Dear Colleagues,
It is now less than a month away from our annual meeting in San Francisco, and I hope that you have all had a chance, despite the busy time of year, to check out the program at the website. The Program Committee has done an outstanding job this year, and there is a variety of offerings for virtually every interest in our wonderfully wide-ranging field.
Dear Colleagues,
I begin with a big thank you to the membership. In my last message on annual giving I mentioned that the Board of Directors wanted to make annual meeting travel awards more robust for our colleagues who are most vulnerable, and I asked you to consider this when contributing to the Society.
Dear Colleagues,
Within the last few weeks you should have received from the Society an appeal for our Annual Giving campaign. I know this is a very busy time of year but I hope you will allow me just a few minutes to speak on behalf of the campaign.
Dear Colleagues,
In this, my first presidential letter, I want to begin by acknowledging the singular honor of being elected to this office by you, the members. My predecessors have set a high standard and I hope not to fall short of their distinguished example. I thank especially my immediate predecessors, Denis Feeney and Kathryn Gutzwiller, for all the help they have given me as I assume this role, and for the leadership they have shown as the Society has moved forward to take on new roles and new challenges.
In this last of my presidential letters, I take the opportunity to inform you of a new SCS initiative to establish a wider audience for classics. At last year’s Presidential Panel, Robert Connor made an impassioned plea for our Society to undertake the expansion of classics in institutions of higher learning. While Departments of Classics appear to be holding their own across the country, it is evident that the emphasis on STEM disciplines and support for interdisciplinary education at the expense of traditional departments provide challenges to classics education as we know it.