Ambrose Burke

Monsignor Ambrose J. Burke (November 27, 1895 – October 6, 1998) was an English professor and Catholic priest who served as the eighth president of Saint Ambrose University (then Saint Ambrose College) from 1940 through 1956. A native of Iowa, he attended the college's high school program, and then the college itself, but was expelled from the seminary for a year and a half by the school's administrator for planning an evening of carousing. He eventually acquired a master's degree and a doctorate in English from Yale University and returned to St. Ambrose in 1921 as an instructor. He was appointed the school's president in 1940 and served for sixteen years, then the longest tenure of any St. Ambrose president. He worked as a pastor and a chaplain for many decades after and remained active until shortly before his death in October 1998, at the age of 102.

Early life Burke was born November 27, 1895, in Sigourney, Iowa. At the age of 14 he attended St. Ambrose Academy in Davenport, Iowa, which was then the high school program for Saint Ambrose University (then known as Saint Ambrose College) and has now been merged into Assumption High School. He then moved on to St. Ambrose College, but was expelled in his second year when his plans to go carousing were discovered by the school authorities. He was not permitted to return to the seminary for a year and a half. He was eventually ordained a priest of the Catholic Church in 1921 in Baltimore, Maryland. and returned to St. Ambrose in 1921 as an English instructor, eventually becoming the head of the department. For his 100th birthday he celebrated a public mass in Clinton and attended a party the following day at St. Ambrose. He died on October 6, 1998, at the age of 102, in Clinton and was buried in Mount Calvary Cemetery in Davenport.