Dr. Raymond Frederick Betts was an American academic and historian. After completing undergraduate studies at Rutgers University in 1949 and receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree, he earned his MA from Columbia University only a year later, in 1950. He earned his PhD, also from Columbia University, in 1958 (according to one source he also received a doctoral degree from the Université Grenoble in 1955). Professor Betts began his academic career as an assistant professor at Bryn Mawr College in 1956. In 1961 he moved to Grinnell College in Iowa, where he spent ten years, initially as an associate professor. In 1971 he accepted a position as professor of history at the University of Kentucky, where he spent the remainder of his career, retiring in 1990. Professor Betts was considered to be one of the world's foremost authorities on the history of French colonialism.