Robert M. Adams ’59

Bob, one of eight ordained ministers in our class, died April 16, 2024, in Montgomery, N.J.

Born in Philadelphia, Bob graduated from East High School in Rochester, N.Y., where he was named a Regents Scholar. At Princeton, he majored in philosophy and was a member of Prospect Club, the Student Christian Association, the Westminster Foundation, Phi Beta Kappa, and recipient of the Stinnecke Prize for the highest marks on a rigorous three-hour exam in Greek and Latin. He went on to study at Oxford, obtaining an M.A. in theology, then to Princeton Theological Seminary, from which he received a divinity degree in 1962. He completed his academic education with a Ph.D. in philosophy from Cornell in 1969, where he met wife-to-be, Marilyn McCord, who was also studying for the ministry.

Both Bob and Marilyn were educators and publishers, holding sequential faculty positions at the University of Michigan, UCLA, and Yale (where Bob helped to transform a struggling philosophy department into one of the 10 foremost in the world), then to Oxford before taking joint positions at the University of North Carolina and then at Rutgers.

Marilyn succumbed to pancreatic cancer two years after they retired in 2017. Bob is survived by a niece, a nephew, and several great-nieces and great-nephews.