Classics Visiting Faculty Program
Interim Project Report:
10 August 2001
I write as an Interim Report on the funds granted to the Ohio Five Classics departments for a Visiting Faculty program and a web site for the group. The grant was for $13,000, of which $4,200 was designated toward the web site and the remaining $8,800 for the Visiting Faculty program.
We have spent little on the web site. Our only expenses have been student assistance, to Emily Woodcock Kenyon '02 for setting up the web site. Emily will again work on the site during her senior year, beginning late in August, 2001. Rebecca Ray '01 took her place in the spring of 2001 while Emily was abroad. She did some effective cosmetic work on the site but charged us little for student help. At our meeting in May, 2001, the representatives of the Ohio Five agreed to continue the web site and to request April Farmer, our departmental Administrative Assistant at Kenyon, also to serve as overseer of the site and to work with Emily Woodcock, to provide more continuity than can be afforded by students. April is willing to do this, and the site should improve this fall, with links to home pages and schedules of the departmental course offerings.
We have spent nothing thus far on the Visiting Faculty program, which was to fund one faculty member from the Colleges, who would visit the other four colleges for a week each during the academic year. The faculty member who seemed a likely candidate had other sabbatical plans by the time the grant came through, and we could find nobody willing to make this commitment either for 2000-01 or for 2001-02. Since the funds are designed to acquaint the students and faculty of the five campuses with one another, we decided in May rather to use them toward gatherings at which students (and perhaps eventually faculty) will present research.
To that end, we have planned to meet at the Ohio Classical Conference, this year in Youngstown, in large part at the art museum. At the conference a panel of senior students will speak to the group of high school and college teachers about their experiences abroad as juniors. We will have an opportunity to have a business meeting as well. We have also planned to meet at one of the campuses, probably Ohio Wesleyan this year, in late March, to allow students to discuss their senior research with one another, and again to have a business meeting and perhaps presentation of some faculty research. We plan to use the grant money to fund travel and expenses, for students and faculty, for these occasions.
Serendipitously, there is this fall, early in October, a meeting of the joint ACM-GLCA Classics departments, at Lake Forest College in Illinois. Since the ACM has pursued joint interests, with the help of the Mellon foundation, with the Associated Colleges of the South, we expect representatives of that group to be at that meeting as well. This happens only every four or five years. Since it is a good opportunity to plan and share information, we also plan to use the grant money to fund expenses of those attending this joint meeting.
Despite our having spent little of the money, the Mellon initiative has been enormously helpful to us in making us more aware of one another's faculty staffing, courses, and student opportunities. Because of our meeting in May 2000, it was easy to publicize Wooster in Greece to the whole group. The follow-up meeting in May 2001 furthered the discussion of joint efforts and particularly helped us understand issues of staffing. We look forward now to meeting regularly in the fall at the Ohio Classical Conference and in the spring at one of the five campuses, for student-centered discussions.
Robert Bennett, Kenyon College