FFRF, donor set up professorship in secular studies

The Freedom From Religion Foundation proudly announces a pioneering professorship in secular studies at a Wisconsin university — only the third such professorship in the nation.

The Brian F. Bolton and Anne Nicol Gaylor Endowed Professorship in Secular Studies of $500,000 is being set up at the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater. FFRF is creating the endowment in coordination with Brian F. Bolton, a generous FFRF member who has provided the funds in part to memorialize FFRF principal founder Anne Nicol Gaylor, who died at age 88 in 2015.   

Secular studies involve the interdisciplinary examination of religious, philosophical, social, historical and political issues based on reason, science and evidence. The professorship will focus on quality research and intellectual engagement within the context of an access-driven, public institution that reaches first-generation students, students with disabilities, and adult learners. The UW-Whitewater Departments of Philosophy and Religious Studies and Women’s and Gender Studies will closely collaborate with the dean to leverage the funds in a manner that has the most impact.

Bolton, a professor emeritus, in 2020 previously endowed a secular study professorship at the University of Texas-Austin. And a $2.2 million donation from Louis J. Appignani in 2016 established the nation’s first academic chair “for the study of atheism, humanism and secular ethics” at the University of Miami. FFRF in 2021 also gave a $300,000 endowment for Pitzer College’s trailblazing secular studies program, in memory of the late Kenneth L. Proulx.

Brian Bolton is a longtime Lifetime Member, for whom the executive wing of FFRF’s office, Freethought Hall, is named, due to his support of FFRF’s headquarters expansion. For more than a decade, Bolton also underwrote FFRF’s essay contest for grad/older students. FFRF recently published Bolton’s timely book, The (Not So) Good Book: What Does the “Holy Bible” Really Teach? Bolton is a retired psychologist, humanist minister and university professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas.

“We’re so grateful to Brian Bolton for seeding secular studies at a University of Wisconsin System, and for generously suggesting the professorship be in both his and Anne Nicol Gaylor’s name,” says Annie Laurie Gaylor, FFRF co-president and daughter of Anne Gaylor.

Anne Gaylor, who was a lifelong Wisconsin resident and graduated from a University of Wisconsin college, was the principal founder of FFRF. A feminist activist, she cofounded the Women’s Medical Fund abortion fund and administered it as a volunteer until just before her death at age 88.

“The professorship is a way for Anne’s legacy to thrive and live on,” adds Annie Laurie.

FFRF praises the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater for making an ideal home for this professorship. It’s the state’s largest education college, licensing the most teachers in Wisconsin. The university emphasizes a teacher/scholar model heavily emphasizing teaching.