Professor of English in the College of Arts and Sciences,  Billingsley is a native of Oklahoma. He received his B.A. magna cum laude in English and history from Texas Christian University (1972), where he was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He was a Rotary International Fellow at the University of St. Andrews, Scotland (1972-73), and returned to the United States for graduate study in Renaissance literature at Yale University, where he earned the M.A. (1974), M.Phil. (1975), and Ph.D. (1977). His dissertation, "Pageants and the Vision of Order in Spenser's Poetry," written under the direction of A. B. Giamatti, examines the continental pageant tradition as a model for the ecphrastic passages in The Faerie Queene and the minor poems of Edmund Spenser.  

He joined the English faculty of the University of Louisville in 1978. In addition to courses in Renaissance literature, he has taught freshman composition, British literature survey and undergraduate courses on classical literature, university honors seminars on "science in literature" and book history, and senior honors English seminars; graduate courses in bibliography and research methods and on Spenser, Shakespeare, Milton and cognitive stylistics.  He has been director or faculty reader for more than sixty independent studies, theses and dissertations.  He has published on Thomas More and his circle in Moreana and Studies in English Literature, on Plato in Georgia Review and College Literature, and on Mandeville, Gascoigne, Shakespeare, and Twain in various journals. His studies of early printed editions of Euclid's Elements have appeared in Fifteenth- Century Studies and the University of Louisville Library Review.  He also served as director of freshman interdisciplinary studies (1981-82), director of undergraduate studies in English (1983-86) and director of the university honors program (1986-89).  In 1988 he was elected to the Executive Committee and in 1992 to the chair of the Faculty Senate, in which role he also served as the faculty trustee on the university board of trustees (1992-94). 

His administrative service has included appointments as acting assistant provost for internal affairs (1995-97), acting associate provost for institutional effectiveness and assessment (2002-03), associate (2003-2007) and university vice provost for undergraduate affairs (2007-2016), and acting executive vice president and university provost (2016-2018). In July 1997, he began working half-time on the project management team for the university's implementation of Project ORION, an administrative software system.  In January 1999 he returned to service on the provost's senior staff as faculty liaison, working with the faculty senate and the division of information technology. 

In undergraduate affairs, he served as the provost's liaison to the undergraduate academic units and had general responsibility for Ideas to Action, the university's 2007 SACS quality enhancement plan; for academic support services including REACH, undergraduate advising, and first-year initiatives; and for the university's division of enrollment management including undergraduate admissions, financial aid, and student records as well as military and veterans student services, tuition residency and commencement. He was the university's liaison to Metropolitan College, the Council on Postsecondary Education for undergraduate academics, Jefferson County Public Schools, and various related agencies.  He was named acting university provost 15 August 2016, serving under interim presidents Neville Pinto and  Greg Postel. 

Billingsley has been active in student development and student life projects throughout his career.  In 1998 he received the university Trustees' Award for his contributions to the student experience at the university. In 2005 he received the Chris Mattingly Award from the McConnell Scholars for outstanding community leadership.  In 2007 he received the College of Arts and Sciences and the university Distinguished Service Awards for career of service. In 2009 he received the Harold Adams Award from the university's Office of Student Affairs.  His national awards include recognition as the 2009 National Resource Center for First-Year Experience Outstanding Advocate for First-Year Students and the 2016 National Academic Advising Association (NACADA) Michael C. Holen National Pacesetter Award for senior administrators who support post-secondary academic advising.

He and his spouse Lin Blackwell Billingsley, who retired in 2008 as administrative assistant in the Women's Studies Program, have four children, all of whom attended the University of Louisville, and five grandchildren.

Curriculum vitae