Provost's Biography
James J. O'Donnell has been Provost of Georgetown University since 2002. He is a distinguished scholar and recognized innovator in the application of networked information technology in higher education. In addition to his duties as Provost, O'Donnell is a member of the faculty of Georgetown's Classics department. He has served as president of the American Philological Association, the primary professional association for classicists in the United States and Canada, and has been elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America.
O'Donnell has published widely and lectured extensively on the cultural history of the late antique Mediterranean world and the application of technology in higher education. In 2000, he chaired a National Academy of Science expert study group reviewing the role of information technology in the services and strategies of the Library of Congress; this report was published as LC21: A Digital Strategy for the Library of Congress. He is the author of five books, including a three-volume edition of Augustine's Confessions. His latest book, Augustine: A New Biography, was published by HarperCollins in 2005. In 1990, O'Donnell co-founded the Bryn Mawr Classical Review, the second on-line scholarly journal ever created in the humanities. He is a Trustee of the National Humanities Center. Prior to his positions at the University of Pennsylvania, O'Donnell taught at Bryn Mawr College, The Catholic University of America and Cornell University. He has also held visiting appointments at Johns Hopkins University, the University of Washington and Yale University.
O'Donnell came to Georgetown University from the University of Pennsylvania, where he served as Vice Provost for Information Systems and Computing and as a Professor of Classical Studies. He earned a bachelor's degree Phi Beta Kappa and was elected Latin Salutatorian at Princeton University in 1972. He earned his doctorate from Yale University in 1975.