Professor Emeritus William A. Link received his Ph.D. in 1981 in American history from the University of Virginia, his M.A. in 1979 from the University of Virginia, and his B.A. in 1976 from Davidson College. He joined the University of Florida Department of History in 2004 after twenty-three years on the faculty of the University of North Carolina at Greensboro. He has published A Hard Country and a Lonely Place: Schooling, Society, and Reform in Rural Virginia, 1870-1920 (1986),The Paradox of Southern Progressivism 1880-1920 (1992), William Friday: Power and Purpose in American Higher Education (1995), Roots of Secession: Slavery and Politics in Antebellum Virginia (2003), and Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism (2008). He retired from the faculty in 2022.