Joseph M. Shaw
Professor Emeritus of Religion 
Joseph M. Shaw joined the Religion Department faculty in 1957. He is a graduate of St. Olaf College, Class of 1949. He studied at Luther Theological Seminary from 1949 to 1953, receiving the B. Th. degree in May of 1953. While a student at Luther theological Seminary, he received a Fulbright scholarship for study in Norway, 1951-52. His first book, Pulpit under the Sky: A Life of Hans Nielsen Hauge, was a result of that year of study.
After graduating from Luther Seminary, Shaw went to Princeton Theological Seminary to study New Testament with Dr. Otto A. Piper. With a fellowship from the American Scandinavian Foundation, he and his wife, Mary Virginia, went to Norway for the 1955-56 school year where he continued work on his doctoral dissertation, "The Concept of 'The People of God' in Recent Biblical Research." The Th.D. degree was received in June of 1958. Some years later, the Princeton Theological Seminary Board of Trustees allowed recipients of the Th. D., if they wished, to have the name of the degree changed to Doctor of Philosophy, Ph.D. Dr. Shaw was among many who elected to make this change.
During 34 years of teaching in the Department of Religion at St. Olaf, Shaw taught the introductory bible course, church history for a few years, and upper level courses in New Testament. He also taught Greek for a few years and served as acting chairman of the Classical Languages Department the year after Professor Bert Narveson retired, 1964-65. Early in the 1970s, President Sidney Rand asked him to write the centenial history of the College, published in 1974, the centennial year, as History of St. Olaf College 1874-1974.
With colleagues from the College of St. Catherine, Luther College, and St. John's University, Joseph Shaw became involved in the Christian Humanism project with grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities in the late seventies. New courses were added to the curriculum, festivals were presented at the four colleges, and two publications were produced, Readings in Christian Humanism and The Case for Christian Humanism.
Thanks to the pioneering work of Dr. Ansgar Sovik in foreign study, Shaw had the opportunity to accompany students abroad on St. Olaf programs. In 1969 he assisted Sovik on the first Rome Interim. He went to Rome to assist Harold Ditmanson in 1974 and led the Rome Interim in 1975. Dr. and Mrs. Shaw supervised the Mideast Semester in 1981-82 and the Mexico Interim in 1983.
Dr. Shaw served as chair of the Religion Department from 1985 to 1988. He retired from teaching in the spring of 1991. Since retirement he has worked on College history projects. He published Dear Old Hill, a book about the St. Olaf campus, in 1992. He has been working on a biography of Bernt Julius Muus, founder of St. Olaf College. He also completed a book on the history of the St. Olaf Choir.
