Faculty Notes – Fall 2023
Justin Arft saw the publication of his book, Arete and the Odyssey’s Poetics of Interrogation: The Queen and Her Question, with Oxford University Press (2022) and was promoted to Associate Professor with tenure. He continues to teach large myth classes and smaller classes in Greek poetry, advanced mythology, and comparative oral poetics. His research will now shift to a second book project on the nature of Greek heroism in archaic Greek poetry and cultural practice, in particular the way in which non-heroic and marginalized characters were used as a means to critique a largely destructive and harmful mode of masculine heroism. Justin has also been invited to contribute a chapter on Odyssey book 7 for Oxford’s Critical Guide to Homer’s Odyssey.
Tristan Barnes is excited to work with UT students on another year, teaching literature, Greek and Roman civilizations, and ancient athletics. His publication on an image of a satyr on a Portuguese lekythos as the constellation Sagittarius was finally printed after an extended COVID-related delay. This turned out to be excellent timing, as he is now busily preparing a new class: CLAS 389 Ancient Astronomy, which will hopefully be offered next year.
Salvador Bartera very much enjoyed his first full year back at UT. In fall and spring, he taught talented students in all levels of Latin, from beginning to graduate. He served on numerous committees, got to know new colleagues, and attended several conferences, including the Tennessee World Language Teaching Association, where he met many high school Latin teachers. He gave a paper on Domitian at a conference in Rome, another paper on Tacitus in the Renaissance in Sestri Levante, also in Italy, and he attended a conference on historiography in Rome. He also participated in the Summer School of the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae in Munich, Germany. He published a book review, wrote two articles, and continued his editorial work on both a co-edited volume on Tacitus for Oxford University Press and his own commentary on Annals 16. He also traveled extensively in Italy and enjoyed its incredible food and culture.
Sam Blankenship is very excited to have joined the Classics community here at UT Knoxville! In addition to getting her bearings on campus and around town this year, she is looking forward to presenting papers at two conferences as a way to receive feedback on her ongoing book project, which examines the impacts of Achaemenid Persian historiography on Greek and Jewish writers. In November she will share her research on Persian historiographical techniques in Ezra-Nehemiah with audiences at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature in San Antonio, Texas; and in January, at the annual meeting of the Society for Classical Studies, she will argue that the same techniques can also be traced in Alexander’s self-styling and in the work of the Alexander historians. Here on campus, she is already enjoying teaching Greek history and introducing a new crop of Hellenists to the joys of Attic Greek.
Dylan Bloy has been promoted to the rank of Senior Lecturer this year. He continues to teach mainly courses in introductory and intermediate Latin as well as archaeology and Roman civilization. He co-directed his tenth season of excavations at the Roman villa site at Vacone, Italy, last summer. The excavations revealed a previously unknown lower terrace on the west side of the villa structure, where parts of two separate rooms were preserved to a height of more than two meters with original built features in situ. One was a kitchen with several ovens built into its wall, the other part of a bath complex with an intact stone basin more than two meters in diameter. These discoveries will require a reappraisal of our approach to the west side of the villa site in subsequent seasons.
Stephen Collins-Elliott continued a summer of fieldwork on his INSAP-UTK archaeology project, Gardens of the Hesperides: The Rural Archaeology of the Loukkos Valley, based around Lixus (modern Larache), Morocco. Last year he presented on fieldwork both at the Annual Meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in New Orleans and at a conference of the Moroccan Ministry of Youth, Culture, and Communication held at Lixus last December. He looks forward to teaching Roman archaeology this Fall semester and a new course on ancient business and trade in the following Spring.
Chris Craig, Professor Emeritus, has this year enjoyed having time with former students from each of his four decades at UT. He is proud of them all, and was especially glad to see Stephanie McCarter recognized with an Alumni/ae Professional Achievement Award. He was also glad to witness the department’s most recent search, and thrilled that new assistant professor Sam Blankenship has joined the team. Chris spends his days in constant reading, less constant exercise, and enjoying every moment with friends and family. In the last year, he traveled with family from San Francisco in the West to London in the East, acquired a terrific son-in-law, and kept busy enough with book clubs that he sometimes longs for the simplicity of a full-time job. Chris and Ann were delighted to see the departmental endowment they established to support aspiring teachers award its first scholarship this year.
