ROCKY
MOUNTAIN REGION
ANNUAL
REPORT
2000-2001
The
CPL grant to the Classics Department of the University of Arizona was used to
vastly improve the state’s website, http://www.coh.arizona.edu/Classics which
now includes many informational materials of interest to teachers at all levels
as well as the larger community (Tucson, AZ, western US). Some of the money was
used for a mailing to high school and college/university teachers to inform them
of the various UA programs and scholarships available to their students.
The
University of Arizona Southern Arizona Language Fair in March featured a Latin
play, Latin certamina, Greek music, and an Odyssey booth for middle school Latin
students.
The
Arizona Junior Classical League will have its annual convention in April at ASU.
Ten schools with approximately 500 students from around the state will
participate.
John
Gibert reports from Boulder that it has been an excellent year for Classics and
CAMWS in Colorado. The Colorado
Classics Association (CCA) had two regular meetings.
The first, in early September, was the annual Latin workshop at which
K-12 Latin teachers from around the state report on their programs and receive
information about broader trends of interest to them. Members heard reports on the positive changes to the
International Baccalaureate curriculum (Latin “upgraded” to foreign language
status), new state foreign language standards, and the National Latin
Examination. At their second
meeting earlier this month (March), CCA members began planning in earnest for
the invasion of “Legion XIIII” in September 2001.
Kendra Ettenhofer has submitted a CPL request for funding to help with
this event. Funds are also being
sought on the University of Colorado (Boulder) and Colorado College campuses.
Colorado's
college-level CAMWS members will be well represented at the Provo meeting next
month. A CU Boulder graduate
student will present a paper, and other good news will come to the program from
the meetings. The Classical
Journal continues under the editorship of Peter Knox of CU Boulder, and
counts two additional Boulder faculty members (John Gibert and Christopher
Shields) on its editorial board.
Three
high-profile events have attracted participation from Latin teachers and
students and Classics faculty and their students from around the state. In
October, the Denver Center for the Performing Arts presented the world premiere
of Tantalus, an adaptation of John Barton's cycle of 10 original plays on
Trojan War-related themes. With support from the DCPA, John Gibert of CU Boulder
organized a public round-table discussion and an academic symposium called
“Tantalus and the Greeks,” both of which drew large and enthusiastic
audiences (see CJ 96.2 (2000-01) 207-10). Also
in the fall, Noel Lenski and Diane Conlin of CU Boulder mounted an impressive
exhibition of Roman coins from a local private collection in Norlin Library's
Special Collections Room. Several
teachers brought their classes to campus for a rare opportunity to see stunning
ancient artifacts in Colorado. Lenski
and Conlin also taught a highly successful numismatic seminar to accompany the
exhibition. In late April, Conlin
will also be hosting and participating in an international conference on
“Marble in the Roman World,” which she has organized.
18 distinguished specialists from England, Italy, Denmark, and the United
States will discuss the use and carving of different marbles in the ancient
Roman world. Some of the
participants are practicing sculptors, and the event promises to be of interest
to a variety of constituencies including high school Latin programs.
Latin
programs are holding their own in the state.
At any rate, there have been no closures, and at some schools (for
example Fairview High School in Boulder) Latin is making a comeback.
Due to a mid-year retirement, some Latin instruction in Jefferson County
is now occurring online with CU Boulder Master's candidate Bekki Richards as
instructor. CU Boulder Classics has been able to encourage high school
Latin in the past few years by offering scholarships to two outstanding Latin
students who intend to continue their study of Classics at the University.
This has been made possible by recurring generous grants from alumna Ann
Nichols. One of this year's
scholarship winners plans to become a high school Latin teacher.
Monica
Cyrino reports from Albuquerque that Classics continues to prosper in New
Mexico, especially at the University of New Mexico. Professor Warren Smith
received a CPL grant to fund the performance of Plautus' Casina in
conjunction with his course on Roman drama.
Professor Smith was also honored by an Outstanding Teaching Award from
the College of Arts & Sciences. Professor Monica Cyrino offered a new course
entitled “Big-Screen Rome” for 120 students, a look at Roman themes in films
from Quo Vadis to Gladiator.
Cyrino was also named to the chairmanship of the Department of Foreign
Languages & Literatures, which oversees the program in Classics. The Department currently offers undergraduate degrees in
Classics and an MA in Comparative Literature with an emphasis on Greek &
Latin, which prepares Classics students to go on to graduate study: both BA and
MA candidate numbers are increasing.
Latin
continues to grow in the secondary schools in Albuquerque, with the opening of
the Amy Biehl Charter School, founded by Tom Siegel, recipient of the CAMWS Good
Teacher Award. The Amy Biehl School requires Latin of all students, and plans to
double its enrollment for next fall.
Membership
in CAMWS continues to be a growth industry in the state of New Mexico. This
year, a record number of papers on the program at CAMWS, with five presentations
scheduled.
Eric
Huntsman reports from Provo that CAMWS membership remained relatively constant
in 2000, but that involving college and high school teachers in this year’s
convention will boost numbers. Of
the active members of CAMWS in Utah, several currently hold positions in the
organization. John Hall is on the
Committee on Nominations, the Ad Hoc
Committee on Long Term Planning, and the Committee on the CAMWS Centennial.
