The Society for Classical Studies has extended the deadline for nominations for its Precollegiate Teaching Award to Wednesday, November 4, 2015.

The Joint Committee on the Classics in American Education invites nominations for the 2015 SCS Awards for Excellence in Teaching at the Precollegiate Level. Thanks to a very generous gift to the Society’s Gatekeeper to Gateway Campaign for the Future of Classics from Daniel and Joanna Rose, the amounts to be awarded have been increased substantially.  Up to two winners will receive a certificate of award and a cash prize of $500.  In addition, each winner’s institution will receive $200 to purchase educational resources selected by the winner.  The winners will be honored at both the SCS Annual Meeting in San Francisco, CA in January 2016 and the ACL Institute in June 2016, and they may select the meeting at which they wish to receive the award.

More information and instructions can be found here

The Department of Classics at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, with the support of the UMass College of Humanities and Fine Arts, will host a one-day colloquium on the theme of “Urban Disasters and the Roman Imagination”, Saturday, November 7, 2015. Speakers are Brigitte Libby (Harvard University), “Out of the Ashes: Rome’s Beginnings at Troy”; Tom Zanker (Amherst College), “Horace and the Rhetoric of Decline”; Virginia Closs (University of Massachusetts Amherst), “The Unmaking of Rome: Clades Publica and Censorship in Senecan Thought”; Joseph Farrell (University of Pennsylvania), “The Sacks of Rome”; Andrew Johnston (Yale University), “Ruin, Reconstruction and History”; Jessica Clark (Florida State University), “The Spoils of War: Victory as Urban Disaster”; Elizabeth Keitel (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Caesar and the Urbs Capta at Massilia”; and Honora Chapman (California State University, Fresno), “Josephus’ Memory of Jerusalem: A Study in Urban Disaster.” For more information and to register, go to https://www.umass.edu/classics/disaster.

The Department of Classics and the College of the Holy Cross offer competitive merit-based scholarships to outstanding high school graduates who will major in the Classics at Holy Cross. Each year we award two Rev. Henry Bean, S.J., Scholarships, which are four-year, full-tuition, merit-based scholarships. Every four years, including for the Class of 2020, we also award a full-tuition, merit-based Rev. William Fitzgerald, S.J., Scholarship. For more details, visit http://www.holycross.edu/academics/programs/classics/scholarships

NYU’s Center for Ancient Studies is organizing the Ranieri Colloquium on Ancient Studiesfor Thursday and Friday, October 22-23, 2015.  The conference is entitled, “Telling Mesopotamian History: Bringing to Life the Stories of Cuneiform Writing,” in Honor of Jack M. Sasson.  The conference is presented by the NYU Center for Ancient Studies, in conjunction with the Skirball Department of Hebrew and Judaic Studies, the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the Dean of the College of Arts and Science, and Vanderbilt University and The Vanderbilt Divinity School.  It is free and open to the public. Additional information is available here.

The full program may be viewed here:

http://ancientstudies.fas.nyu.edu/object/CenterforAncientStudies_Fall2015_Ranieri_Colloquium.html

With great sadness and heavy hearts, we report that Barbara F. McManus passed away in the early morning of June 19, 2015, from complications related to cancer. Her death is a particularly painful loss to CAAS. She served our organization in many capacities, with a rare combination of dedication and vision: as President in 2005 and Webmaster from 2005-2010; and as a member of its Awards and Program Committees. CAAS was proud to honor her with an ovatio in 2001, and by establishing the Barbara F. McManus Leadership Award in 2011.

After graduating from the College of New Rochelle summa cum laude in 1964, Barbara joined its faculty in 1967, while still a graduate student in Comparative Literature at Harvard, which awarded her a PhD in 1975. Before retiring from CNR as a full professor in 2000, she made a distinctive mark on its academic landscape by teaching innovative courses in classics, comparative literature and women’s studies; directing the writing program in its School of Arts and Sciences; and leading efforts to integrate technology into classroom teaching.

