On June 2, 2022, At the age of 79 our beloved father Dr. William P. Collins passed gently away in his home in Birmingham, Al. He is survived by his two daughters, Felicity Anne Collins and Erin Kathleen Collins as well as his sister Betty Gray Kuenun. He follows in death our brother Matthew Nathaniel Collins, his mother Mary L. Collins and his grandparents, Clara and William Loudy. In life he was an active member of St. Paul's Cathedral Catholic Church and a dedicated professor at Samford University. He loved learning for the sake of learning and passed that love on to everyone he encountered. He also had an eye and appreciation for beauty in this world and found great pleasure in music, Bach's Goldberg Variations being his favorite. 

Bill was an award-winning professor who influenced generations of students, whom he loved to teach. He was dedicated to political science, his area of study but also loved chess; literature, particularly Dante and Shakespeare; and the history of philosophy and theology, particularly Thomas Aquinas. Bill was a convert to Roman Catholicism and spent sabbaticals studying at the Vatican and retreats at the Trappist monastery in Conyers, Georgia. Beyond his immediate family, his sister, niece and great nieces, he was the loved patriarch of his seven cousins and second and third generation cousins too numerous to count.