Francis Leo Lawrence (August 25, 1937 – April 16, 2013)[1] was an American educator and scholar specializing in French literature and university administrator.

For his contributions to this field, Lawrence was awarded the honor of Chevalier dans L'Ordre des Palmes Académiques by the French government.

Lawrence earned his bachelor's degree from St. Louis University in French and Italian in 1959, where he met his future wife Mary Kay at the beginning of his freshman year.

He was awarded an NDEA fellowship for graduate study and earned a Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) degree in French classical literature from Tulane University in 1962.

Comments made in 1994, in which Lawrence urged that higher education should not be denied to disadvantaged students who might lack the "genetic, hereditary background" to perform well on standardized tests, were publicized in 1995.