President Frank Wang, Ph.D., has been awarded the Meritorious Service award by the Jeannine Rainbolt College of Education at the University of Oklahoma. The award will be given at its annual Celebration of Education in Oklahoma virtual event to be held Friday, April 16 at 6:30 p.m. 

“Receiving the Meritorious Service Award from OU’s College of Education is particularly meaningful to me because my life’s primary motivation is service, and my life’s mission is about paying forward to the next generation the wonderful education I have received,” said Dr. Wang.  “I had a successful first career as a textbook publisher and left that job at my career’s peak to pursue my lifelong passion and desire to be a classroom teacher.  My exhortation to young people is at some moment in their lives – perhaps after they have achieved success in their field of endeavor – to answer the call to service and to give back to the community that so fervently and earnestly invested in them.” 

He continued, “I thank two people that I know have nominated me for this award, Judge Robert Henry and Dr. Sharon Lease, prior winners of the Award of Distinction and Career Achievement Award respectively.  I am humbled to be in the company of former winners of the Meritorious Service award, including Jeannine and Gene Rainbolt, the Oklahoma Foundation for Excellence and Lou Kerr.” 

After stepping down as chairman of Saxon Publishers in 2003, Dr. Wang taught at both OSSM and the University of Oklahoma.  At OSSM, he declined a salary, while at OU he earned a modest stipend and donated his earnings to sponsor the OU Libraries’ “Books that Inspire” exhibit.   

As a graduate student at MIT, Dr. Wang co-authored a widely used high school calculus textbook that was published when he was only 23 years old. After graduation from MIT, Dr. Wang went to work at Saxon Publishers, Inc., where he later became its President and CEO in 1994. Under his leadership, Saxon Publishers grew to become a major textbook publisher, with 250 employees and annual sales approaching $100 million. 

In 2012 Dr. Wang was appointed to his current role as President of OSSM.