William Drea Adams

Who is William Drea Adams?

William Drea Adams was president of Bucknell University from 1995–2000. He left Bucknell when he resigned in 2000.

Adams authored "Digging in the same place: an essay in the political and social philosophy of Maurice Merleau-Ponty". Adams became Colby's 19th president on July 1, 2000, after serving five years as president of Bucknell University in Pennsylvania. Prior to leading Bucknell, he taught political philosophy at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Santa Clara University. Adams also served as coordinator of the Great Works in Western Culture program at Stanford University and vice president and secretary of Wesleyan University in Connecticut.

Adams has been an advocate of liberal arts education since his own undergraduate years at Colorado College, from which he graduated magna cum laude in 1972. He subsequently spent a year in France as a Fulbright Scholar and earned a Ph.D. in the History of Consciousness Program at the University of California at Santa Cruz.