Jan Willis


Janice Dean Willis, or Jan Willis is Professor of Religion, Emerita at Wesleyan University, where she has taught 1977 to 2013; and the author of books on Tibetan Buddhism. She has been called influential by Time Magazine, Newsweek, and Ebony Magazine. Aetna Inc.'s 2011 African American History Calendar features professor Willis as one of thirteen distinguished leaders of faith-based health initiatives in the United States. She taught part-time at Agnes Scott College from 2014 to 2020.
Willis grew up in Docena, Alabama, as the daughter of a Baptist deacon and steelworker. While traveling through Asia during the early 1970s, she became the student of Tibetan lama Thubten Yeshe, who encouraged her academic pursuits. She received BA and MA degrees in philosophy from Cornell University, and a Ph.D. in Indic and Buddhist Studies from Columbia University.
Since 2006, she has contributed to the group blog On Faith alongside Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu, and Madeleine Albright, among others. In 2003, she was awarded Wesleyan University's Binswanger Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

Publications

She is the author of the following books: