Richard A. Lafleur

Richard A. (Rick) LaFleur received the B.A. and M.A. in Latin from the University of Virginia and the Ph.D. in Classical Studies from Duke. He taught from 1972-2012 in the University of Georgia’s Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, where he served for 21 years as head of one of the largest Classics programs in North America and was appointed in 1998 to the chair of Franklin Professor of Classics.

He has numerous publications in Latin language, literature, and pedagogy, including the books The Teaching of Latin in American Schools: A Profession in Crisis, Latin Poetry for the Beginning Student, Love and Transformation: An Ovid Reader, Latin for the 21st Century: From Concept to Classroom, A Song of War: Readings from Vergil’s Aeneid (with Alexander G. McKay), Scribblers, Scvlptors, and Scribes, Ubi Fera Sunt (the authorized Latin translation of Maurice Sendak’s children’s classic, Where the Wild Things Are), The Secret Lives of Words: From Rome to Apalachicola, and the revised editions of Wheelock’s Latin, Wheelock’s Latin Reader, and (with Paul Comeau) Workbook for Wheelock’s Latin.

Professor LaFleur served as editor of The Classical Outlook for nearly 25 years and is a past President of the American Classical League. He has been recipient of more than a million dollars in grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other agencies, and of state, regional, and national awards for teaching and professional service, including the Society for Classical Studies Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics, the American Classical League Meritus Award, and the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages Anthony Papalia Award for Excellence in Teacher Education.

He rejoices in his three children (Jean-Paul, Caroline, and Kimberley), two step-children (Sara Jane and Tip), and nine grandchildren (Zachary, Jackson, Lucas, Anna, Charlotte, Olivia, Savannah, Dylan, and Matthew), and joyfully resides with his beautiful and talented wife Alice in the home she designed for them on the banks of Lake Oglethorpe, near Athens, Georgia. His Facebook group, “Latin in the Real World”—fun and informative in near equal measure—numbers over 4,000 members.