka he conducted research at the national archives,supported in part by a generous fellowship he received in 1963 from the Foreign Area Program of the Ford Foundation. [6] His dissertation,completed in 1964,was titled:The Framework for a Nation:An Economic and Social History of Northern Rhodesia from 1914 to 1939. [7]
Right after completing his PhD,Prosser was hired by Yale as an assistant professor in African History where he taught both undergraduates and graduates. Perhaps most significantly at this early point in his academic career,Prosser was appointed in 1965 as the Founding Director of President Kingman Brewster Jr.'s 5-Year B.A. Program,where students were able to take a year abroad for an internship,enriching their studies. [8]
Then in 1967,upon the personal invitation of President Calvin Plimpton of Amherst College,Prosser left Yale to become the first Dean of Faculty at Amherst College. In an interview with Robert C. Townsend he recounts that one rainy afternoon,a large man in a dripping poncho arrived in his office at Yale and says,"Hello I'm Cal Plimpton and I believe in Education and I think you believe in education." [9] After accepting the position,he learned that though he had no connections to Amherst,he was offered the job over three of his senior colleagues. [9] He served as first Dean of Faculty from 1967 to 1979 which were tumultuous and informative years at the college. There was only 1 woman on faculty when he arrived and 26 when he departed in 1979. [9] In addition,he helped to co-educate Amherst,as well as 4 other institutions including Concord Academy. [8] [9] Moreover,Prosser substantially contributed to the development of the 5-College system in the region,and as Dean of Faculty shepherded Amherst through the Civil Rights takeover at the college in 1970. [10] His administrative prowess was highly respected and widely known. His skills in this realm put him on the short list of candidates for Yale University's search for a new president in 1977. [11]
In 1979 Prosser left Amherst to become the deputy director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars,now the Wilson Center. He served as deputy director for 9 years until 1987,when he was named acting director until 1988. It was there that he practiced his skills of facilitating conversation and demonstrated his love of learning. [1] He brought together scholars from around the world to collaborate with the Wilson Center,be it research,writing,discussions,symposiums,etc. He aided with their published works,including the Wilson Quarterly and publications of various conferences/conversations. [12]
In 1988 Prosser assumed a position created for him at the Library of Congress:the Director of Scholarly Programs. [5] While there he upheld his tenets of scholarly excellence and fruitful open dialogue,again bringing scholars together from around the world. He organized symposia and conversations,including "Frontiers of the Mind in the Twenty-first Century" [13] and "The Rule of Law in a Changing World Order," [14] and an End of World War II anniversary conversation which aired on C-Span. [15] In 1995 he organized an exhibit on French Culture which brought 207 French books and manuscripts to the U.S.,many of which America had never seen before. [16] [17] In addition,he was the founding director of the John W. Kluge Center,created in 2000. He established councils,appointed chairs,identified additional resources for junior fellows and supervised the selection process of their Kluge Prize for Achievement in the Study of Humanity. Part of Prosser's research for establishing the Kluge Prize selection process included a trip to Stockholm to talk with those involved in the selection process of the Nobel Prize,as the Kluge prize is a similar award recognizing intellectual disciplines not covered by the Nobel Prizes. [18]
After his retirement in 2005 he stayed busy,serving on the board of various academic and charitable institutions. He moved from Washington,D.C.,to his family home in Woods Hole,MA until his death in 2020. There,he established himself as a dedicated community member. He served as:
He also contributed in varying capacities to other organizations including Falmouth Chorale,Falmouth Academy,Highfield Hall,Quisset Yacht Club,and Church of the Messiah.
Amherst College is a private liberal arts college in Amherst,Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore,Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher education in Massachusetts. The institution was named after the town,which in turn had been named after Jeffery,Lord Amherst,Commander-in-Chief of British forces of North America during the French and Indian War. Originally established as a men's college,Amherst became coeducational in 1975.
Timothy Dwight V was an American academic,educator,Congregational minister,and President of Yale University (1886–1898). During his years as the school's president,Yale's schools first organized as a university. His grandfather was Timothy Dwight IV,who served as President of Yale College ninety years before his grandson's tenure.
William Julius Wilson is an American sociologist,a professor at Harvard University,and an author of works on urban sociology,race,and class issues. Laureate of the National Medal of Science,he served as the 80th President of the American Sociological Association,was a member of numerous national boards and commissions. He identified the importance of neighborhood effects and demonstrated how limited employment opportunities and weakened institutional resources exacerbated poverty within American inner-city neighborhoods.
The Hotchkiss School is a coeducational preparatory school in Lakeville,Connecticut,United States. Hotchkiss is a member of the Eight Schools Association and Ten Schools Admissions Organization. It is also a former member of the G30 Schools group.
Baruch Samuel Blumberg,known as Barry Blumberg,was an American physician,geneticist,and co-recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine,for his work on the hepatitis B virus while an investigator at the NIH and at the Fox Chase Cancer Center. He was president of the American Philosophical Society from 2005 until his death.
Alphonso Taft was an American jurist,diplomat,politician,Attorney General and Secretary of War under President Ulysses S. Grant. He was also the founder of the Taft political dynasty,and father of President and Chief Justice William Howard Taft.
