Public Service Fellow
B.A., 1950, Yale University
J.D., 1956, University of Arkansas at Fayetteville
Honorary degrees
Litt.D., College of the Ozarks
L.L.D., Harding University
Congressman Thornton became the first UALR Bowen School of Law Public Service Fellow in 2005. Before his election as Associate Justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court in 1996, Thornton served as Arkansas’s Second District Congressman for six years. He has also served as President of the University of Arkansas System, President of Arkansas State University, Arkansas’s Fourth District Congressman, and Arkansas's Attorney General. From 1956 to 1970, he engaged in the private practice of law.
Thornton has been a member of the Committee on Government/Industry Cooperation in Biomedical Research of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences. He served both as Chairman of the Committee on Science, Engineering and Public Policy of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and as Chairman of the National Institutes of Health Recombinant DNA Advisory Committee. He also chaired the state Board of Law Examiners, served as a corporate officer in a number of business enterprises, and represented clients in matters relating to finance, government regulation, antitrust litigation, utility litigation, and patenting and licensing.
Thornton is the author of a number of publications, including a chapter in Recombinant DNA and Genetic Experimentation and the book A. J. Stephens: As Remembered by His Family, a tribute to his grandfather. He received the 1979 Winthrop Rockefeller Award for Contributions to Human Services in Arkansas and the National Humanitarian Award from the Arkansas Council of the NCCJ in 1986. He served in the U. S. Navy for three years, including combat duty during the Korean War.
E-mail: rhthornton@ualr.edu
Revised: 2/14/2008