Love Is in the Air at Millsaps College

Love is certainly in the air this Valentine’s Day, and Millsaps College is no exception. There are some MAJOR romances (pun intended) at the private liberal arts college in Jackson.

Rev. Dr. Ricky James is the chaplain at Millsaps College, and his wife, Megan James, is the dean of students. Their story began 20 years ago on the beautiful campus of Millsaps. While Ricky is originally from Hattiesburg, Megan is from Clearwater, Florida. The couple met during their freshman year of college, and like many other romances, began their relationship as friends.

“We were friends at Millsaps but didn’t start dating until the second semester of our senior year. We went on our first date at Bravo (owned by another great Millsaps graduate, Jeff Good) on February 13, 2004. We go back to Bravo every year to celebrate our first date. This year will be 20 years since we first started dating,” Megan shared.

Ricky attended Millsaps for his undergraduate degree, Duke University for his master’s, and Emory for his doctorate. Megan attended Millsaps for her undergraduate degree and North Carolina State for her master’s degree in higher education administration. After years of pursuing and accomplishing higher education in their respective fields, they finally returned to the campus where they met.

Megan first came to Millsaps after graduate school in 2007. She worked in the student life department in various positions, including assistant dean of students. After working at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in the alumni affairs office for five years, she returned to Millsaps in 2021 as vice president of student life and dean of students. Ricky was appointed chaplain of Millsaps in 2023.

The dynamic couple works together in a focused effort to support students and often overlap projects.

“Sometimes it’s in areas like student care and support, and sometimes it looks like jointly planning the College Christmas Tree Lighting and Caroling event! Our goal is to support students’ academic, mental, social, and spiritual lives,” Megan said.

“Millsaps College is our home. We love this place and feel fortunate to be part of such a loving community. While we never imagined or planned on working at the same place, it’s a wonderful blessing to be here together. We often bring our kids to basketball or football games or special chapel events,” Megan and Ricky shared.

The phrase “full circle”  certainly applies to the James couple and their professional and personal back story at their beloved Millsaps College.

A Classic Love Story

Dr. David Yates and Dr. Jennifer Lewton-Yates are professors in the same department at Millsaps College. Teaching Greek and Roman Studies Curriculum and the Classics, The Yates couple continues to prove that life is sweeter when you love what you do and who you work with.

David is from Bristol, Virginia, and Jennifer grew up in Wadsworth, Ohio. The couple met while attending graduate school at Brown University and were in the same first-year cohort of the university’s Classics Ph.D. program.

The market for people who can read Greek and Latin is small. David finished his Ph.D. before Jennifer and began applying for jobs nationwide. There was an opportunity in rural Washington and an opportunity at Millsaps. Ultimately, David and Jennifer chose Millsaps and fell in love with the campus and the Jackson area.

“Millsaps itself has a beautiful campus and a wonderful culture. The faculty were warm and collegial and honestly cared about teaching. I was hooked,” David shared.

“It was clear that in the long run, Jackson and Millsaps had the most potential for us. That first year, I started teaching one course for first-years as part of the general education curriculum as an adjunct. Over the years, other opportunities to work with students and in the administration opened up. Before long, I also had a full-time position at the college,” Jennifer said.

While David works primarily with Greek history and historians, Jennifer mainly works with Greek and Roman novels, and the two often have the opportunity to teach the same students.

“Greek and Roman Studies is a pretty small department. You will certainly have both of us if you get a major or minor. Students know we’re connected and sometimes seek out one of us because they’ve had the other,” Jennifer shared.

So, what is it like for Dr. Yates and Dr. Lewton-Yates as they work together in the same department?

“We get this question a lot, and often from folks who can’t believe we like working together, but it is honestly the best. Jenni is a smart, hard-nosed realist who can instinctively smell when an idea gets too elaborate for practical application. I am usually already six hours into some half-baked, zany idea that might go nowhere. That’s a combination that is either going to go really well or really bad, but I am glad to say that it has always worked well for us,” David said.

“A dear colleague who retired a few years ago used to shake his head every time he saw us in the cafeteria and say something like ‘I just can’t believe you work together.’ He is, to the best of my knowledge, in a very happy marriage. I suppose, if they worked together, they might not be. We’ve been married almost 17 years, and all but about a year and a half of those have either been either doing graduate school or working in the same department. This is what works for us,” Jennifer shared.

David and Jennifer Yates continue to teach classics at Millsaps College while exemplifying love and teamwork. They also enjoy taking advantage of everything the Jackson area offers as they raise their 12-year-old daughter.

“This city has so much fantastic culture – beautiful museums, restaurants, festivals and community celebrations.”

The Yates are not the only faculty couple working in the same department at Millsaps College.

“Chemistry, Biology, and Music all have a married pair currently. We’re also not the first married couple to have taught in Greek and Roman Studies. Catherine and Richard Freis paved the way in our own department (when it used to be called Classical Studies) in the years before we arrived in Jackson,” Jennifer shared.

Is love in the air at Millsaps College? History, faculty, and students have proved time and time again that it indeed is.