William Portier

Professor; Acting Committee Chair of Doctoral Programs in Theology; Mary Ann Spearin Chair of Catholic Theology
Full-Time Faculty
College of Arts and Sciences: Religious Studies

Profile

William L. Portier serves as the Mary Ann Spearin Chair of Catholic Theology in the Department of Religious Studies. He came to the University of Dayton in 2003 after teaching for twenty-four years at Mount Saint Mary's University in Emmitsburg, Md., where he served as Chair of the Theology Department (1989-98), Henry J. Knott Professor of Theology (1997-2003), and helped design that school's nationally recognized core curriculum. He is the author of Isaac Hecker and the First Vatican Council (1985) and Tradition and Incarnation (1994), a widely-used undergraduate text in theology. He is also the editor or co-editor of three other books on U.S. Catholicism and has contributed nearly one hundred articles and reviews in the areas of theology, U.S. Catholic history, and Catholic higher education. His graduate courses in the areas of historical and systematic theology generally support the M.A. and Ph.D. programs and treat subject areas such as Americanism, Roman Catholic Modernism, and contemporary issues in theology in the U.S. His article "Here Come the Evangelical Catholics" was chosen by the College Theology Society for the 2005 Award for Best Journal Article.

Degrees

  • Ph.D., St. Michael's College, University of Toronto

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