Barbara’s impressive roster of vanguard scholarly publications includes books on women in early modern England, feminist theory and classics, and the pioneering American classicist Grace Harriet Macurdy, as well as articles in several learned journals. In 2012, the Women’s Classical Caucus, for which she labored impressively as its co-chair and secretary-treasurer, recognized her outstanding achievements in research by launching the annual Barbara McManus Award for the best published article in gender studies each year. She won major grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities: her NEH-funded Teaching with Technology initiative led to the creation of the VRoma Project, a virtual city and community for classics students worldwide, on which she collaborated closely with her longtime CNR classics colleague Ann Raia.

In 1994 she received the CNR Alumnae Association’s Ursula Laurus award; in 2014 its Woman of Achievement award, as a shining example of “Wisdom for Life”. In 2012, the Classics Department at the University of Maryland, College Park, hosted an international interdisciplinary conference in her name to recognize her scholarship and teaching, with the support of grants from the National Science Foundation and CAAS itself.

On the morning of her death, Adam Blistein,  Executive Director of the Society of Classical Studies (formerly the American Philological Association), paid warm and moving tribute to Barbara’s valuable contributions [http://apaclassics.org/apa-blog/memoriam-barbara-f-mcmanus] from 1983 onwards: on its Committees on the Status of Women and Minorities, ad hoc Committee on Outreach and Outreach Prize; on its Board of Directors; and as its Vice President for Professional Matters, where she single handedly created the APA census on classics department staffing and enrollments. In 2009 the APA honored her with its Distinguished Service Award for her extraordinary achievements on behalf of our discipline and profession.

Barbara’s devoted work for CAAS on many fronts, and in particular her caring support of CAAS colleagues, ranks high among her stellar accomplishments. According to an ancient Greek maxim, the measure of one’s life is not its length but its goodness. Barbara F. McManus—exemplary daughter, sister, wife, mother, colleague, scholar and beloved friend—illustrates those words, in all that she has done and been. Her invincible spirit abides, and we strive to fulfill the ideals that she so memorably embodied.

Written by:

Mary Brown, Judith P. Hallett, Maria S. Marsilio, Ann R. Raia

Watchung Hills Regional High School is currently seeking a part-time (with benefits) teacher of Latin. Interested applicants should contact Beth Scheiderman, Director of Human Resources & Professional Development, bscheiderman@whrhs.org

Maria Marsilio, 2nd vice president of CAAS, and Professor of Modern and Classical Languages and Honors Program Director at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, has been awarded the Christian and Mary Lindback Award for Distinguished Teaching. Follow this link for more information on the award and the Lindback Foundation: www.lindbackfoundation.org

Judith P. Hallett, Program Coordinator of CAAS and Professor of Classics and distinguished scholar-teacher at the University of Maryland ,College Park, has been awarded the 2015 Lambda Classical Caucus Activism Award in recognition of her work promoting the rights and well-being of sexual minorities. Follow this link for more information about the award and the Lambda Classical Caucus: http://lambdacc.org/awards/activism.html

New York State Teacher of the Year 2015, Charles Giglio, teaches Latin in Gloversville, NY.  Follow the  link for details: http://www.nysut.org/…/teacher-of-the-year-lets-in-the-ligh…

Are you an upper-level classics undergraduate or a graduate student / Latin teacher looking for a Latin summer class?

Hunter College in New York City (easy to reach by public transportation) is offering a class. This schedule is tentative and subject to change. For the most current information, visit Hunter’s Searchable Schedule of Classes available here http://www.hunter.cuny.edu/onestop or contact the Classics Program at 212‐772‐4960, office administrator, Millie Arias, millie.arias@hunter.cuny.edu), or Professor Lawrence Kowerski, Classics Division Head at lkowersk@hunter.cuny.edu .

Hunter College Summer Session 2 (Six Weeks): July 13-August 13

Advanced Readings in Latin Literature/Topics in Latin Literature: Roman Slavery (combined MA / Undergraduate course)

A study of the topic of slavery through various texts to be read in Latin.

M, T, W, TH 6:00-7:53pm         Timothy Hanford, PhD

LAT 316 (undergraduate use this course number)

LAT 710 (grad student use this course number)