Annual Fund in Action

Miller
Photo by Jack Looney

We faculty and students in the College who specialize in classical antiquity benefit immeasurably from time spent in the classical lands. This is true not only from where I sit, as chair of the Department of Classics, but for a sizeable number of colleagues and students across the College. Nothing facilitates classical study abroad more than the University’s memberships in the great American study centers at Rome and Athens, whose cost the Arts & Sciences Annual Fund covers each year. There, students study ancient Greece and Rome in rigorous programs, younger faculty pursue research as postdoctoral fellows, and senior classicists hold eminent visiting professorships, showcasing the University’s overall strength in classical studies.

As I write this, Will Killmer, a third-year classics major, is attending the Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome, the Eternal City’s leading program for undergraduates. “I love the program,” Will wrote me recently. My colleague Bernie Frischer brims with enthusiasm whenever he mentions his year there as professor-in-charge.

Many alumni refer to their time at the “Centro” as transformative. At the renowned American Academy in Rome, scholars and artists live and work in an exciting intellectual community — not to mention the irenic garden, breathtaking views and fine library. Several faculty members and students have won fellowships there, including the distinguished Rome Prize. Classical faculty in art have held leadership positions, Malcolm Bell as professor-in-charge of the School of Classical Studies and John Dobbins as director of its summer archaeology program, one of two summer Academy programs to which students may apply.

We have a long, close association with the American School of Classical Studies in Athens, which runs outstanding yearlong and summer student programs. My colleagues Jon Mikalson and Jenny Strauss Clay have both held its distinguished Whitehead Professorship.

Several students have been fellows, including Justin Walsh (Art ’06), Fred Drogula (History ’05) and Tim Brelinski (PhD Classics ’08). Others recently completed the wonderful summer program, conducted in Athens and touring Greece, including classics students Georgia Sermamoglou-Soulmaidi (PhD ’10) and Kelly Shannon (’07) — another terrific opportunity for our students.

Fundraising Progress

Alumni, students, parents and friends help make things happen through their gifts to the Arts & Sciences Annual Fund — financial support for academic journals, plus career services, workshops, travel, labs and more. As of Nov. 15, 2007, the fund had reached more than $673,000 of its $4.5 million overall goal for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008. Also, as of Nov. 15, 2007, the College also had raised $143 million of the $500 million goal for the Campaign for the College. Overall, campaign gifts to the University stood at $1.4 billion of the $3 billion goal.