Professor Emeritus John Donovan, Ph.D., seated, with colleagues in 2015.
With great sadness, Mount St. Mary's University announces the death of John Francis Donovan, Ph.D., a much-loved professor of philosophy who was deeply devoted to the university and its mission. Professor Emeritus Donovan, a resident of Columbia, Maryland, died Saturday, March 26.
Donovan was educated at Mater Christi Seminary College and St. Mary’s Seminary College, where he received degrees in classical languages, philosophy and theology; at Fordham University, where he was awarded an M.A. in philosophy; and at Georgetown University, where he received his Ph.D. in philosophy in 1980.
At the Mount he served as chair of the faculty (1999), department chair (spring 2004, 2005–08), director of the Honors Program and George Henry Miles Honor Society (1995–2003), chair of the Faculty Governance Committee (1996), co-director or co-chair of two Lilly Seminars (2000 and 2006), and as chair, vice-chair, director and coordinator of many other committees and organizations, authoring position papers, leading discussion groups and serving in a wide variety of capacities as a faculty leader. He compiled a distinguished and consistent record of support of the Mount’s mission and identity as a Catholic liberal arts institution through, among other things, his work as coordinator of the seminary’s pre-theology orientation and review programs, his service as chair of the Catholic Mission subcommittee of the Planning Council (1995–98), his service on the Middle States Committee on the university mission, and his writing of the Philosophy Department’s position paper on pre-theology education (2000). In 2003 John was selected to be the Delaplaine Professor of the Humanities, leading a group of faculty in a three-year investigation of a theme close to his heart: “The Twentieth Century: the Search for Community.”
Donovan’s scholarly work and interests revolved around the thinking of the German Idealist philosopher G. W. F. Hegel, on whose theory of the relation between church and state he wrote his dissertation at Georgetown. At the Mount, and before that at Georgetown, George Washington University, and Catholic University, he taught a wide variety of courses, with a focus on topics in modern and contemporary philosophy, philosophy of religion, Marxism, and Existentialism. In addition to his book Doing & Don’ting: A Workbook in Moral Identity, which appeared in 1994, John published articles, book chapters and book reviews on a range of both philosophical and pedagogical topics, exhibiting a particular interest in the unique role of Catholic institutions of higher learning in the contemporary educational context. He also published translations of a number of articles, from both German and French.
In 2015, the Meredith Lecture, an annual event organized by the Honors Program and aimed at highlighting the overlap and convergence between the natural sciences and the humanities, was renamed the Meredith-Donovan Lecture in honor of Donovan’s friendship with the Science Department’s Bill Meredith. The two scholars shared many interests and once co-taught a course.
John Donovan was a beloved member of his department and of the Mount faculty. His gentle manner and softly wry sense of humor exercised an ennobling influence on all those with whom he came in contact, and two decades of Mount students were fortunate to be graced by his quietly wise and knowing presence in their classrooms. He is remembered with the utmost fondness by all who knew him, most especially his wife Marilyn and sons Brian and Steven.
A Mass and celebration of life services will be held at Residences at Vantage Point in Columbia, Maryland, on Saturday, April 23 at 2 p.m.