Distance Technology and Graduate Classics Education

Distance Technology and Graduate Classics Education

Distance technology has helped level the playing field in Classics job placement; in many cases, no longer are graduate students required to scrape together hundreds of dollars to personally attend the SCS Annual Meeting, for the sake of one or two 30-minute first-round interviews. Search committees can easily simulate the in-person interview environment through readily available meeting technology, which is significantly more convenient and less expensive for the job candidates. This enhanced convenience and reduced expense should, in turn, produce a larger and more diverse applicant pool.

Can the use of meeting technology in distance graduate education likewise produce a quality experience with greater convenience and less cost, and therefore appeal to a more diverse pool of graduate students? That will be the question addressed in this paper. Practical aspects of delivering a live, distance graduate seminar will be discussed, as well as the logistics of delivering a hybrid seminar (with some students attending in person and some remotely). The question of whether a fully online graduate program is desirable, as opposed to a low-attendance program, will also be considered.

This paper will also address the question of appealing to non-traditional Classics graduate students, especially those who do not intend to pursue a career in higher education. Can a Classics graduate program maintain its quality and integrity without a mission to propel Ph.D.s into the academic job market? And does such a program automatically appeal to underrepresented groups, or is additional outreach desirable?

I will address these questions with the use of real-world examples, including a recording of an actual online graduate seminar. Thank you very much for your consideration.