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A Brief Biography

ark U. Edwards, Jr., the ninth president of St. Olaf College (1994-2000), is a fourth-generation Californian. After spending his first five years in northern California, Edwards and his family moved to La Crescenta / La Cañada in southern California, where Edwards did all his primary and secondary schooling. He spent his senior year in high school as an American Friends Service Committee exchange student in Aarau, Switzerland. He enrolled at Stanford University in the fall of 1964.
       Edwards holds an A.B. (Psychology) and an M.A. and Ph.D. (History) from Stanford University. After a three years as a Junior Fellow in the Michigan Society of Fellows, he taught history at Wellesley College (1974-1980) and Purdue University (1980-1987). In 1987 he became Professor of the History of Christianity at the Divinity School, Harvard University. For eight months in 1990-91, he was acting dean of the Divinity School. In July, 1994, he became the president of St. Olaf College. On October 1, 2000, he stepped down from the presidency to devote more time to family, research, and writing. He now lives in Newmarket, New Hampshire.
       Edwards married Linda Johnson in 1968, when both were still seniors at Stanford University. Johnson Edwards holds an A.B. in History from Stanford University, an M.B.A. with concentration in health care management from Boston University, and has completed all course work except for the dissertation in marketing at Purdue University. She has taught marketing at Purdue and at the School of Management at Boston University. She does marketing and survey research on a contract basis. ( edwardsl@stolaf.edu )
       The Edwards have one child, Teon Elizabeth Edwards, who was born in 1973. Teon graduated from Williams College in 1996 and is currently working for TERC in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Administrative Accomplishments at St. Olaf College

uring his presidency Edwards assembled a capable senior staff and led the design and adoption of a strategic plan, a framework plan to guide the college in land and facility use, a staffing plan that addresses the personnel needs of the college, and a financial model that allows the college to plan operating and capital budgets with a five-year horizon. The leadership team he assembled turned around an admissions decline, both quantitatively and qualitatively, and returned selectivity, yield, and retention rates to appropriate and healthy levels. Together they addressed the school’s budget challenges regarding tuition discounting, net tuition revenue, endowment payout, and staffing costs; adopted a multi-year budget model and discipline; and initiated the process of upgrading all information technology beginning with admissions, financial systems, and human resources. Edwards and his Advancement staff initiated a new capital campaign led by volunteer leadership; raised more than $100 million dollars for capital projects and endowment; and saw the endowment grow from $66 million to more than $157 million. Edwards also oversaw the development and construction of a $38 million student union and the planning and initial construction of a new center for Art and Dance..

Scholarly Interests in the History of Christianity

dwards has written four books and numerous articles on Martin Luther and the German Reformation (bibliography). The most recent book, entitled Printing, Propaganda, and Martin Luther (University of California Press, 1994), deals with the West's first "mass media campaign" and Luther's pivotal role as both subject and object in the struggle for the hearts and minds of sixteenth-century Christians. In general Edwards's books have in common a desire to understand past beliefs and behaviors that are alien and even offensive to modern sensibilities. This same interest animates his current historical project, a "green history" of Christianity.

Christianity and Higher Education

uring his tenure as St. Olaf's president, Edwards published several articles on Christianity and higher education (bibliography). Aware that those who care about colleges of the church often express a desire that Christian perspectives pervade the whole curriculum and influence the research interests of faculty, Edwards continues to explore what this actually might mean in practice given the variety of Christian perspectives, given disciplinary and professional constraints, and, perhaps most important to presidents, given a national educational system that tends structurally to work against such goals. He is working on several articles or a short book on these issues.

Christianity and the Internet

since leaving the St. Olaf presidency, Edwards has written an occasional column for the Christian Century on Christianity and the Internet (bibliography). These essays drawn on Edwards background in both the history of Christianity and the effect of printing on the Reformation and his experience with computer science and software development (see below) to explore some of the implications for mainline Christianity of the latest communications revolution. Edwards is writing a book that explores in greater detail many of the issues raised in the Christian Century columns.

Interest in Computer Science and Software Development

n addition to his historical and environmental interests, Edwards has taught introductory courses in computer science at Wellesley and Purdue and has developed three commercial software programs (bibliography) including ForComment, a pioneer "groupware" product now published by Computer Associates--Access Technology. ForComment runs on PC and VAX networks and allows different people to comment on, annotate, and revise a common manuscript. It was designated one of the best products of 1987 by PC Magazine