Francis J. Leazes Jr.

Francis J. Leazes Jr. is a Professor of Political Science and Public Administration at Rhode Island College, where he has taught since the 1980s. A member of Phi Beta Kappa, he is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross (B.A. History) and holds graduate degrees from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst (M.A. History) and the University of Connecticut–Storrs (Master of Public Affairs; Ph.D. Political Science). He helped establish and then became director of the cooperative Rhode Island College/University of Rhode Island M.P.A. Program for 20 years and currently directs the newly established undergraduate degree program in Public Administration at Rhode Island College. He is the author of numerous papers and articles on Nonprofit and Public Administration and has contributed chapters to books on the same. He is co-author (with colleague Mark T. Motte) of Providence: The Renaissance City (Northeastern University Press, 2004), a political and historical analysis of the transformation of Providence between 1960 and 2000. He currently is the Director of a Rhode Island Council for the Humanities-funded project entitled “Unearthing the North Burial Ground,” which is designing and implementing a series of web-based and mobile-app themed tours of the historic North Burial Ground in Providence.