The late Robert T. Francoeur, third recipient of The Center for Sex Education’s (CSE) Golden Brick Award, is often remembered by colleagues and friends as a visionary in the field of sexual education and education in general.
A fellow of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and past president of the Society’s Eastern Region, he is also a charter member of the American College of Sexology. He served as professor of biological and allied health sciences at Fairleigh Dickinson University, adjunct professor in the doctoral Program in Human Sexuality at New York University, and professor in the New York University “Sexuality in Two Cultures†program in Copenhagen.
Dr. Francoeur’s main work was to synthesize and integrate the findings of primary sexological researchers. He was the author of 22 books, contributor to 78 textbooks, handbooks, and encyclopedias, author of 58 technical papers on various aspects of sexuality, and editor-in-chief of The Complete Dictionary of Sexology (1991, 1995).
He considered his last work, the award-winning Continuum Complete International Encyclopedia of Sexuality (2004), which he edited with Ray Noonan, to be his legacy that would live on. Its crowning achievement was that the entire book was made available to students and scholars worldwide for free and open access at the website of The Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender, and
Reproduction (www.kinseyinstitute.org/ccies).
He is also credited with helping to introduce and popularize the controversial French philosopher and Jesuit priest, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, to American audiences. He wrote the forward to the first English translation of Teilhard’s writing, The Appearance of Man, in 1965. He founded The American Teilhard de Chardin Association in 1964, and served as its first president.
His books include The Scent of Eros: Mysteries of Odor in Human Sexuality (1995), Becoming a Sexual Person (1982, 1984, 1991) and Taking Sides: Clashing Views on Controversial Issues in Human Sexuality (1987, 1989, 1991, 1993, 1998, 2000) – two college textbooks, Utopian Motherhood: New Trends in Human Reproduction (1970, 1974, 1977), Eve’s New Rib: 20 Faces of Sex, Marriage, and Family (1972), Hot and Cool Sex: Cultures in Conflict (1974), and The Future of Sexual Relations (1974).
Dr. Francoeur earned a B.A. in philosophy and English at Sacred Heart College in 1953, a M.A. in Catholic theology at Saint Vincent College in 1957, a M.S. in biology at the University of Detroit in 1961, a Ph.D. in experimental embryology at the University of Delaware in 1967, and an A.C.S. in sexology at the Institute for the Advanced Study of Human Sexuality in 1979. He received the “Golden Brick Award” from The Center for Sex Education for outstanding contributions to sexuality education in 2008 and was chosen by the German Society for Social-Scientific Sexuality Research to receive the Magnus Hirschfeld Medal for Sexual Reform in 2008. Dr. Francoeur passed away in 2012.