JACK C. LANE

BIOGRAPHY

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Jack Constant Lane came to Rollins College in 1963 to teach history, with a specialization in American History.  He is a notable author as well as an advocate of experimental education, helping to shape the curriculum at Rollins College.

Lane was born on April 19, 1932, in Austin Texas.  He was the first member of his family to complete college.  After serving three years during the Korean conflict, Lane earned a B.A. degree from Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia.  From there, he went on to Emory University as well as to the University of Georgia, where he received his M.A. and Ph.D. respectively.  He worked as an instructor at Georgia State College as well as a teaching assistant at the University of Georgia.

While at Rollins College, Lane acted as chairman for several groups including the Humanities Foundation Courses and the Social Science Division.  In addition, he served as a member of the Faculty Administration Committee, the Admissions Committee and Honor Committee, and the Faculty Advisors Board.  In 1980, the Board of Trustees appointed Lane as the College Historian and his work enabled him to complete a book and manuscript about the college.  He was also recognized with several awards, including the Arthur Vining Davis Fellowship Award in 1972, the Alexander Weddell Professor of the America’s Chair in 1978, and the William Blackman Medal in 1997.

Lane’s academic interests include: American History, Contemporary American Issues, the Great Depression and the New Deal, and American Military and Diplomatic History, just to name a few.  He has published several books, including Rollins College: A Pictorial History, The Florida Reader: Visions of Paradise from 1530 to the Present, and Armed Progressive: A Study of the Military and Public Career of Leonard Wood.

What made you

decide to come to

Rollins College and

what was your

impression?

• "...I was taken over there [to the Student Center] by one of the professors to have a cup of coffee.  And they would have coffee and students and faculty were all mixing around...  And just the kind of conversation that was going around.  I thought, This is exactly the kind of school I’d like to come to."
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   

• "I came across these letters from a man named Leonard Wood, a general.  And many of them were letters... talking about foreign policy and what American policy should be...  So I researched a little further and found out that no one had really done anything on him..."
  
  
  
   

• "And so when Watergate was over and Nixon was gone..., I—and there was a real interest on the part of the students—I had a course on Watergate... I had the students take a character in the Watergate and do an in-depth study of each character... We put a chronology of Watergate on the blackboard...  We had fun with that."
  
  
  
   

• "...We were coming up to the centennial of the college and it was clear that... no one had written a history of it... It was just fascinating to read the history of this college... I was finding out things about my own institution and... that this college has a rich rich history..."
  
  
  
   

• "... And the idea was that we would have professors actually taking classes with students and becoming one of their sort of mentors–not mentors, but participants, facilitators..."
  
  
  
  
   

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Where did your

interest in military

history come from?

Lane Comments on a Class He Created on Watergate

Tell me about...

appointed College

Historian

Tell me about your

involvement in the

Master Learners