On Wednesday the Senate confirmed William D. Adams as the new chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities. William D. Adams’ nickname, the NEH’s press release on his confirmation says, is “Bro.”
Adams’ biography, however, does not suggest the kind of immaturity and macho obnoxiousness that we commonly associate with that term:
… Adams earned his undergraduate degree in philosophy at Colorado College and a Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Cruz History of Consciousness Program. He studied in France as a Fulbright Scholar before beginning his career in higher education with appointments to teach political philosophy at Santa Clara University in California and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He went on to coordinate the Great Works in Western Culture program at Stanford University and to serve as vice president and Secretary of Wesleyan University. He became president of Bucknell University in 1995 and president of Colby College in 2000.
In fact, the NEH says, Adams was “nicknamed Bro by his father in honor of a friend who died in World War Two.”
