Poteat, William H.

See Box 1, Folder 1 for a more detailed chronology of Poteat's life and work, particularly as it relates to thought of Michael Polanyi.

• 1919 April 19: William Hardman Poteat (WHP) was born in China, the son of Baptist missionaries and a member of a long line of North Carolina educators. He spent the first ten years of his life in China.
• 1937: Completed his high school education in Raleigh, North Carolina
• 1941: B.A. degree from Oberlin College with Phi Beta Kappa honors
• 1944: B.D. Yale Divinity School
• 1944 - 1947 : Served as a program coordinator for the YMCA at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill
• 1947: Joined the faculty of the Philosophy Department at the University of North Carolina as instructor. Philosophy of Religion was immediately, and would remain throughout his teaching career, a major area of concentration.
• 1951: Ph.D. Duke University
• 1955: Having risen to the rank of associate professor at UNC, Poteat received an Outstanding Teaching Award in 1955
• 1958 - 1959 : Taught at Episcopal Theological Seminary of the Southwest, Austin, TX
• 1960 - 1987 : Joined Duke University Divinity School faculty as an associate professor of Christianity and Culture
• 1968 - 1987 : Joined the Department of Religion at Duke University, increasing his role in advising and directing doctoral theses
• 1968: Poteat and his colleague, Thomas A. Langford, completed their editorial work on Intellect and Hope: Essays in the Thought of Michael Polanyi, published that year by the Duke University Press for the Lilly Endowment Research Program in Christianity and Politics.
• 1969: Named to the National Humanities Faculty
• 1972 - 1978 : Chaired the Department of Religion at Duke University
• 1985: Polanyian Meditations: In Search of a Post-Critical Logic published by the Duke University Press
• 1987 - 2000 : Professor Emeritus, Duke University
• 1990: A Philosophical Daybook: Post-Critical Investigations published by the University of Missouri Press
• 1994: Recovering the Ground: Critical Exercises in Recollection published by the State University of New York Press
• 1994 - 1999 : Taught in the adult education program at Athens College (a part of the State University of New York system) in Greece, where his wife, Patricia Poteat, served as president, 1994 – 1999
• 2000 May 17: Died after an extended illness. He was survived by his wife, Patricia; three children, Susan Poteat Uhler; Anne Carlyle; and Edwin McNeill Poteat III; three grandchildren; and his two sisters, Haley McGill and Elizabeth Terry

From the guide to the William H. Poteat Papers, 1954-2010, (Yale University Divinity School Library)