DANVILLE, KY -- William F. May, one of the nation's leading thinkers on ethics in leadership, will visit Centre College to deliver a Tuesday, April 20, lecture entitled "Leadership in a Democracy: What It Takes Morally." May's presentation will begin at 7:30 p.m. in Newlin Hall in the Norton Center. The program is open to the public at no cost.

May held the Joseph Kennedy chair in Christian ethics at Georgetown University and founded the Maguire Center for Ethics at Southern Methodist University. He continues to teach at SMU as professor of ethics and holder of the Maguire chair.

At Centre, May's lecture will explore some of the themes from the book he currently has underway, Beleaguered Rulers: The Public Obligation of the Professional. Although he was planning the volume long before President Clinton's impeachment difficulties, May's studies of morality in leadership now are generating a new level of interest.

May is the author of other works including A Catalogue of Sins and The Physician's Covenant.. His most recent work, published in 1996 by Wm. B. Eerdmans, is Testing the Medical Covenant: Active Euthanasia and Health Care Reform.

A graduate of Princeton, May earned a divinity degree and a doctorate from Yale. He is former president of the American Academy of Religion and was a founding fellow of The Hastings Institute, where he co-chaired the research group on death and dying. May also founded the department of religious studies at Indiana University.

- end -

Contacts at Centre:

Eric Mount, Rodes Professor of Religion - 606-238-5249
Patsi Barnes Trollinger, Centre news service - 606-238-5719

Communications Office
Centre College
600 W. Walnut Street
Danville, KY 40422