Providence, RI --Dr. F. Russell Hittinger has been named the fourth recipient of the Rev. Robert Randall Distinguished Professorship in Christian Culture at Providence College.

Dr. Hittinger, who specializes in areas where philosophy, religion, and law intersect, holds the Warren Chair of Catholic Studies at the University of Tulsa, where he is also a research professor in the School of Law. 

His first lecture on Tuesday, October 23, "Social Justice: Devolution or Subsidiarity?," will consider how much responsibility for the common good that groups, other than the state, should enjoy. In addition, Dr. Hittinger is teaching "The Philosophy and Politics of Natural Law and Natural Rights," a seminar in the College's Liberal Arts Honors Program.

When asked about his areas of interest, Dr. Hittinger said, "I compare different legal cultures on such issues as public morality and the legal status of religion. I am very interested in theories of natural law because in Western cultures we hold both the state and society responsible for protecting human rights."

Dr. Hittinger has a long and distinguished academic career. He graduated summa cum laude in 1975 from the University of Notre Dame before earning his master's and doctoral degrees in philosophy from St. Louis University. Hittinger has taught at Fordham University and at The Catholic University of America. He has been a visiting professor at Princeton University, New York University, Charles University School of Law in Prague, and at the Pontifical Università Regina Apostolorum in Rome.

Since 1993, he has been on the summer faculty of the Tertio Millenno program at the Dominican Priory in Krakow, Poland. Since 2000, he has been a member of the Pontifical Academy of St. Thomas Aquinas at the Vatican and in 2006 was elected to its governing board.

Hittinger is widely published with more than 100 articles and reviews to his credit as well as scores of papers, lectures, and several books.

His latest work, The First Grace: Rediscovering Natural Law in a Post-Christian Age (I.S.I. Books, 2003), is a collection of essays. Meanwhile, his essays on papal social doctrine appeared in a two-volume work, Law and Human Nature: Teachings of Modern Christianity (Columbia University Press, 2005).

Hittinger will give a second open lecture at the College in February 2008.

The College's first endowed chair, the Rev. Robert Randall Distinguished Professorship in Christian Culture, was established in 2002. It is named for Rev. Robert J. Randall '06Hon, a priest, educator, and scholar who retired as associate professor of English in 2004 after nearly 30 years of teaching at PC. The professorship exemplifies the commitment to educational excellence and Christian values that defined Father Randall's life as an educator and priest.

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