Robert C. Vaughan, III
Rob Vaughan is founding president and CEO of Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, founding
director of the South Atlantic Humanities Center, and a member of the faculty of the University
of Virginia where he taught for 35 years in the College of Arts and Sciences (English) and in the
Darden School (MBA and Executive Education Programs). Among his publications are The
Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom: Its Evolution and Consequences in American History
(Cambridge), A New Perspective: Southern Women’s Cultural History (Charlottesville), and The
South (Greenwood). He has published articles and delivered papers in the humanities at MLA,
SAMLA, AHA, ACLS, the Aspen Institute, Stanford, and GWU, among other institutions, and is a
frequent speaker on the humanities in the public interest to institutions including the Congress,
the National Conference of State Legislators and numerous civic, cultural, and educational
institutions. In Fall 2009, he was a professor on Semester at Sea, teaching courses on religious
freedom, the U.S. South, and nonprofit leadership. In May 2010, he delivered the Frederick M.
Miller Memorial Lecture at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania on “The Humanities Challenge:
Building for the Future.”
Rob has served as a founder and president of the National Humanities Alliance, president of the
Ash Lawn Opera Festival, vice president of SOLINET (the Southeastern Library Network), and
secretary of the American Shakespeare Center. He is currently chair of the Lincoln Bicentennial
Committee and the Emancipation Proclamation Monument Committee for Virginia. He also
serves on the boards of the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Commission, Tupelo Press, the
Virginia Association of Museums, and Virginia’s World War I Memorial Commission. He was an
advisory editor of the Virginia Quarterly Review and founding president of the Center for
Nonprofit Excellence. Rob has served as a judge for the John Dos Passos Prize in American
Literature, for the State Council of Higher Education Outstanding Faculty Awards in Virginia, and
for the Carnegie Foundation/CASE National Professors of the Year Awards. He was recently the
commencement speaker at Averett University and previously at Virginia Wesleyan College and
The Highland School and received the first annual Ann Brownson Award for Dedication to the
Museum Profession, the VFH 25th Anniversary Award for Leadership in the Humanities, the
Public Service Award from the Virginia Social Science Association, and the Lifetime Achievement
Award from Piedmont Council for the Arts. In 2008 he was awarded a Doctor of Humane Letters
by Averett University. Most recently, Rob received the Founding Cville award from Tom Tom
Founders Festival (2014), the President’s Award from Preservation Virginia (2015), and a Doctor
of Humane Letters degree from Washington and Lee University (2016).
Rob is a former chairman of the national Federation of State Humanities Councils and a past
president of Piedmont Council for the Arts. He has served as a member of the boards of the
Library of Virginia, APVA-Preservation Virginia and its Executive Committee, the Charlottesville
Oratorio Society, the University of Utah Humanities Center, the National Coordinating
Committee for the Commemoration of the 250th Anniversary of Thomas Jefferson’s Birth, and
the Program Committee for Jamestown 1607 - 2007. He has been a consultant to the University
of North Carolina, the West Virginia Board of Regents, Hendrix College, Virginia Tech, the
American Council of Learned Societies, and various humanities and non-profit organizations. He
has also served as regional chairman of the capital campaign for Washington and Lee University,
moderator for the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce Leadership Charlottesville
program, co-chair for the Create Charlottesville/Albemarle cultural plan, and Elder on the
Session of Westminster Presbyterian Church.
Rob received his B.A. from Washington and Lee University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in English
from the University of Virginia. For two years before graduate school, he taught English, directed
two choral groups, coached a state champion track team, and advised the literary magazine at
the Episcopal High School.
Rob has performed professionally as MacHeath in The Beggars Opera, Emile de Becque in South
Pacific, and Mr. Snow in Carousel, among many other musical productions, performances, and
recitals from Maine to Florida. Rob is married to Ellen Parlette from Tulsa. His special interests
are poetry, music, water sports, and his children—Hailey (1972) married to Richard Robertson in
2002, Liz (1975) married to Jeffrey Coonse in 2000, and Rob (1985) and his grandsons, Schuyler
Hart Coonse (2003), Dylan Barnwell Coonse (2005), and Richard Holden Robertson (2007).