Robert M. Franklin

Session: The New Renaissance Man: A Morehouse Manifesto

Dr Robert Michael Franklin is the tenth president of Morehouse College, the nation’s largest private, four-year liberal arts college for men. Prior to joining Morehouse, Franklin was a Presidential Distinguished Professor of Social Ethics at Emory University, where he provided leadership for a university-wide initiative titled Confronting the Human Condition and the Human Experience, and was a senior fellow at the Center for the Study of Law and Religion at Emory’s law school. He provides commentary for the National Public Radio program, All Things Considered, and weekly commentary for Atlanta Interfaith Broadcasting Television.

Mr Franklin graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Morehouse in 1975 with a degree in Political Science and Religion. He continued his education at Harvard Divinity School, earning a Master of Divinity degree. He then earned a doctorate at the University of Chicago in Ethics and Society. He also undertook international study at the University of Durham, UK, as a 1973 English Speaking Union Scholar. His major fields of study include social ethics, psychology, and African-American religion.

An insightful educator, Mr Franklin has served on the faculties of the University of Chicago, Harvard Divinity School, Colgate-Rochester Divinity School and at Emory University's Candler School of Theology, where he gained a national reputation as director of Black Church Studies. He also has served as a program officer in Human Rights and Social Justice at the Ford Foundation, and as an adviser to the foundation’s president on future funding for religion and public life initiatives.

Franklin is the author of three books: Crisis in the Village: Restoring Hope in African American Communities, Another Day’s Journey: Black Churches Confronting the American Crisis, and Liberating Visions: Human Fulfillment and Social Justice in African American Thought.