James Hadley Billington was an American academic and author who taught history at Harvard and Princeton before serving for 42 years as CEO of four federal cultural institutions. He served as the 13th Librarian of Congress after being nominated by President Ronald Reagan in 1987,and his appointment was approved unanimously by the U.S. Senate. He retired as Librarian on September 30,2015.
Stanley King was the eleventh president of Amherst College. He held that position from 1932 to 1946.
Leszek Kołakowski was a Polish philosopher and historian of ideas. He is best known for his critical analyses of Marxist thought,such as in his three-volume history of Marxist philosophy Main Currents of Marxism (1976). In his later work,Kołakowski increasingly focused on religious questions. In his 1986 Jefferson Lecture,he asserted that "we learn history not in order to know how to behave or how to succeed,but to know who we are".
The John W. Kluge Center at the Library of Congress invites and welcomes scholars to the Library of Congress to conduct research and interact with policymakers and the public. It also manages the Kluge Scholars' Council and administers the Kluge Prize at the Library of Congress.
The Kluge Scholars Council is a body of distinguished scholars,convened by the Librarian of Congress to advise on matters related to scholarship at the Library,with special attention to the John W. Kluge Center and the Kluge Prize. Through discussion and reflection,the Council assists in implementing an American tradition linking the activities of thinkers and doers,those who are engaged in the world of ideas with those engaged in the world of affairs.
Drew Saunders Days III was an American legal scholar who served as Solicitor General of the United States from 1993 to 1996 under President Bill Clinton. He also served as the first African American Assistant Attorney General for the Civil Rights Division in the Carter Administration from 1977 to 1980. He was the Alfred M. Rankin Professor of Law at Yale Law School,assuming that post in 1992,and joining the Yale Law faculty in 1981. From 1997 to 2011,he headed the Supreme Court and appellate practice at Morrison &Foerster LLP and was of counsel at the firm's Washington,D.C. office until his retirement from the firm in December,2011. He earned his Juris Doctor degree at Yale Law School in 1966. He was admitted to practice law before the United States Supreme Court,and in the states of Illinois and New York.
The decolonisation of Africa is a process that largely took place from mid-1950s to 1975 during the Cold War,with radical government changes on the continent as colonial governments made the transition to independent states. The process was often marred with violence,political turmoil,widespread unrest,and organised revolts in both northern and sub-Saharan countries including the Mau Mau rebellion in British Kenya,the Algerian War in French Algeria,the Congo Crisis in the Belgian Congo,the Angolan War of Independence in Portuguese Angola,the Zanzibar Revolution in the Sultanate of Zanzibar,and the Nigerian Civil War in the secessionist state of Biafra.
William Shield McFeely was an American historian known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning 1981 biography of Ulysses S. Grant,as well as his contributions to a reevaluation of the Reconstruction era,and for advancing the field of African-American history. He retired as the Abraham Baldwin Professor of the Humanities emeritus at the University of Georgia in 1997,and was affiliated with Harvard University since 2006.
John Hope Franklin was an American historian of the United States and former president of Phi Beta Kappa,the Organization of American Historians,the American Historical Association,and the Southern Historical Association. Franklin is best known for his work From Slavery to Freedom,first published in 1947,and continually updated. More than three million copies have been sold. In 1995,he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom,the nation's highest civilian honor.
Merwin Crawford Young was an American political scientist and professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.
Francis Mading Deng is a politician and diplomat from South Sudan who served as the newly independent country's first ambassador to the United Nations from 2012 to July 2016.
William Roger Louis CBE FBA,commonly known as Wm. Roger Louis or,informally,Roger Louis,is an American historian and a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Louis is the editor-in-chief of The Oxford History of the British Empire,a former president of the American Historical Association (AHA),a former chairman of the U.S. Department of State's Historical Advisory Committee,and a founding director of the AHA's National History Center in Washington,D. C.
British Studies,officially the Faculty Seminar on British Studies is a weekly seminar at the University of Texas at Austin that has met continually since 1975. British Studies is directed by Wm. Roger Louis,a founding member of the seminar and a distinguished historian at the University of Texas. The seminar is sponsored by the British Studies Program at UT,a program that also appoints junior fellows annually from among UT's faculty,and offers Churchill Scholarships to graduate students and undergraduates. The seminar has produced a book series—with the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center and I.B. Tauris of London—containing a selection of lectures delivered to the seminar:Adventures with Britannia (1995),More Adventures with Britannia (1998),Still More Adventures with Britannia (2003),Yet More Adventures with Britannia (2005),Penultimate Adventures with Britannia (2008),and Ultimate Adventures with Britannia (2009).
Stephen Isaiah Vladeck is the Charles Alan Wright Chair in Federal Courts at the University of Texas School of Law,where he specializes in national security law,especially with relation to the prosecution of war crimes. Vladeck has commented on the legality of the United States' use of extrajudicial detention and torture,and is a regular contributor to CNN.
{{cite book}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)This article needs additional or more specific categories .(March 2021) |