Yale's Berkeley Divinity School Names New Dean

The Board of Trustees of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale has elected R. William Franklin as its next dean, effective January 5, 1998. He succeeds the Very Reverend Philip Turner who has held the position since 1991. Dr. Franklin will also serve as associate dean of the Yale Divinity School and adjunct professor of church history. Berkeley Divinity School is the Episcopal Seminary affiliated with the Yale Divinity School.

Dr. Franklin is currently associate dean at the General Theological Seminary in New York City, where he is also professor of History and World Mission and modern Anglican studies.

He is a distinguished lay leader in the Episcopal Church, appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, England, to serve as a consultant to the 1998 Lambeth Conference, which meets in Canterbury every 10 years to determine the course of the Anglican Church. In addition, Dean Franklin is a governor of the Anglican Center in Rome, chairman of the Board of Friends of Saint Benedict, a member of Anglican/Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States, the chair of the 1995 Conference on Anglican Orders, and a member of the Episcopal representation to the Consultation on Church Union Theology Committee. He is one of two seminary deans who has been invited to sit on the newly-formed Standing Commission on Ministry Development which replaces the Episcopal Church’s Board for Theological Education.

Dean Franklin has written extensively on Christian humanism, the modern ecumenical movement, and liturgy. His book, “Nineteenth Century Churches: The History of a New Catholicism in Wurttemberg, England and France”, Garland Publishing Company, 1987, was a finalist for the 1989 Philip Schaff Prize of the American Society of Church History.

Dean Franklin holds a Ph.D. from Harvard University. He is married to Carmela Vircillo Franklin and has two daughters, Corinna and Beatrice.