Frank W. Fox

Frank W. Fox is a professor emeritus of American history at Brigham Young University from 1971 until his retirement in 2006. He is recognized for developing the American Heritage program with emeritus professor Clayne L. Pope, under the direction of the First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He also developed the History Department’s graduate curriculum.

BYU Magazine included him in its “Top 10 BYU Professors of the 20th Century” article in 1999.

In front of hundreds of young adults he has swallowed goldfish, taken pie in the face, and kissed a pig. And in 1998 Frank W. Fox gave perhaps his greatest performance. When his American Heritage students raised more than $16,000 for Sub-for-Santa, Fox donned a pink tutu and tights and pirouetted around the Joseph Smith Building Auditorium to the tune of the Nutcracker Suite.

“He wants the kids to personally become involved in the inequalities of the world,” says Linda L. Jensen, American Heritage coordinator. And so he dances in pink and puckers for snouts if his students reach their goal.

Such showmanship is typical of Fox’s classes. A normally reserved person, however, Fox says his personality transforms in front of an audience. “I can’t tell you why, but I’ve always been a ham in public,” he says, recalling how at age 6 he drew laughter from the congregation in a Church talk.

At BYU his audience is some 2,500 American Heritage students each fall semester (in four sections). While teaching economics and history and political science, he auctions doughnuts and sings songs and shows movie clips. Though he’s been teaching the course for some 18 years, he still spends significant time preparing his lectures. And his students still love his three-times weekly performances. . . .

Fox now seeks to help BYU students see differently. That’s essentially the purpose behind the Sub-for-Santa project. “It has to do with my really strongly held belief that education has to have a purpose,” he says. “We’re not just spewing out information for information’s sake. We want to change lives, and you can’t do that with lectures and tests. The students have to do something.”[1]

Fox received the Karl G. Maeser Distinguished Teaching Award in 1984 and the Karl G. Maeser General Education Professorship in 1987. He has also received Teacher of the Year and Teacher of the Month awards. He is the author of J. Reuben Clark: The Public Years; The American Founding; and he cowrote (with Pope) City upon a Hill: The Legacy of America’s Founding. In October 2020, he spoke openly about opposing US president Donald Trump.