Lorenzo Del Monte continues teaching Greek and Latin as well as culture courses, and he plans to offer Roman law this spring, a course that has not been taught since Susan Martin’s retirement. His research explores the development of the Greek state apparatus through early laws establishing economic value equivalencies, and considers this process in the wider context of Mediterranean and Near Eastern state building. Lorenzo also works on Linear B and Latin paleography, and he is increasingly interested in Classical reception, especially in contemporary art, movies and poetry. In his classes, Lorenzo aims at building bridges between past and present, showing the continuous relevance of ancient models and ideas to interpret and shape the world we live in. In his free time he enjoys exploring Knoxville and its nature with his bike, and trying the new ethnic cuisines that the city offers.
John Friend has now lived in New Zealand for one whole year. He and his family continue to enjoy life in an unimaginably beautiful country (a sunny spring has come after a mild winter) with friendly people and exceptionally yummy food, though decent brisket, bacon, and Tex-Mex are badly missed! For the last four months he has worked happily for the government, in a position both rewarding and challenging, while his wife is prospering as an administrator at the University of Canterbury, and his two boys are faring well in daycare and primary school respectively. In the last year we have attended multiple public events, such as the Hororata Glow Festival, walked numerous beaches, and rode in the gondola over the Port Hills. He still often thinks about the University of Tennessee and Knoxville generally, and would like to convey his best regards to his former colleagues and students.
Geraldine Gesell celebrated her 91st birthday this summer, and she continues her transhumant lifestyle alternating between Pachyammos, Crete, and Knoxville twice a year. She is happy to see Volume IV of the final publication of the Kavousi project in press. She continues to prepare her own book on cult at Kavousi.
Reema Habib is continuing her research on ancient magic, while also exploring hands-on pedagogical techniques for future publication. She is currently working on a talk on materiality in the ancient world for the MARCO Symposium in the Spring, as well as on the creation of a Study Abroad program on the topic of Roman Britain (which is, as always, dependent on world health conditions). Beyond the classroom, Reema remains committed to archaeological outreach projects, which has thus far included an information session at the Knoxville premiere of the latest Indiana Jones movie, and an interactive exploration of ancient perfumery at the McClung Museum of Natural History & Culture on campus.
Theodora Kopestonsky returned to Athens and Corinth this summer to finish her manuscript about the Corinthian Classical shrine to the Nymphs at Corinth as well as polish her article on the assemblages at Corinthian small shrines. In June, she traveled to St. Andrews (Scotland) and presented a conference paper about Nymphscapes (the practical and ritual utilization of the landscapes at nymph shrines). While there, she visited several Roman military camps and walked part of Hadrian’s wall (and no surprise, it rained!). This year, she is teaching a range of Latin, archaeology, and civilization courses. She continues to tweak the introductory archaeology class (CLAS 232) with hands-on assignments, now including some newly purchased replicas from her recent travels. Hopefully, the students will appreciate them!
Susan Martin, provost and professor emerita, continues to stay busy in retirement. She and Paul have recently traveled to Sicily, Quebec City, and Morocco. They are planning a trip to Paris later this year as well as travel to visit with family. Susan continues to volunteer with the League of Women Voters of Knoxville and Knox County, organizing candidate forums for local elections. She serves on the Board of the Blount Mansion Association, the John C. Hodges Library Society Advisory Board, and as president of the Knoxville Chapter of the Embroiderers’ Guild of America. She enjoys keeping in touch with the classics department through service on its advisory board. She also continues to stay in touch with former students and loves hearing about their current adventures and future plans.
Aleydis Van de Moortel continues to enjoy chairing a department with such amazing students, colleagues, staff, and advisory board members. Last year she taught Ancient Technology and a seminar on the Archaeology of the Trojan War. Both classes drew groups of enthusiastic and lively students. She is especially excited this year about our new study abroad opportunity for undergraduates at the University of Athens, Greece. Aleydis participated in three national and international conferences and submitted six manuscripts for publication, with subjects ranging from the adoption of the sail in the Early Bronze Age Aegean to pottery from the Kamares Cave (Crete) and absolute chronology as well as burial practices and the memorialization of former leaders at the Bronze Age and Early Iron Age site of Mitrou. She spent most of the summer in Greece writing the first chapter of the final publication of the Mitrou project.
