ROCKY MOUNTAIN REGION

ANNUAL REPORT

2002-2003

Arizona —State VP Cynthia White reporting

CAMWS member Frank E. Romer has been named to the prestigious Cardin Chair at Loyola College in Baltimore, Maryland for 2002-2003.

This spring four grad students from the University of Arizona (UofA) will present papers at CAMWS: Matt Baumann, Kevin Dicus, Ryan McCarthy, and Erik Johannesson.

CAMWS member and grad student in Classical Archaeology Matt Baumann received the Semple Award to travel to Athens and attend the American School of Classical Studies summer program in 2002, and he also won a prestigious Hellenic Foundation Scholarship to travel to Columbia University’s Center for Archaeology at the graduate student colloquium “Empire and Identity” to present a poster. He will dig Athenian Agora this summer with the American School.

CAMWS member Jason DeLeeuw won a Vergilian Society scholarship in the summer of 2002 to study archeological and material remains in the Bay of Naples.

Latin enrollments at the UofA for beginning Latin were over 200 in fall 2002 and high numbers for summer.

Intensive Latin in two summer sessions at the UofA and now, also, Latin at all levels in Oriveto Italy—June 1-July 8, 2003.

UofA has a new study abroad program in Orvieto, Italy, during the summer and fall semesters with two archaeological digs. The programs are open to students outside the UofA community for undergraduate credit. This is a great opportunity for Latin teachers to take Latin and Classics courses or to participate in an archaeological dig for credit.

Though there is no state classical association, there is a large Junior Classical League and an annual two-day convention. This year UofA hosts the convention on April 5-6 when Latin students and teaching assistants act as judges for oratory contests, art competitions, and performances. The Classics Society at the UofA and the Classics Honorary, Eta Sigma Phi, will also coordinate a mosaic workshop.

Latin Placement Service continues to match candidates with positions. CAMWS members have taken positions in Baltimore, North Carolina, Mississippi, and New Jersey. There are three new Latin teaching positions in the Phoenix area for next fall.

The University of Arizona Southern Arizona Language Fair in March featured a Latin play, Latin certamina, and a mosaic (rice) workshop for middle and high school Latin students. Thanks to CAMWS CPL funds the UofA Classics web page is in full flower: see http://www.coh.arizona.edu/classics/default.html

Colorado — John Gibert, Colorado State VP reporting

John Gibert from Boulder reports another busy year for Classics and CAMWS in Colorado.  The Colorado Classics Association (CCA) continues to meet regularly and has added new members.  Two high schools that added Latin to their course offerings last year, the Classical Academy in Colorado Springs and Fairview High School in Boulder, are thriving, and Regis High School in Denver, until now a boys’ school, will open a girls’ division and employ another new Latin teacher.  At Fairview, Lynn Gibert’s students benefited from the generosity of Mr. Steve Spearman, a numismatist, and the organization Ancient Coins for Education (ACE).  Ms. Gibert incorporated coin identification into her Latin II curriculum and invited Mr. Spearman to her classes.  62 students then had the opportunity to clean and attribute 122 of their own Roman coins.  Coins were also featured in a one-day exhibit at CU Boulder’s Norlin Library.  Students in several archaeology classes viewed a spectacular local collection, whose owner has generously agreed to donate the coins to the University.  Further activities at the high school level included a catapult competition at Fountain Valley High School in September and the annual JCL convention in Estes Park.  The newsletter of the CCA, The Colorado Classicist, is now published in both digital (http://www2.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/CL/CCA) and print form.

In Colorado Springs, Professor Patricia FitzGibbon and Kendra Henry launched a Summer Latin Institute at Colorado College (CC).  The topics of study were Catullus, Cicero, Horace, Ovid, and mythology.  The program will continue in 2003 with offerings in Latin teaching methods, intermediate Latin, Latin prose composition, and advanced readings in Latin.  The summer courses are meant to encourage the spread of Latin in Colorado’s schools and the growth of CC’s Master’s degree program in the Art of Teaching (MAT).  Recently, CC also hosted the CCA’s spring meeting, which featured a presentation by Chris Connell in the American Numismatic Association’s expanded and renovated museum space known as the “Money Museum”, just a few blocks away from the CC campus.

In Boulder, the Classics Department at the University of Colorado continues to use a generous annual gift from an alumna both to provide a scholarship to a Colorado high school senior who wishes to continue studying Classics at the university, and to support students who are already here, with two scholarships for Classics majors and one for study abroad.  In general, the Department is bustling with activity.  It hosted a number of distinguished visiting lecturers.  The level of participation in events sponsored by the local chapter of the Archaeological Institute of America (AIA), under the leadership of Beth Dusinberre, is particularly noteworthy.  The new excavation and field school at the 4th-century ce Villa of Maxentius on the Via Appia, which Diane Conlin will lead in collaboration with colleagues from Kalamazoo College and Rome, will get under way this summer and begin providing outstanding opportunities for Classics majors and graduate students.  Department faculty remain active in educational technology, and a large intramural grant is supporting several innovations, including web support for the Latin language program.  Barbara Hill and Ariana Traill have continued to engage in a variety of outreach activities to area high schools.  The members of Boulder’s Association of Students of the Classical World (ASCW) will soon hold their third annual student symposium, with an appealing one-day program of seven speakers.  Finally, Peter Knox continues to serve as the editor of The Classical Journal, which counts two other Boulder faculty members (John Gibert and Christopher Shields) on its editorial board.

