Parisian for New Haven

While presidents pass the hat for funds, the chief educators at famed universities these days are the deans of undergraduate colleges. So it is at Yale College, where for 25 years "Dean of Deans" William C. DeVane has been such a beloved fixture that last fall Yalemen could hardly believe his announcement of retirement next June. Last week they were equally startled when Yale picked Dean DeVane's successor--not an Old Blue or an Early American but a 42-year-old Frenchman.

At 19, Paris-born Georges May packed away his new Sorbonne diploma, enlisted in the French army to fight invading Germans. In 1942 he slipped out of occupied France to North Africa, went to the U.S. and joined the OSS in Washington. By 1947, U.S. Citizen May had a doctorate from the University of Illinois and a teaching job at Yale, soon became a top scholar of 17th and 18th century French literature, wrote books on Racine, Diderot, Rousseau and others. A leader as well as a scholar, Professor May now runs Yale's Junior Year Abroad program, in 1961 became chairman of the important Course of Study Committee. Now, as Dean May, he will oversee living and learning for 3,990 undergraduates, and become, if one pleased prophet is right, "Yale's answer to Jacques Barzun," the Paris-born provost of Columbia.

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