Jessica Westerhold began the 2023-2024 academic year on research leave. She is working on several projects: happiness in the poetry of Tibullus, poetic literacy among Roman women, and Ovid’s use of heroic myth in his exile poetry. In the spring and summer of 2023, she attended international conferences in Halifax, NS, and Coimbra, Portugal. This summer and fall, Jessica has worked with the best of UT’s faculty in Classics, History, and MARCO to organize an amazing Latin Day XLI 2023, featuring lectures and hands-on experiences on a wide-range of topics. Her book Ovid’s Tragic Heroines: Gender Abjection and Generic Code-switching (Cornell University Press) was published in June. Jessica is already working on her next monograph, Representations of Happiness in Latin Elegy. She is looking forward to returning to the classroom in the spring when she will read Propertius, Tibullus, Ovid, Sulpicia, and Vergil with advanced Latin students.
Students Honored at Eta Sigma Phi/End of Year Banquet
The 2022 Eta Sigma Phi initiation for our Beta Delta chapter saw the addition of the following new members on account of their excellent performance in Greek or Latin: Hunter Deblackmere, CC Hazelton, Connor Lynch, Robert McNeil, Lucas Meyers, Grace Miller, Taryn Miscowiec, Ethan Peebles, Elokkin Pate-Geames, Katherine Reed, Adelle Rosendale, Rebekka Webb, and Amber Williams.
Salvador Bartera gave an incisive and thoughtful reflection on the field of classics and its future, and Justin Arft served as Master of Ceremonies for the evening. Our leadership team for both Eta Sigma Phi and the Classics Club—Ethan Peebles, Adelle Rosendale, and Desirae Cordell—remain in place and have done a stellar job organizing our activities and membership.
Several students were recognized for their outstanding academic work during the 2023 academic year or awarded scholarships for the upcoming 2024 year. Adelle Rosendale received an Arthur H. Moser Memorial Scholarship, CC Hazelton an Albert Rapp Memorial Scholarship, Ethan Peebles an inaugural McDow Scholarship. CC Hazelton, Ethan Peebles, Landon Bryan, Katherine Reed, and Lauren Wood were granted Haines-Morris Awards. Mary Walter was awarded an inaugural grant from the Chris and Ann Robinson-Craig scholarship fund to support her Latin teacher training.
Students also received departmental scholarships to study or gain practical experience abroad: Ethan Peebles was given an Athena travel scholarship to support his travel to the University of Athens, Greece, for a year of study; CC Hazelton received a Susan D. Martin Excellence Scholarship for a semester of study at the University of Athens; and Landon Bryan and Tony Caldwell were granted Haines-Morris travel scholarships to participate in Stephen Collins-Elliott’s Hesperides excavation in Morocco.
Several of our students were recognized campus-wide as Volunteers of Distinction: Daniel Green, Walt Price, and Nora Clarke in Classical Civilization; and Kaitlyn Lyne in Classical Archaeology. Daniel Green was our outstanding graduate at the May 2023 commencement, and Nora Clarke was awarded our Senior Greek Prize. CC Hazelton received our department’s CAMWS Award for Outstanding Accomplishment in Classical Studies.
The Department of Classics heartily congratulates the students who were recognized for their devotion to the study of classics and their hard work. We are all very proud of their success, and we are proud of all of our graduates!
Classics Advisory Council 2023
Our advisory board continues to provide us with much needed guidance. Last year’s members were Chair Vicki Weaver (’00), vice president and HR director at Mountain Commerce Bank; Patrick Biddix (’01), professor of higher education in the UT College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences; Jennifer Hardy (’00), senior associate registrar at UT; Holly Jackson-Sullivan, development officer, UT College of Arts and Sciences; Susan Martin, UT Distinguished Professor of Classics and provost emerita; Stephanie McCarter (’00), professor of classics at Sewanee: The University of the South; Adelle Rosendale (’24); and Elisabeth Peulausk (MA Mediterranean Archaeology ’24). We welcomed new members Kay Leibowitz and Magistra Jenny Fields from Webb HS.
During our Sept. 6, 2022, and March 31, 2023, meetings, we had lively discussions about increasing our recruitment of Latin and Greek majors, and preparing more students to become Latin teachers. Our board members offered many excellent ideas.