New Mexico — State VP Monica Cyrino reporting

The past year has seen continued growth in Classics programs throughout the state of New Mexico. As part of National Latin Teachers Recruitment Week, brochures and flyers were sent out to colleges and junior colleges to increase awareness of the need for more teachers. Letters were also sent to high schools in the state to inquire about the status of Latin programs at their schools, offering CAMWS/CPL contact information to help start new programs and maintain healthy ones. In spring at the Language Expo at the University of New Mexico (UNM), over a hundred Latin students from the Albuquerque area visited the Classics booth and received information about studying Latin, Greek, and Classical Civilization at the college level, along with colorful brochures about majoring and minoring in Classics, and participating in summer study programs. At the faculty level, the program in Classics at the University of New Mexico received a welcome boost by the retirement of Professor Diana Robin after twenty-five years and the new appointment of Assistant Professor Joseph McAlhany (Ph.D. Columbia University, 2003), a specialist in Latin prose. The program in Classics at UNM continues to go strong, with the addition of three new sections of Beginning Latin to meet the increased demand from interested students. The Greek Mythology course was again voted by the student body as the Best Class on campus, and Classical Civilization courses continue to be among the most popular and highly enrolled courses at UNM. Monica Cyrino, Associate Professor of Classics, was again voted by the student body as the Best Teacher on campus, and she also received the prestigious UNM Alumni Association Faculty Excellence Award. In other good news, the Faculty Senate approved the Classics concentration of the MA in Comparative Literature, so that students interested in continuing their studies in Classics at the graduate level may do so at UNM, in order to prepare themselves to enter a Ph.D. program elsewhere or to begin teaching Latin at the secondary school level. Next year, plans are being made to monitor the Latin teacher shortage in the New Mexico high schools and to encourage graduate students to consider teaching as a viable career option.

UTAH — Regional VP Roger Macfarlane reporting

American Classical League sponsored a session at the annual meetings of the American Council for Teachers of Foreign Languages in Salt Lake City in November. At the invitation of ACL President, Ken Kitchell, Roger Macfarlane (Brigham Young University), Susan Shapiro (Utah State University), and Sandra Woodward (Granger High School) addressed the topic “Successful Tips for Building Latin Programs in ‘Terra Incognita.’”

Under the direction of James T. Svendsen and through the beneficent support of Salt Lake City native Ron Yengich, the University of Utah conducted the third annual Latin translation contest called the Yengich Prize. College level students throughout the entire state were encouraged to participate in this well-run contest.

The state’s high school programs in Latin continue to do well, for the most part. Ogden High School, though, failed to conduct a search to replace Nancy Granducci upon her retirement. A new program at Salt Lake City’s West High School is meeting with particular success. The choir school at the Cathedral of the Madeleine in Salt Lake aggressively sought a Latin teacher for Fall 2002, but failed to find a qualified and available applicant. The Waterford School in south Salt Lake County continues to seek a part-time Latin teacher who can augment the continued offerings in Latin at the lower school. One teacher in Box Elder County seeks an opportunity to introduce a new Latin program at her high school.

State members serving CAMWS include John Hall (consularis, Executive Committee), Eric Huntsman (Finance Committee Chair), Roger Macfarlane (Executive Committee).

WYOMING — State VP Philip Holt reporting

        Not much has changed in the last year.  Casper has kept Latin going in both its high schools, despite some teacher turnover at one.  Classics courses at the University of Wyoming continue to draw well:  about fifty students a year in beginning Latin, close to 200 a year in all courses (mostly Classical Civilization).  Because of understandable fatigue, the Classics section of the Department of Modern and Classical Languages (all one of him) will be on sabbatical next academic year, but Latin will continue rolling along.

        The summer institute for teachers, sponsored by the Wyoming Council for the Humanities (WCH), had another successful year last summer, with about twenty five Wyoming schoolteachers coming to Laramie for a week of intensive study on “The Rome of Augustus.”  Teachers love this stuff, and they love the chance to get into real books, ideas, and history.  The WCH decided to hold another institute (our fourth) next June, so we’re doing “The Rome of Nero.”  I’ll be joined by visiting faculty John Matthews and Veronika Grimm (both Yale), Barbara McManus (The College of New Rochelle), and Gregory Staley (Maryland) for a week with Tacitus, Seneca, Petronius, forced suicides, conflagrations, and persecution of the Christians.  It should be a ball--and a much-needed outreach effort in a state where the spaces between classicists continue to be wide and open.