Family, friends and students mourn the death of William Cocke Mullen, of New York City and Annandale-on-Hudson, NY, on November 2, 2017.

A professor at Bard College where he helped develop the Classics Program, he started the West Point–Bard Public Speaking Exchange and introduced rhetoric to the Bard Prison Initiative. He brought The Readers of Homer (a nonprofit organization that provides a method for reading Homer's epics aloud in a continuous audience-participation format) to Bard. In 2013–14, he served as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the United States Air Force Academy where he encouraged students to relate classical heroism to modern war.

A graduate of Harvard and the University of Texas, he published Choreia: Pindar and Dance , with the Princeton University Press. Mullen's special interest was Greek and Latin and the Western classical tradition.

Curious in every sense of the word, he searched for the classical origins of topics as diverse as Chinese poetry and planetary movement's influence on ancient myths.  He sailed the Baltic Sea with students to investigate whether the Iliad had taken place there instead of in the Mediterranean.

Predeceased by his sister Elizabeth Mullen (Reilly) Cobb, he is survived by four siblings: Talmage (Eric) Steele, Joseph (Patricia) Mullen, Janet Den Uyl and Christopher (Alison) Mullen, and eleven nieces and nephews. Contributions may be made to Bard College online at Annandaleonline.org/bcf .

A memorial service will be conducted at Bard College May 7, 2018, 11AM. Arrangements were entrusted with the Joseph J. Darrow Sr. Funeral Home Inc. 39 So Hamilton St. Poughkeepsie, NY 12601 845-452-1840