2022-2023 Departmental Visitors
This past year we were back to almost-normal for the first time since the pandemic. Whereas one ETS/AIA lecture was held as an online webinar, all other lectures took place in person. We are very grateful to all our speakers for sharing their exciting work with us and for enriching the lives of our students and faculty immeasurably. Here is the honor roll:
Rutledge Memorial Lecture
Martin Vizzotti
Universidad Nacional de la Plata, Argentina
“The First Men in the Moon: Lucian, Kepler, Wells, and Borges’ Take on Science Fiction” (March 27)
Haines-Morris Lecture
Ted Gellar-Goad
Wake Forest University
“Reception ex Nihilo: Doubling, Improvisation, and Metatheater in Plautine Comedy and Seinfeld” (April 18)
16th Harry C. Rutledge Memorial Lecture in Archaeology
David Anderson
University of Tennessee
“How Archaeologists Can Respond to the Climate Crisis” (April 20)
East Tennessee Society of the Archaeological Institute of America
The 50th annual program of the East Tennessee Society of the Archaeological Institute of America organized four lectures. In addition to Anderson’s Rutledge Archaeology Lecture, we were fortunate to have one webinar sponsored by the national AIA society:
Davide Tanasi (University of South Florida), “Life and Death of a Christian Community in Roman Sicily: Recent Researches in the Catacombes of St. Lucy at Siracusa”
In addition, Anneke Jantzen (UT anthropology) presented her work on the earliest herders of eastern Africa, and Karim Alizadeh (UT anthropology) talked about his research on ancient borders and forced migrations in the area between the Black and Caspian Seas.
Alumni News – Fall 2023
Meagan Ayers (’04; MA Mediterranean Archaeology ’06; PhD Buffalo) stopped by to tell us that she and husband Paul are relocating from Knoxville back to Cleveland, where Paul was offered a new job. Meagan continues her work as an editor for the Dickinson College Commentaries, where she edited Allen and Greenough’s New Latin Grammar, which we use in our classes. She also is a freelance copy editor for NYU’s Institute for the Study of the Ancient World. We are sorry to see Meagan and Paul go but will be sure to remain in touch.
Abigail Braddock Simone (’02) of Germantown HS in Memphis was elected to the cursus honorum that will make her president of TWLTA in 2025-26, the first classicist president of this group in 15 years. This is a wonderful recognition of your considerable talents and drive, Abigail!
Brian Byerly (’22), sought Bettye Beaumont (’74)’s help with his application materials for graduate school. Thanks to her excellent advice he has been accepted into MA programs at Georgia and Kansas; he chose Kansas and received full funding. Happy trails, Brian!
It was wonderful to catch up with Izzy Dusek (’22), who came to our Majors Meet & Greet on August 23. She is continuing the master’s program in public policy and administration at UT, and plans to graduate this spring. We can’t wait to hear what comes next.
David Guffey (’17) was accepted into the master’s program in social work at UT and he is loving every minute of it. Anyone who sees the glow in his eyes knows that he has found his calling in life. We are so happy for you, David, and we know that you will be an exceptionally caring social worker.
Andrew Montgomery (’22) stopped by to report that he has been bitten by the bug of academia. He has finished his MA in archaeology at the University of Edinburgh with a thesis focusing on the continuity of cult from the Bronze Age to the Early Iron Age in the Aegean. He is now exploring paths to pursuing a PhD in classical archaeology. We are thumbing for you, Andrew!
Juhi Patel (’19), who received a master’s degree in the history of medicine from the University of Newcastle while on a Fulbright year there, is now in her second year at the Edward Via College of Osteopathic Medicine in South Carolina. This school trains globally-minded physicians to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations. Juhi just returned from the Dominican Republic, where she and her fellow students provided medical care to more than 500 patients. We are so proud of you, Juhi!
Meera Patel (’18) graduated last December with a master’s degree in data science from American University, specializing in statistics and artificial intelligence. She taught an introductory undergraduate class in statistics at AU, and is working on projects that involve algorithms and archaeological data. Meera, you and Stephen Collins-Elliott need to talk!
Walt Price (’23) is pursuing an MA in ancient Mediterranean studies at the University of Missouri with full funding. Walt, please say hi for us to fellow alumnus Jacob Brakebill (’17)!
Zoe Smith (’22) reached out to Bettye Beaumont (’74) for advice, and she is now working for an archaeology firm in Cincinnati, where she is gaining valuable excavation and lab experience. Fiancé Tristan, an opera singer, is receiving job offers in Europe, so Zoe is looking for graduate programs in classical archaeology overseas where she can specialize in Aegean prehistory and learn more about the Mitanni and Hittites. We wish her the best of luck.
Kaitlyn Stiles (PhD Mediterranean Archaeology ’19) married Chris Jazwa, an associate professor of anthropology at UN Reno and Stephen Collins-Elliott’s collaborator in Morocco—archaeology is a small world! Kaitlyn moved to Reno, where she is continuing her research on the Mycenaean skeletons from Golemi, central Greece, which were the focus of her dissertation. She and Chris presented a poster at the annual AIA meeting in New Orleans last January on new strontium isotope analyses and C14 datings on samples from Golemi.
