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Under Father Cooke’s leadership, Canisius has invested nearly $117 million in 17 major capital projects on the Main Street campus, including a complete renovation of the college’s signature classroom building, Old Main, Lyons Hall, and the construction of two townhouse complexes and a high-rise residence hall. Plans for an interdisciplinary science center in the BlueCross BlueShield building are underway.
Educating our students for the demands of our ever-changing world is a high priority for Father Cooke. New majors in emerging fields such as bioinformatics, international business, accounting information systems, health and human performance and digital media arts have recently been added to Canisius’ comprehensive curriculum. Year in and year out, Canisius produces outstanding student outcomes in every school and department of the college.
Father Cooke received high marks in a Buffalo News poll of Western New York leaders which ranked Father Cooke as the second most influential civic leader and the college as the second most influential institution overall in terms of their positive impact on the community. Father Cooke was also recognized by The Buffalo News as one of its Outstanding Citizens for 2001 and named the 2003 Renaissance Man by the Buffalo Renaissance Foundation (BRF). In 2004 he received the Liberty Bell Law Award from the Erie County Bar Association for service to the community and was inducted into the Junior Achievement Business Leadership Hall of Fame as its 2004 Educator of the Year. He received the 2005 Humanitarian Award from the Niagara Lutheran Foundation.
Prior to joining the Canisius community, Father Cooke served as executive and academic vice president of John Carroll University. Born in New York and raised in Hoboken, NJ, Father Cooke received a bachelor of arts degree from Fordham University in 1960; a Licentiate in philosophy from Loyola Seminary, Shrub Oak, in 1961; master’s degrees in teaching and philosophy in 1962 and 1965; respectively, from Fordham; advanced theology degrees from Woodstock College in 1967 and Yale University in 1968; and a doctorate from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 1971. Father Cooke’s academic area of expertise focuses on ethics, the theory of knowledge and the philosophy of language.
Author of numerous scholarly articles and book reviews, Father Cooke is assistant editor of the International Philosophical Quarterly. He is currently a member of the board of trustees of Fordham University, and a member of the finance committee of the New York Province of the Society of Jesus.