Reminder for Organizers of Panels at 2012 APA Annual Meeting
The Program Guide for the January 2012 Annual Meeting will appear in October. Organizers of affiliated group and organizer-refereed sessions that have been approved for presentation at the 2012 meeting are reminded that calls for abstracts for their sessions should be sent to the Association Office no later than September 20, 2010. See the APA web site for samples of previously published calls for abstracts.
Ineke Sluiter, Leiden University, is one of the four recipients of the Spinoza Prize awarded each year by the Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO). The prize is the highest award in Dutch science.
Jan Ziolkowski, Harvard University, is among the 229 leaders in the sciences, social sciences, humanities, arts, business and public affairs who were elected members of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences this Spring.
William Hansen, Indiana University, has been elected a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. The Society gives his honor to members who have made outstanding achievements in folklore scholarship.
W. R. Johnson, University of Chicago, Stanley Lombardo, University of Kansas,and Sheila Murnaghan, University of Pennsylvania have received the 2010 Umhoefer Prize for Achievement in Humanities for their introductions and translations of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey.
Three APA members are among the recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships for 2010. Their names, affiliations, and project titles are as follows.
The following APA members have received ACLS Fellowships for the coming academic year. Their names, affiliations, and project titles are as follows.
Atlantic Classical Association, October 15-16, 2010, Saint Mary's University, Halifax, NS, Canada. Papers of 20 minutes duration are invited on any aspect of the Ancient World or its reception. Please send the title and an abstract of not more than 200 words to 2010 ACA Conference, by August 31, 2010 to Alison Barclay (Alison.Barclay@smu.ca) or Myles McCallum (Myles.McCallum@smu.ca). Please also include your AV requirements. Information about conference registration and places to stay will be available at the end of August.
Lutheranism & the Classics, 1 and 2 October, 2010, Concordia Theological Seminary, Ft. Wayne, Indiana. The Age of the Reformation was also the Age of the Renaissance, a period to which the birth of the modern discipline of classics may be traced. The classics provided a rich source for the thought, intellectual undergirding, and polemic of the era. Classics thus became part of the cultural DNA, as it were, of the Reformation and post-Reformation Church in the West. Of particular interest to this conference is the reception of the classics in the Wittenberg (Lutheran) Reformation. There, the darling of the Northern European Renaissance, Philipp Melanchthon, appropriated the classics in the service of the Gospel and drew them to the fore as an integral part of the reformational program in Saxony and much of Northern Europe. Papers at “Lutheranism & the Classics” explore this watershed period in the history of classics reception and its ongoing impact on the Evangelical Lutheran Church. For more information, visit www.ctsfw.edu/classics. Inquiries may be addressed to one of the three organizers: John Nordling (john.nordling@ctsfw.edu); Carl Springer (casprin@siue.edu); Jon Bruss (jonbruss@yahoo.com).
The Classical Association of the Canadian West (CACW) presents Peasants, Potters and Prostitutes. Lower Classes in Greek and Roman Antiquity March 11-12, 2011, The University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. The CACW invites scholars and graduate students to submit abstracts on the topic of lower classes in the ancient Greek and Roman world. Topics may include but are not limited to:
Nostos: War, the Odyssey, and Narratives of Return, March 23-27, 2011, University of South Carolina, Columbia, SC. A soldier comes home from war. What does he find? How does he adapt? He’s been away a long time. He’s had a long journey filled with wonderful and traumatic experiences. Now, there are strange people in his house doing strange things. What should he do? For almost three thousand years in the west, the archetype of this narrative has been Homer’s Odyssey. The poem has fostered many successors from the Nostoi to the Aeneid, to Ulysses, March, and O Brother, Where Art Thou. The narrative remains as present to our society as it was in archaic society. Soldiers today, both men and women, are still coming home, making that fraught passage. And in the largest sense, we too, both soldiers and civilians, are always coming home, always returning to where we’ve never really been before to confront the different in ourselves and others.
