Fox Makes a Full Circle

Gary Feldkamp, one of Culver-Stockton College’s physical plant employees, remembers a day when he went to work with a cold. Sometime during his daily routine, Gary ran into the college’s president, Dr. William Fox. As the two men greeted one another Fox noticed that Gary wasn’t feeling well and he told Gary to “feel better.” 

A week or so had passed before Gary and Fox saw each other again. Fox was giving a tour to some of the college’s friends and trustees while Gary was working on the athletic stadium. As the tour started to move along, Fox approached Gary and whispered, “How’s the cold?” then waited for a reply. 

“I cannot imagine the stress he was under,” says Gary, “but he took the time to remember me.”

St. Lawrence University’s president-to-be has been described as many things: friendly, genuine, warm, sincere, intelligent, and a true leader. But more importantly, and as seen in his exchange with Gary Feldkamp, Dr. William Fox is a “people person.” His ability to connect with people isn’t just remarkable, it’s inspiring.

 In addition to all these things, Fox is also a strong advocate of liberal arts education. In fact, he recently admitted that he never really “got over” his experience at St. Lawrence.  

“When a powerful experience occurs at an informative point in your life, you always remember those instances. SLU was that instance for me,” Fox said.

Fox is currently the president of Culver-Stockton, another small liberal arts college in Canton, Missouri of all places. The college is, coincidentally, just over 150 years old, but has a much smaller student body (850 students) than SLU. Even so, there are many similarities between SLU and Culver-Stockton, which goes to show that somehow Fox has always managed to surround himself with the Laurentian traditions he fell in love with during his transformative years as an undergraduate. 

Fox was born and raised in Washington D.C., where his family instilled in him both Unitarian and Universalist beliefs. His family attended the Universalist National Memorial Church, whose bell tower was named, not surprisingly, after Owen D. Young. The bell tower’s connection to Young was a strong influence on 16-year-old Fox when it came time for him to choose a college, and the kind of education he received at St. Lawrence also left a deep impression.

“What the liberal arts colleges do that the others don’t is help the whole person to think critically, both broadly and deeply, to speak clearly, and to learn how to engage the big questions,” said Fox during a recent interview with uuworld.org. 

After graduating from St. Lawrence in 1975, Fox’s numerous roles in academia and the ministry helped prepare him for his new job, while his position as Culver-Stockton’s president has been one of the most experiential of all.  

Fox expected to begin his presidency in June 2003, but instead he started it right after an F-2 scale tornado with winds over 180 miles per hour touched down on the day of commencement in early May and devastated several of Culver’s buildings. When Fox arrived on campus, he saw the extensive damage, including the destruction of the Charles Field House and Zenge Hall (a fraternity house). Thankfully, though, no one on campus was injured. 

“The first three weeks [after the tornado] were triage and then the plan of action began,” Fox said. “It was most important that we communicated the optimism to rebuild and start over. We couldn’t let the thoughts of negativity set in.” 

Aside from the damage to the field house and fraternity, over three hundred trees had been uprooted, split in half, and strewn across campus. Broken glass from blown-out windows was scattered across the lawns and walkways. But Fox was determined that the cleanup and reconstruction would begin immediately. 

Four new buildings were constructed in just 13 months. The activity center for athletics was one of the first to be built, completed in only seven short weeks. They were able to repair eight buildings and clean up all 300 trees in time for the start of the fall semester. 

“We couldn’t have done it without the community,” says Fox. “We had every farmer with a chainsaw within a 25 mile radius coming to our rescue. And some people from the local Amish population showed up to rake the fields and lawns of the debris without ever being asked.” 

Fox says that the tornado was an “unconventional start to a presidency, but it immediately brought us together as a community. I got to see the inner workings of the community and they got to see me and how I worked. It established a sense of trust right from the start.”

Many people at Culver say that Fox’s guidance, support, and genuine investment in the college have transformed its students, faculty, and curriculum. 

Ryan Thorman, a student majoring in law and finance at Culver, believes that “Dr. Fox is changing the face of the college through our new curriculum. He’s inspired faculty to completely revamp the courses. Fox’s ability to inspire and motivate others through his innovative vision is his strongest leadership quality and the reason he has found so much success at Culver.

“Dr. Fox has taken the time to send me congratulatory emails when I’ve experienced successes and these notes have meant so much to me. I see him as a huge role model and I have an immense amount of respect for him.”

Andrew Walsh, an associate professor of religion and philosophy at Culver, feels that Fox “has not sought to impose his own agenda on the community. He has introduced [a new curriculum], transformed the faculty governance, and developed a strategic plan for long-term improvements to our campus.” Walsh also credits Fox for making all of those changes while collaborating with faculty, students, board members, and alumni to create a “broad support system.” 

Praise for Fox keeps coming back to his relationship skills and his capacity for remembering names and details, which people often attribute to his ability to listen and his desire to learn. 

Kim Gaither, an assistant professor of finance at Culver, says that Fox has an amazing capacity “for remembering names and placing people [he may rarely see]. People are very impressed when they meet Dr. Fox one time and then run into him months or even a year or more later and he can immediately recall their name and all the details they shared with him the first time they met.”

Kristen Bednar, a SLU senior who served as a student member on the Presidential Selection Committee last fall, experienced that memory firsthand. 

“From the first moment I met Dr. Fox, he seemed genuinely interested in my life and who I was as a student,” says Bednar. “Bill Fox pays attention to details. I received a personal email from him this winter congratulating me for athletic success. He also asked me how my senior honors thesis was progressing, a project that we only talked briefly about. He remembered my thesis and my topic. I was extremely impressed and flattered…” 

Fox, and his wife Lynn, are extremely excited to begin their transition to St. Lawrence in July. Lynn Fox is also highly accomplished. She serves as senior adviser to the Federal Reserve Board and in Missouri she has been a volunteer activist in downtown development.

Although Fox is unsure of what his first major step will be when he arrives, one thing is for certain: he plans to listen carefully.

“I plan to pay close attention to the students and faculty,” he said, “because that dialogue will begin to articulate the goals for the 21st century. We need to continue the momentum that President Sullivan has started. We can never stand still.

“I plan on asking the students and faculty, ‘What do you like best and what would you change?’ and to see where we go from there.”

In regards to his move from Canton, Missouri to Canton, New York, Fox said, “I’m leaving a lot undone at Culver-Stockton, but when the idea of returning to SLU was germinating, I had to take a look at my life. 

“The thought of coming full circle has a natural symmetry and an equilibrium that just makes sense to me.”