Francis X. Sutton *40

Francis Sutton, social scientist and longtime official of the Ford Foundation, died Dec. 18, 2012. He was 95.

Sutton graduated from Temple in 1938, and earned a master’s degree in math from Princeton in 1940. He was an officer in the Army Air Corps from 1941 to 1945, and in 1950 he earned a Ph.D. in sociology from Harvard, where he taught from 1949 to 1954.

From 1954 to 1967, Sutton was a program officer and overseas representative of the Ford Foundation, and from 1968 to 1983 he was a deputy, and then acting vice president. From 1983 to 1985, he was a consultant for the Ford Foundation and Harvard. From 1985 to 1986, Sutton was the acting president of the Social Sciences Research Council and then chair of its board of directors from 1988 to 1992.

From 1990 to 1992, he was the acting director of the Rockefeller Study and Conference Center in Bellagio, Italy. He also was a consultant to other domestic and international organizations, and the Aga Khan.  

Sutton’s wife Ruth, whom he had married in 1948, predeceased him in 2002. He is survived by their four children and five grandchildren.

Graduate memorials are prepared by the APGA.