Professor, Department of History
1989
Bio:
Frederic Hayes was born in Detroit in December 1916. He received his Ph. B. in history from the University of Detroit in 1940. His first teaching position, as a graduate assistant, came the same year in the History Department. In 1942 he earned a M. A., also from the University of Detroit. Shortly after, he entered the U. S. Naval Reserve where he served as a navigation and communications officer until 1946.
Mr. Hayes joined the University of Detroit as a full time instructor in 1946. He was promoted to assistant professor and tenured in 1953. Ten years later he became an associate professor. He was named chairman of the History Department in 1967 and full professor the following year, 1968. Mr. Hayes served as History Department chairman until 1973.
Throughout his years at the University of Detroit, Mr. Hayes served as a member of numerous administrative groups: Arts and Science Council, Graduate Council, Faculty Council, U. of D. Senate and Senate Executive Committee, Academic Affairs Council, U. of D. Athletic Board, U. of D. Student Publications Board, Experimental Division Committee, Liberal Arts College Rank and Tenure Committee, and Insignis Steering and Interviewing Committees.
Mr. Hayes also represented the University of Detroit in variety of ways. He served as Chairman of the Michigan Week Historical Committee, a member of the Library of Congress Ad Hoc Committee on Negro History, a member of the Advisory Commission on Historical Sites and Districts for the Detroit City Planning Commission, Chairman of the Redford Township Human Relations Council, and a regular panelist on Ask the Professor, a popular radio program broadcast on WJR and some 70 other radio stations.
In the ‘60s and ‘70s in addition to teaching at the University of Detroit, Mr. Hayes was also a visiting professor at Maryglade College in Memphis, Michigan; Marygrove College in Detroit; and Ohio University in Athens, Ohio.
Mr. Hayes was a frequent contributor of articles and reviews to various academic journals. A sampling of his writings includes: “Art, Society, and the ‘Ash Can’ Painters,” Western Humanities Review, 1963; “John Adams and American Sea Power,” The American Neptune, 1965; “Law and Authority in Colonial America,” University of Detroit Law Journal, 1966. A longer work entitled Michigan Catholicism in the Era of the Civil War for the Michigan Civil War Centennial Commission in 1965 received particular notice by historians nationwide.
Mr. Hayes was a member of the American Historical Association and the Urban History Group of the A. H. A.; the Association of American Historians; the Mississippi Valley Historical Association; the Michigan Academy of Science, Arts, and Letters; the Michigan Historical Association; the University of Detroit Academy of Arts and Sciences; Phi Alpha Theta; and Alpha Sigma Lambda.
Frederic Hayes retired in April of 1989 and was named Professor Emeritus by Fr. Robert Mitchell, S.J., President of University of Detroit on May 23,1989.