Francis of Assisi: Our Master Teacher of the Virtue of Empathy
We look to the saints as models and exemplars of our Christian virtues. Some we venerate for their courage or their generosity or their heroism. This is a time when we as a society seem to lack empathy--the virtue of identifying with people in radically different situations from our own. We love St Francis for many things--his love of fellow creatures, his simplicity, et al. Bill Cook proposes that St. Francis needs to be regarded as a model and guide to developing our empathy.
Bill Cook, PhD
Founder, The Bill Cook Foundation
Bill Cook is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Wabash College and received his MA and PhD at Cornell University. For 42 years, he taught medieval and Renaissance history at the State University of New York at Geneseo and retired in 2012 with the title of Distinguished Teaching Professor of History. He has won many teaching awards and is the author of 5 books and the editor of several others. Bill has directed a dozen summer seminars for high school and college teachers for the National Endowment for the Humanities. He has made ten courses, video and audio, for The Great Courses (formerly The Teaching Company). In the past 13 years, he has served as a resource more than 20 times for YPO/WPO and CEO, organizations of leaders of companies from throughout the world. He has led many programs for Friends of Florence, a charitable organization that funds the restoration of art in Tuscany. Bill has three adopted sons, and he served as guardian for eight other boys in their teen years. For 30 years, he has organized an annual fund raising banquet in his hometown of Geneseo, NY to benefit Covenant House.