William J. Woolley

History

Throughout his 31 years at Ripon College, Professor of History William J. Woolley shared his love of history with his students and the community. For himself, he said he sees history as a way get access to and understand peoples and cultures of times other than his own as well as a means to develop his own imaginative skills. “At Ripon, I came to appreciate the value of history as a discipline that helped students develop the skills of analysis and communication needed for careers in the professions and in management positions as well as for leadership roles in their communities,” he said.

Woolley was born Aug. 29, 1937, in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where his father was working. The family returned to the United States in 1940, and he grew up in Colorado. “I became fascinated with history very early in life,” he says. “By the time I was in fourth grade, I was reading everything about history that I could get my hands on.”

He earned a bachelor’s degree in international relations from Dartmouth College. Then, after a four-year stint in the Navy, he returned to school at Indiana University where he earned a master’s degree and Ph.D. in history, specializing in Russian and Eastern European history.

In 1969, Woolley came to Ripon as an assistant professor of history in what would be his first and only professional position. Initially, he taught courses related to Russian and modern European history. Later, he became interested in military history. He took a sabbatical leave at the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to do research for a course he developed called War and Society. He then agreed to teach a course on American military history which was required for all cadets in Ripon’s ROTC (Reserve Officers’ Training Corps) program.

His popularity with students is reflected in his four May Bumby Severy Award in teaching, his seven Senior Class Awards, and the James R. Underkofler Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching award. The William J. Woolley Endowed Scholarship in History was established in his honor, and he was named the Helen Swift Nielson Professor of Cultural Studies and the Victor and Carrie Palmer Chair of Leadership Values.

Also participating in numerous initiatives on campus, Woolley’s activities included creating a special military history internship program at the Army War College for Ripon students and administering a student exchange program with the College of Ripon and York St. John in Ripon, England; serving many years as Pre-Law advisor for students; and being highly active in faculty governance.

In the early 1980s, he and Vance Cope-Kasten of the philosophy department created the Liberal Arts Symposium in which faculty members gave papers related to a common theme. At the same time, he began attending annual conferences on military history where he either presented papers or was selected to comment on papers presented by others. He published articles and book reviews for professional journals and contributed chapters to four different books.

His own book, “Creating the Modern Army: Citizen Soldiers and the American Way of War, 1919-1939 (2022),” was completed after he retired in 2000. It was selected as the winner of the 2022 Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award for Institutional/Functional History. A paperback edition of the book was released in 2024.

One of his children, Steve Woolley, is a member of the Class of 1992.