Margaret Hayford O’Leary has been teaching at St. Olaf College since 1977. She did her graduate work at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and her undergraduate degree at Concordia College (Moorhead). She specializes in language pedagogy, particularly the use of technology in teaching Norwegian. Her first foray into language teaching materials was in the early 1990s when she co-authored a textbook for intermediate Norwegian, Norsk i sammenheng. More recently she co-authored a CD-ROM for learning Norwegian called KlikkNorsk.

Margaret travels to Norway as often as possible, and spent her sabbatical at the University of Oslo in 2002-2003. She has also led several study tours to Norway and Scandinavia, including two for Smithsonian and two for St. Olaf College Center for Life-Long Learning. In 2005 she led a companion tour to the St. Olaf College band, choir and orchestra tours of Norway, and in the summers, she teaches at the Oslo International Summer School.

Professor O’Leary lives in Northfield, MN with her husband and youngest child. Her older son is a student at Concordia College (Moorhead) and her daughter graduated from St. Olaf in 2002 and attends William Mitchell law school.

Vita