15th annual Moran Address at FMU presented by Dr. Jon Tuttle

Dr. Jon Tuttle, director of FMU Honors and professor of English, delivered the 15th Annual William C. Moran Address on Wednesday at the Francis Marion University Performing Arts Center in downtown Florence.

The Moran Address has traditionally been a platform for retiring or recently retired faculty to deliver remarks encompassing thoughts and ideas from their area of study and life experiences.

Tuttle’s address, entitled I Guess It’s Time, featured Keith Best, professor of Theatre Arts, and provided a look back on his life and time at Francis Marion.

He received his undergraduate degree from the University of Utah and earned both his master’s and doctoral degrees in English from the University of New Mexico. Tuttle joined the faculty of Francis Marion in 1990. He has served as the director of FMU Honors since 2013. During his tenure at the university, he was appointed a Board of Trustees Research Scholar in 2005, received the Faculty Research Award in 2010, was named Distinguished Professor in 2010, and received an honorary doctorate of humanities in 2023.

A brilliant playwright, his plays have received nearly 150 productions in thirty-three states. He has also won numerous awards including the Sprenger-Lang History Play Award and a silver medal in the Pinter Review International Prize competition. Tuttle has published three short stories, one of which won the Porter-Fleming Award. 

He has served on the boards of the Florence Regional Arts Alliance, South Carolina Academy of Authors, and the Jasper Project. In 2020, he received the South Carolina Governor’s Award in the Humanities and in 2023, received the South Carolina Theater Association’s Lifetime Service Award.

The Moran Address has been an FMU tradition since 2005 and is named after Dr. William C. Moran, FMU’s Vice President of Academic Affairs from 1978-1992. Moran, who went on to become president of Lander University after leaving FMU, is remembered for his many civic, academic, and cultural contributions to South Carolina. He was presented the Governor’s Award in the Humanities in 2008.

The Moran Address is made possible thanks to a generous endowment from the Moran family.