'History's Human Heartbeat' Carries on
After 50 years, William Crawley is stepping aside as the creator and leader of the Great Lives lecture series. He's entrusting the program's heartbeat to Scott Harris.
By Martin Davis
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Leadership transitions within public institutions can be treacherous. Especially when the institution is closely associated with its namesake.
William Crawley has spent his entire academic career, which spans a half century, at the University of Mary Washington. Over the course of those years, he nurtured what was an idea to teach a class on biography into what would become the university’s signature Town and Gown event, the Great Lives Lecture Series, which this year is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
“It started out as an academic course,” Crawley told the Advance over breakfast at the Mason-Dixon Café recently. “We needed another course in the [history] department … that we would team teach” but didn’t require hiring a new professor.
A class on biography was the solution. The thought was that the course could be team taught, with each faculty member offering lectures about the most important people in their fields of study.
It wasn’t long before the idea emerged to do public lectures. The first, he recalls, occurred around the time of the Bicentennial – back in 1976.
This experience of combining an academic course and public lecture sparked the idea for Great Lives.
It began in a large classroom that held around 200 people, then, passed through increasingly larger places on the University campus until it finally settled in Dodd Auditorium, which seats around 1,200.
So tightly is Crawley’s name tied to the popular lecture series that it’s officially incorporated into the event’s name. This year’s edition is titled: The 2025 William B. Crawley Lecture Series. Great Lives: Biographical Approaches to History and Culture.
For Crawley, this year’s Emerald anniversary marked a perfect time to move on from the near-50 years he has spent teaching and building his namesake series.
Finding a replacement, however, was the challenge. Following a lengthy search, Crawley he turned to an old friend.
From Student to Lecture Series Leader
Scott Harris first got to know Bill by a more-formal title – Dr. Crawley.
A 1983 graduate of UMW, Harris was a student of Crawley’s. He left the university with a B.A. with honors in history and historic preservation.
His professional career took him to William & Mary for graduate school, and then to posts as the director of the Virginia Museum of the Civil War and director of Historic Resources for the city of Manassas.
A return to Fredericksburg, and his mentor, however, seemed destined.
He returned to Fredericksburg first in order to serve as executive director of the University of Mary Washington Museums, which include the James Monroe Museum and Gari Melcher’s Home and Studio.
In 2024, he joined Crawley at Great Lives as co-director. His taking over the program seemed a natural fit, but one that caused Harris a bit of trepidation.
“It was a little intimidating thinking about taking on that responsibility, as well as the possibility of disappointing my friend and mentor,” Scott told the Advance.
Crawley held no such reservations.
“It’s exciting for me to have someone of Scott’s caliber to trust the program to, and know that it will be fully successful.” Crawley
Just as Crawley grew the Great Lives series from a university class to the public show it is today, Harris’ task will be to continue evolving the program.
“Public engagement is a large part of what I’ve done in my career,” Harris said. “So preparing content – a one-off exhibit, or a series of programs – is something I’ve had an opportunity to do in different settings. That’s what Great Lives is. Giving people something both entertaining and enlightening.”
Among his ideas at the moment: podcasting.
“Developing a podcast series,” Harris said, “is a way to expand Great Lives beyond just the three winter months of the year, and to hopefully a broader base of listeners.”
Staying True to Great Lives’ Heart
For both Crawley and Scott, growing the base is both a necessity and a challenge. Fortunately, they feel the topic — biography — is primed for reaching the people who are moving into the area.
Producing biographies “is an effort by humans about humans,” Scott said. “It’s going to have all the virtues and vices that people have.” And that’s what makes the series so fascinating.
Crawley believed that 50 years ago when the idea of celebrating biography first took root. And that belief spurred what became the programs motto.
“There was a course at the University of Virginia,” Crawley told the Advance, called Representative Americans. Like Great Lives, the course focused on biography. The professor who taught it, Crawley recalls, described this approach to history as “History’s human heartbeat.”
For 20 years now, Crawley has kept that heart beating at UMW. Now, Harris is going to expand and strengthen the program that breathes life into the human experience.
And that makes Crawley feel good about stepping aside at this time.
“I would have had a sense of loss,” Crawley said of retiring, “had we gone in a different direction” for a leader. Harris, he believes, will stay true to the program’s guiding light, which expanding its light into new corners of the community.
Harris certainly feels the pressure not to let his mentor and friend down.
Still, he says, “it’s an exciting opportunity.”
We suspect that another 20 years on, the Great Lives heartbeat will be as strong as ever.
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