Roger Macfarlane as Vice President for the Rocky Mountain Region.
Eric Huntsman serves on the Finance Committee and as the State Vice
President for Utah. Cecilia Peek
serves on the Committee on Resolutions.
A
full range of Classics courses continue to be offered at Brigham Young
University and the University of Utah. A
Classics minor with some language is offered at Utah State University.
Sherri Latimer offers some courses in Classical history at the College of
Eastern Utah, but there is not any current demand for Latin at that institution.
Latin
courses are currently offered at American Fork High School, Cottonwood High
School, East High School, Granger High School, Highland High School, Judge
Memorial Catholic High School, Ogden High School, Rowland Hall-St. Mark’s
School, The Waterford School, and West Jordan High School.
In addition to these on-site programs, Nancy Granducci from Ogden High
School operates EDNET, a two-way interactive distance learning system that takes
Latin courses to students in Sky View, Mountain Crest, North Sevier, and Ogden.
Sky View and Ogden are in the EDNET Latin II program, and there are
students at Unita High in Vernal who plan to join next year.
The numbers are growing each year, with the following enrollments this
year: Latin I - 58 students, Latin II - 13, Latin III - 2, AP Latin
- 1. This year Nancy
Granducci is also a teacher on the Utah Electronic High School (the secondary
version of the Governor's Western University) and have put the beginnings of
Latin I online.
Ogden
also has been involved in the largest number of activities this year.
In November, students from Ogden, Sky View, and Mt. Crest participated in
the International Festival at Ogden High School.
Nearly 500 students and their parents participated in the evening's
festivities (produced by students and area businesses), as they made the rounds
to different booths sampling languages, food, and other cultural activities.
In February, we had our annual Latin Banquet, complete with contests for
best dressed Roman man and woman, entries of “authentic” Roman dishes, and
the highlight of the banquet was the dormouse contest run by the students from
the Sky View Latin Club. At the end
of February, students in all four schools took the National Latin Exam.
Rowland
Hall’s program is also especially strong.
Currently all sixth graders take Latin (Latin Is Fun).
In the seventh grade, those who wish may continue, others take French or
Spanish, in a two year, first level course.
Most continue to take their language of choice
in
the Upper School. Seniors take one
or the other of the AP courses, usually Latin Lit. Sue Olsen now has students who have taken Latin for seven
years.
American
Fork High School’s traditionally strong program continues basically unchanged.
Last
year, Eric Huntsman established a web page to showcase Classics and Latin in
Utah. Located at http://humanities.byu.edu/HCCL/ucr/index.html,
Utah Classics Resource includes pages for University Programs, High School
Programs, News and Events, as well as links to National Associations, Teaching
Resources, and other Classics sites.
Philip
Holt reports from Laramie that Classics in Wyoming continues to be a small-scale
operation with only two or three high schools in the state offering Latin, but
it's holding on and doing well as far as can be seen. There are a couple of promising developments at the
University of Wyoming, the only four-year institution of higher education in the
state.
Last
year, the Wyoming Council for the Humanities held a summer institute for
teachers on Homer and the Bronze Age, modeled on the CANE Institute held each
summer at Dartmouth by the Classical Association of New England.
This was a WCH project, and three faculty with experience in CANE
Institutes came to help on the teaching, but as the only Classicist at UW,
Philip Holt was involved in planning and teaching the institute. Twelve teachers
from Wyoming secondary schools attended, spirits and enthusiasm were high.
Even the parts of the institute that were open to the public were well
received. A second institute
will be offered this summer on Athens in the Age of Pericles and with more
advance publicity and glowing testimonials from last year's participants a
better showing is anticipated. Participants,
like those at the CANE Institute, appreciated the chance to gather and talk
about the material we teach instead of pedagogy and administration.
This could grow into a significant outreach effort to bring more of the
ancient world into the Wyoming classrooms.
The
other piece of news is that Holt has been working with an interdepartmental
committee to draw up a proposal for a minor program in Classical and Ancient
Civilizations. Classics has been a
one-person operation at UW since the school was founded over a hundred years
ago. Lately growing student demand has made the job too big for one person:
close to 200 students a year in all courses (Latin and a couple of
Classical Civilization surveys), 50 a year in beginning Latin (two sections),
excessive teaching loads for me (my record was 23 hours set last semester; no,
that is not a typo). The plan is to
bring in another Classicist, inaugurate some upper-division courses in Classics
translation, cross-listed where possible, to expand course offerings in the
ancient world to where more students in more programs can get at them. Faculty
in English, History, Philosophy, Religious Studies, Political Science, and Art
are behind this. It will be an
uphill battle but broad support across departments has got to help.
With the institute and the need for a minor, Classics in Wyoming has
gotten a lot livelier and more interesting.
Unfortunately, like a lot of other things in Wyoming it involves limited
manpower and a lot of hard work.
This material was posted on the web by CPL Chair, Tom Sienkewicz, at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois. If you have any questions, you can contact him at toms@monm.edu.
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