We were delighted to reconnect with Ryan Vinson (’11) who, as co-chair of the Tennessee Junior Classical League, helped to organize its 2023 convention in Knoxville. Ryan thoroughly enjoys his position. We are looking forward to seeing him more as we prepare to participate in the convention of the National Junior Classical League in Knoxville, in July 2024, which Ryan is chairing.
Cyrus Yoshimoto (’22) was awarded a prestigious Schwarzman Scholarship to study leadership and global affairs at Tsinghua University in Bejing in 2023-24 before going to medical school. This is a highly competitive scholarship with a 3-4% acceptance rate. Awardees come from top universities in the US and abroad. Cyrus credits his classics training and our scholarship support for helping him reach this success. We appreciate you, Cyrus, and we wish you a fascinating year in China!
Excavating a Roman Villa at Vacone, Italy
Vakaris Paulauskas
In spring 2023, I was fortunate to take a class with Professor Bloy, when he brought to my attention the archaeological excavation that he is co-directing in Italy. The Vacone project, run by Rutgers University since 2012, is uncovering two superimposed ancient Roman structures: a Republican era building that had been built over by an Imperial era Villa. The site is located ca. 30 km north of Rome. Thanks to my Haines-Morris travel scholarship from the Department of Classics, I was able to participate in this excavation. During the four weeks of excavation, we had three free weekends that allowed us to travel throughout Italy. I went every weekend to the Citta Eterna or, as most know it, the city of Rome. Not only was I able to experience traveling around my favorite city, but every week when I came back I was able to learn more about the “hands on” part of history that had eluded me while studying in class. The excavation was hard, but once the ruins had been uncovered it was very rewarding.
Special Feature: Stephanie McCarter
Stephanie McCarter (’00) graduated summa cum laude with undergraduate degrees in classics and English before going on to earn her PhD in classics from the University of Virginia in 2007. She was a first-generation college student and member of Phi Beta Kappa. She started a successful career at the University of the South (Sewanee), where she was promoted to associate professor in 2014 and professor in 2021.
She received a Professional Achievement Award from the UT College of Arts and Sciences, which recognizes alumni who have achieved a high degree of success in their chosen field, a record of notable accomplishments, and a history of outstanding contributions to their discipline and/or creative pursuits.
McCarter’s greatest professional achievement is as a masterful translator of Latin poetry, for which she has gained world renown. She has produced two hefty volumes of translations, with introductions and notes, of Horace’s Epodes, Odes, and Carmen Saeculare (published by the U. of Oklahoma Press in 2020) and of Ovid’s epic poem the Metamorphoses (published by Penguin Classics in 2022). Another book titled Women in Power: Classical Myths and Stories from the Amazons to Cleopatra is in press, and McCarter is now preparing a translation of the poems of Catullus.
McCarter is the first female classicist to have translated all of Horace’s poems and the first woman in 60 years to have translated Ovid’s Metamorphoses. Importantly, McCarter is sensitive to the female perspective in Horace’s love poems and Ovid’s stories of divine rapes of female characters. Whereas previous male translators often “romanticized” sexual assault or made light of it, even suggesting female consent, McCarter’s choice of words makes the violence explicit and invites discussion of power and gender relations in Roman times as well as in the present. Thus her unflinching translations demonstrate the continuing relevance of the classics to today’s world.
McCarter’s work has received rave reviews in international journals such as Cambridge’s Classical Review, Spain’s Exemplaria Classica, and Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews. Her translation of Ovid’s Metamorphoses, one of The New Yorker’s best books of 2022, this year received the Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets. In one glowing review of that work, Richard Tarrant, Pope Professor of Latin at Harvard, notes that “As a vehicle for serious engagement with Ovid’s poem in English, McCarter has no rival.”
Her works have also received major media coverage and she has presented invited seminars around the world. It is no exaggeration to state that Stephanie McCarter has become one of the world’s leading translators of Latin poetry.
“Classics professors nurtured my intellectual development, while also helping build my confidence in ways both big and small,” McCarter said. “My classics professors continue to be a guiding beacon as demonstrated by my presence here tonight made possible because they thought me deserving of this award. I am deeply touched once again by their kindness and readily give them every bit of the credit. I really do owe them and this university everything I have achieved in my career.”
