Frank J. Sullivan

Frank Sullivan was as a professor of English at Loyola University and LMU 1946 until his death in 1975. Harold Ryan, S.J. recruited Professor Sullivan to join Loyola's post-war faculty as an associate professor in 1946. A specialist in medieval and Renaissance literature he also taught courses in dramatic reading and acting techniques during summer sessions. He is remembered by several generations of students as a professor who both challenged and enabled them to do their best work. Professor Sullivan was an ardent supporter of the library and help to stock the shelves of the University library with some of greatest treasures by supporting its acquisitions of rare books and manuscripts. In the early 1950s, negotiations were completed for the acquisition of the Leonard William Longstaff St. Thomas More Collection, acquired through Professor Sullivan's intervention while he was on sabbatical in England. The More Collection consists of more than 800 titles by and about Thomas More and his times, including editions of Utopia printed in 1518, as well as more than sixty editions of the classic. As a scholar affiliated with this collection, Professor Sullivan, with his wife, Majie Padberg Sullivan, authored Moreana: Materials for the Study of Saint Thomas More, published in five volumes between 1964 and 1971. The Sullivans also published the quarterly Moreana as a forum for ongoing research and the updating of the More-related bibliography. Professor Sullivan was a longtime member of the Committee on Rank and Tenure and was twice voted to be the commencement speaker by the student body — in June 1964 and June 1972.

Professor Sullivan was educated at Regis College in Colorado and St. Louis University before earning a Ph.D. in English literature from Yale University. After graduate school, he joined the faculty at St. Louis University, and during World War II served in the U.S. Coast Guard. In the 1970, the Rosecrans Foundation provided a major grant to finance the expansion of the Charles Von der Ahe Library and establish a memorial fund to finance the Frank Sullivan Rare and Special Books Room in honor of Professor Sullivan. Since his death, Professor Sullivan's family has donated many books from his personal collection to the Charles Von der Ahe Library and William H. Hannon Library. The University has honored Professor Sullivan by naming it standing committee on social justice in his memory.