Dr. Susan Martin has returned to the Classics faculty serving as Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville since 2008. Previously, she had served as senior vice provost.

Prior to her role as vice provost, Dr. Martin was associate dean of the UT Knoxville College of Arts and Sciences from 2000 to 2004, and prior to that spent nine years as a department head. She joined the faculty of the Department of Classics at UT Knoxville in 1981.

Born and raised in Berkeley, California, Dr. Martin received B.A. degrees in comparative literature (French and German, 1973) and classical philology (1976) from the University of California, Berkeley. She has M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in classical studies from the University of Michigan (1981). She spent a junior year abroad at the Université de Bordeaux (1971-72), was a fellow of the American Academy in Rome (1980-81) and a Liberal Arts Fellow in Law and Classics at Harvard Law School (1988-89).

Dr. Martin’s research focuses on Roman law of the classical period (50 B.C. – A.D. 250) with particular emphasis on its relationship to the society and economy of Rome. Her publications have focused on contract law and in particular, the organization of such essential functions as construction and transportation. She teaches Latin at all levels, as well as courses in Roman Law, and Women in Antiquity.

She has served as chair of the Advisory Council to the Classical School Committee of the American Academy in Rome and as President of the Tennessee Foreign Language Teaching Association. She was the recipient of the Jacqueline Elliott Award for Service in Higher Education from the TFLTA in 2003. She is past president of the Classical Association of the Middle West and South.