Studying Classics at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece
UT Classics Majors Ethan Peebles and Cynthia Hazelton Report
Time seems to work differently in Greece. The material remains of Antiquity and the Middle Ages are juxtaposed with modern architectural and artistic attempts to redefine or reinterpret the much honored past. Thousands of years of prehistory and history can be seen with the naked eye, even from the classroom windows of the unique campus of the University of Athens, a school following in an academic tradition tracing itself back to Socrates and Plato.
This is an environment tailored for the enthusiastic student: the English-language classics program has approximately 80 students from many different countries dedicating up to four years of their lives to study in the land of the ancient Greeks. Committing to the program for even a semester or a year, as we are doing, is enough to transform one’s understanding of the ancient world, and even the modern world! Classes may be held in a lecture hall or an ancient odeon, in a conference room or the fifth-century BCE remains of a Periclean building project.
Field trips take you from the National Archaeological Museum to archaeological sites on the island of Crete. Athens itself provides an endless list of activities: museums, lovely Byzantine churches, archaeological sites both known and unknown, markets, restaurants, and lots of souvlaki and loukoumades stands! This study-abroad program and its staff makes finding friends and navigating Greek city life easy and enjoyable. However, the program also requires commitment. It is not a vacation, but an immersion in the philosophical life. Reading, discussing, and—yes—working on Greek grammar—are still required. But as we have learned in just two weeks of classes, the returns—intellectual, social, cosmopolitan—are worth every minute.
We are so grateful to be able to enjoy these amazing experiences thanks to scholarships from our Classics department: Cynthia received a Dr. Susan Martin Excellence Travel Scholarship, an Albert Rapp Memorial Scholarship, and a Haines-Morris Award; and Ethan an Athena Travel Scholarship as well as the inaugural Robert McDow Scholarship. We are so excited about our invaluable experiences and cannot wait to see what the rest of our time in Athens has in store for us!
Back with a Bounce
With the pandemic shutdown becoming a dim memory, our department is rebouncing. Last year, we hired a new Greek historian, Sam Blankenship, who is expanding our view to the East, as she is a specialist on Greek-Persian cultural interactions. New Assistant Professors Salvador Bartera and Jessica Westerhold have thrown themselves into recruitment, visiting all Latin high-school programs in the region and reconnecting with teachers. Salvador also runs a Latin club in Fulton High School, which has a very diverse student body. Given the current shortage of Latin teachers in Tennessee, we want to streamline teacher training: together with the UT College of Education, Health, and Human Sciences, we have designed a double major in education and Latin that makes it possible for students to obtain their teaching license in four years instead of five.
As UT keeps growing, we are designing new courses to serve growing student interest. Stephen Collins-Elliott has created Business and Trade in the Ancient World; Lorenzo Del Monte is reviving Susan Martin’s Roman Law course; and Tristan Barnes plans to offer Ancient Astronomy next year.
We are also happy to announce that, thanks to a new agreement with the University of Athens, Greece, our students can study there for a semester or a year and receive UT credit. Two of our majors agreed to be the proverbial Caviae porcelli (a.k.a., guinea pigs), and report here about their adventures.
We held most of our usual departmental activities last year, but a temporary faculty shortage after the recent spate of retirements forced us to take a break from organizing our classics undergraduate conference. The conference will be back in February 2024.
We hope you enjoy this newsletter, and do stay in touch!
Valē/Χαῖρε!
Classics Funds – Fall 2023
Generous friends and benefactors have created a variety of funds to help our students and faculty in their work. With the establishment of our exciting new study-abroad program at the University of Athens, we expect that more students will need funds to take advantage of this opportunity to broaden their horizons, both intellectually and culturally. In addition, we want to fund more Latin teachers in training through the Craig Fund in order to alleviate the current shortage of Latin teachers in Tennessee high schools. We hope that you will consider supporting us by donating to one of our scholarship funds (Athena Travel Fund, Classics Diversity Fund, Christopher Craig and Ann Robinson-Craig Fund, Susan Martin Fund, Mediterranean Archaeology Fellowship, Moser Fund, Rapp Fund, Rutledge Memorial Fund), faculty support funds (Classics Enrichment, Gesell Fund, Henbest Fund) or archaeological excavations (Hesperides, Kavousi, Mitrou).
Information on how to contribute to these and other classics funds can be found on the envelope enclosed in this newsletter. Information and online giving portals are also available on our classics website. Maximas gratias vobis agimus!