Greenleaf, Richard E.

Richard E. Greenleaf (photo from CSWR vertical files)

Dr. Richard E. Greenleaf earned three degrees at UNM: a bachelor's in Government in 1953, a master's in Inter-American Affairs in 1954, and a Ph.D. in History and Political Theory in 1957. To prepare his dissertation on Mexico's first bishop, Juan de Zumárraga, and the Mexican Inquisition, he worked under the direction of Prof. France Vinton Scholes, one of UNM's most esteemed scholars and for whom Scholes Hall was named. Dr. Greenleaf began his teaching career at the now-defunct University of Albuquerque while he was working on his master's degree. As a graduate student, he studied in Mexico City and enjoyed the cultural vibrancy so much that he began teaching history and international relations at the Universidad de las Américas (UDLA) in Puebla.

By the time he returned to the United States in 1969, some 14 years later, he had become dean of UDLA's Graduate School of Inter-American Studies. For the next 29 years, Greenleaf built the Latin American Studies Program at Tulane University, where he became an expert in the history of the Catholic Church and the economics of colonial Latin America. During that time, he served as director of Tulane's Center for Latin American Studies, chaired the History Department, led the Mesoamerican Ecology Institute and was installed as the France Vinton Scholes Chair in Colonial Latin American History. He authored 11 major books, served as co-author or contributor to 17 others and published nearly 50 articles in the fields of Latin American and New Mexico history. Dr. Greenleaf died on November 8, 2011.