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SCS is pleased to announce that the 2021 Outreach Prize Winner is Mallory Monaco Caterine (Tulane University). You can read the award citation below:

At its best, outreach work not only reaches out, but it also invites in. Exceptional outreach work welcomes members of the broader public into conversations about the ancient world and fosters meaningful relationships that inform and enrich all participants, whether they are scholars, students, or community members. In recognition of her exemplary work in this area, the Society for Classical Studies is pleased to award the 2021 Outreach Award to Mallory Monaco Caterine for her work with Nyansa Classical Community in New Orleans.

Monaco Caterine has long dedicated herself to developing and strengthening relationships with the local community, connecting her students at Tulane with residents of New Orleans. Over a period of several years, she has developed an upper-level Latin course with a service learning component that has partnered with local schools and a local non-profit, the Nyansa Classical Community. The range of innovative programs they created, from puppet shows to the creation of Roman food, is truly impressive.

Although Monaco Caterine and her students started with materials developed by Aequora, they began to develop their own materials in response to feedback from their community partners. She and her students were able to create a curriculum that was unique and tailored to the needs and interests of the students with whom they were working -- predominantly Black students who were not seeing themselves represented in the existing curriculum. Over the course of the last year, Monaco Caterine has facilitated conversations between the staff and students at Nyansa Classical Community and students and other stakeholders at Tulane University. The result has been a set of activities that are designed specifically for and with the local community.

What is particularly of note in Monaco Caterine’s outreach work is how she brings students and community stakeholders into the process of planning and carrying out their goals. Her intentional and thoughtful leadership, as well as the collaborative spirit of this project, make this an impressive model that others can look to for inspiration. Her article in The Classical Outlook (“Non sibi, sed suis”), which reflects on her experiences with this program, reminds us how a well-designed community-based learning program can infuse classics courses with a powerful sense of timeliness and relevance. She also highlights the importance of sustained and engaged collaboration that may not bear fruit immediately, but which patiently nurtures deep and meaningful results.

For all of these reasons and more, we are pleased to recognize Mallory Monaco Caterine as this year’s winner of the Outreach Prize.

The Outreach Prize Committee (Brett Rogers, Amy Pistone, and Donna Clevinger)