News Release
Dr. Cox and Dr. MacDonnell to Present Civil Rights Forum on Feb. 3
Two distinguished members of Southern Virginia University’s faculty, Dr. Francis MacDonnell and Dr. David Cox, will deliver addresses centering on Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement to students, faculty and staff on Friday, Feb. 3 at 11 a.m. in the Stoddard Center.
Dr. MacDonnell is a professor of history at Southern Virginia and has served on the faculty since 1997. Prior to arriving at Southern Virginia University, he was a lecturer in history at Yale University from 1993 to 1995. He authored “Insidious Foes: The Axis Fifth Column and the American Home Front” (Oxford University Press, 1995) as well as articles in Civil War History, the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence, and the Journal of American Culture.
Dr. MacDonnell has presented scholarly papers at the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, the Southern Historical Association, and the Organization of American Historians. His main areas of teaching interest include American civilization and politics, the American Civil War, and twentieth century American history.
Dr. Cox is a visiting professor of history at Southern Virginia University.
After being ordained in the Episcopal Church in 1972 to serve parishes in Connecticut, Dr. Cox returned to Virginia in 1987 to become rector of R. E. Lee Memorial Episcopal Church in Lexington. He left that position in 2000 to complete his doctoral studies, for which he received fellowships at Harvard Divinity School and Virginia Theological Seminary. Dr. Cox graduated from two programs of the Sorensen Institute for Political Leadership at the University of Virginia.
Prior to teaching at Southern Virginia, Dr. Cox taught ethics at Dabney Lancaster Community College. Dr. Cox has been a faculty member at Southern Virginia since 2006 and teaches liberal arts and history with an emphasis on American and religious studies. Previously, he has published two books, one on marriage, another on ministry and Dr. Cox anticipates the publication of “A Religious Biography of Robert E. Lee”, part of the “Library of Religious Biography” of Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. in March of this year.
Community members and Southern Virginia faculty, staff, and students are invited to attend campus forums and devotionals each Friday morning at 11 a.m. in the Stoddard Center. Recordings of past forum and devotional speeches may be accessed on svu.edu.