Arthur Ford is Professor Emeritus of English and Playwright-in-Residence at Lebanon Valley College (LVC), Pennsylvania, USA. He gained his first degree 1959, took his Masters at Bowling Green State University in 1960, then in 1964 completed his PhD. In addition to the valuable research he has carried out within the field of American Literature, Dr Ford has been instrumental in establishing the very successful exchange programme that now exists between our University and LVC.
In 1996 Dr Arthur Ford was made an Honorary Fellow of the University.
"The Senate of Anglia Polytechnic University has great pleasure in recommending the award of an Honorary Fellowship of the University to Dr Arthur Lewis Ford, Dean of International Programmes and Professor of English in Lebanon Valley College, Pennsylvania.
Arthur Ford is distinguished in three main ways:
He is an excellent and innovative teacher of English, he is a creative writer with a wide range of published and performed works, and he is an energetic and successful protagonist for international education.
Dr Ford's academic career started with under graduate studies at Lebanon Valley College, Pennsylvania, a college he liked so much he was determined to teach in it as soon as he could. This he achieved after he completed his MA and his PhD at Bowling Green State University, Ohio in 1964. Having quickly established himself as an inspirational teacher of English he was appointed Chair of the English Department in 1970 and held that position until 1988.
The beginning of administration is often the end of creativity. But not always. Arthur Ford is an exceptional case in point. Throughout his teaching and administrative career he has written and published extensively on, for example, the work of great American writers such as Joel Barlow, Henry Thoreau and Walt Whitman. But that is not all. His academic work is sustained and invigorated by a continuous and continuing stream of imaginative writing including lyrics for songs, libretti for several operas, short stories and, quite recently, a play dramatising the relationship between Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry Thoreau. Most impressively (especially for an administrator) Art Ford devotes a portion of each year to the service and exercise of his creative imagination, whenever possible on a Greek Island.
Arthur Ford's internationalism is also remarkable. First of all he understands its benefits for him as a teacher and as an American. He shares with the late Senator William Fulbright a passionate belief in the value of study abroad for both staff and students; a belief that the world will be a better place if we only learn more about each other and use our new knowledge to challenge our own prejudices and stereotypes.
Secondly, he is no academic tourist but a serious scholar who has studied at Gonville and Caius College Cambridge, and has been awarded Fulbright Fellowships at Damascus University in Syria and Nanjing University in China. His one year teaching scholarship in China coincided with the upheavals now chiefly remembered for the massacres in Tiananmen Square.
Thirdly, and most particularly since he became Associate Dean of International Programmes at Lebanon Valley College, he has used his knowledge and experience to set up numerous links and exchanges with institutions throughout the world including many in Europe, Asia and the Caribbean. He has been most vigorous in creating opportunities for students who would otherwise be disadvantaged in their educational development.
We in APU are especially grateful to Dr Ford for helping us to develop our links with his college and with other colleges and universities in the USA. He has now made at least seven visits to APU and has established student exchange programmes in Education, Biology and Music. A new link in American Studies is also being developed.
Dr Ford's achievements as a teacher and as an administrator as well as his abiding creative interest and his commitment to international education make him a most appropriate recipient of APU's Honorary Fellowship. He has proved himself to be a good friend of this University, a valued international partner who most importantly imbues everything he does with intelligence, sincerity and warmth.
It is, therefore, with great pleasure, that on behalf of the Chancellor of the University I invite Dr Arthur Ford to come forward to receive the Honorary Fellowship of the University."