Skip to main content

On January 5, 2020, the SCS Board of Directors approved a name change for the Minority Scholarship in Classics and Classics Archaeology. The scholarships will now be known as the Frank M. Snowden Jr. Undergraduate Scholarships. The name change was recommended by President-Elect Shelley P. Haley and the SCS Committee on Diversity in the Profession.

The new name honors Frank M. Snowden Jr., the renowned black classicist, chair for many years of the Howard Classics Department, and author of Blacks in Antiquity, which won the Charles J. Goodwin Award of Merit in 1973. Prof. Snowden was also a recipient of the National Humanities Medal and was elected by the SCS (then APA) membership to the position of second Vice President, serving in that role in 1983-84. According to the cursus honorum at the time, Prof. Snowden should have become President in 1986. However, he had to step down owing to poor health, which was a huge loss to the organization and the profession. You can read a full biography of Professor Snowden here.

The nature, purpose, and eligibility criteria for the scholarships – SCS now gives several per year – will remain the same. The scholarships will continue to provide summer funding for students from historically underrepresented groups so that they can pursue study abroad, participate in archaeological digs, and enroll in intensive language study courses in the North America and beyond.

---

(Photo: "_DSC7061" by rhodesj, licensed under CC BY 2.0)