Alicia Matz
One thing that the COVID-19 crisis has highlighted for graduate students around the world is our liminal position in academia. As students we are expected to continue our studies uninterrupted but as instructors, we are essential workers needed to help keep the university running remotely. And yet, we are expected to do all of this while struggling to make ends meet and no pause on the graduation clock. In this workshop, I hope to talk about some ways in which I hope to see graduate school, especially in the classics, work to face these inequities head on and realize that graduate students are humans too and deserve an environment that allows us to flourish rather than struggle as we balance the role between student and faculty. This includes advocacy for more flexibility in time to degree, protections for when we are unable to do our work for mental or physical reasons, and the creation or support of systems of support to ensure no one gets left behind. Classics as a field can only recoup and grow stronger if we work to bolster and make ourselves accessible the most vulnerable among us.