R. William Franklin has been selected by the board of trustees of the Berkeley Divinity School at Yale to serve as the next dean of the school, which is the Episcopal seminary affiliated with the Yale Divinity School. He will take up his appointment on Jan. 5, succeeding the Very Reverend Philip Turner, who has held the position since 1991.
In addition to serving as dean of the Berkeley Divinity School, Mr. Franklin will serve as associate dean of the Yale Divinity School and adjunct professor of church history.
He 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.
Mr. Franklin is a distinguished lay leader in the Episcopal Church and was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to serve as a consultant to the 1998 Lambeth Conference. In addition, Dean Franklin is a governor of the Anglican Center in Rome; chair of the board of Friends of Saint Benedict; a member of Anglican/Roman Catholic Consultation in the United States; and a member of the Episcopal representation to the Consultation on Church Union Theology Committee. Chair of the 1995 Conference on Anglican Orders, 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 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" 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 is the father of two daughters, Corinna and Beatrice.