James M. May
Provost and Dean,
Professor of Classics


Next Study Travel program:

Education: B.S. Ed. (Latin & English), Kent State University, 1973
Ph.D. (Classics), University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, 1977

Jim has taught at St. Olaf since 1977. He  received the American Philological Association's Award for Excellence in the Teaching of the Classics in 1986 and the Sears-Roebuck Foundation Teaching Excellence and Campus Leadership Award in 1991. He has served as the American Philological Association's Vice President for Education and as President of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South. He has held two NEH Fellowships and directed two NEH Summer Seminars for School Teachers. Currently he is Director of the APA's Classics Advisory Service and on its Board of Directors.

Jim is the author of many articles on Cicero, classical rhetoric and Latin pedagogy, as well as a book entitled Trials of Character: The Eloquence of Ciceronian Ethos, an annotated translation (co-authored with Jakob Wisse) of Cicero's On the Ideal Orator and a textbook, 38 Latin Stories (co-authored with Anne Groton). Most recently he edited a volume of essays, A Companion to Cicero: Rhetoric and Oratory.

In his spare time Jim competes in handball, restores antique tractors, builds harpsichords, plays baroque instruments, chants (Gregorian-style) and sings in a Renaissance chamber choir. Besides having visited Greece 24 times, his greatest claim to fame is having been one of 170 rowers who powered the trireme Olympias, replica of an ancient Greek warship, around the Aegean Sea in 1990 and 1993. He and Donna, a professional singer, choir director and high school music teacher, have two sons, Joseph and Michael.