We invite a broad range of interdisciplinary papers to explore historically, philosophically, politically, and psychologically topics including but not limited to the following. What is the significance of the Odyssey today? What did it mean in archaic Greece? What does the tradition surrounding it say about the changing meaning of the concepts and practices of war, of the journey, of return, and of home? Do we ever really come home? How does homecoming have the potential to both harm and heal? What is the place of the unheimlich in the all too familiar?
Abstracts for twenty minute papers should be sent to frankj@mailbox.sc.edu by October 1, 2010. Abstracts should be no more than 250 words long. Panel proposals of 750 words are due by the same date. Panels should include three papers and a respondent. This conference is sponsored by the Thirteenth Annual University of South Carolina Comparative Literature Conference, the Classics in Contemporary Perspectives Initiative, the Department of Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, the Department of Political Science, and associated Departments and Programs.
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation provides a variety of fellowships to scholars wishing to conduct research in Germany. Support is available for both postdoctoral fellows and more senior researchers. See the Foundation's web site for further information: http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/programmes-by-target-group.html.
The European Institutes for Advanced Study (EURIAS) Fellowship Programme is an international researcher mobility program offering 33 fellowships for the 2011/2012 academic year. It offers 10-month residencies in one of the 14 participating Institutes: Berlin, Bologna, Brussels, Bucharest, Budapest, Cambridge, Helsinki, Jerusalem, Lyons, Nantes, Paris, Uppsala, Vienna, Wassenaar.
EURIAS Fellowships are mainly offered in the fields of the humanities and social sciences but may also be granted to scholars in natural and exact sciences, if their proposed research project does not require laboratory facilities. The Program welcomes applications worldwide from promising scholars at an early stage of their careers as well as from established senior researchers. All participating institutes have agreed on common standards for EURIAS fellows, including the provision of a living allowance (in the range of € 26,000 for a junior fellow and € 38,000 for a senior fellow), accommodation (or a mobility allowance), a research budget, plus coverage of travel expenses.
Applications are submitted online via www.eurias-fp.eu. The deadline for application is September 10th 2010. Late applications will not be considered. Further information on the program is available at www.eurias-fp.eu.
The National Endowment for the Humanities supports undergraduate course development through Enduring Questions Course Grants for new courses and Teaching Development Fellowships for existing courses.
Enduring Questions Course Grants (up to $25,000). What is the good life? What is beauty? What is friendship? What is the relationship between humans and the natural world? Enduring questions such as these have long held interest to college students and allow for a special, intense dialogue across generations. The National Endowment for the Humanities will award Enduring QuestionsCourse Grantswhich support up to four college faculty members from any discipline with up to $25,000 to develop a new humanities course at the undergraduate level on a question of enduring significance, to be taught at the sponsoring institution at least twice during the grant period. The application deadline is September 15, 2010. For more information and instructions, please see the grant guidelines at http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/EnduringQuestions.html
Teaching Development Fellowships (up to $21,000). The National Endowment for the Humanities will award Teaching Development Fellowshipsto support college and university teachers pursuing research aimed specifically at improving an existing undergraduate course that has been taught in at least three different terms prior to the application deadline. The research undertaken as a part of the project may involve engaging with fundamental texts or sources, exploring related subjects or academic disciplines, or cultivating neglected areas of learning. Research in any area of the humanities is welcome.
Teaching Development Fellowships cover periods lasting from three to five months and carry stipends of $4,200 per month. Thus the maximum stipend is $21,000 for a five-month award period. The application deadline is September 30, 2010. For more information and instructions, please see the grant guidelines at http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/TD_Fellowships.html
The Princeton Society of Fellows invites applications for three-year postdoctoral fellowships for 2011-2014 for recent PhDs (awarded in or after January 2009) in the humanities or allied social sciences. TheSociety will make five appointments to pursue research and teach half-time in the following areas: Open discipline; Humanistic Studies (two fellowships); LGBT Studies; Race and/or Ethnicity Studies. The stipend is approximately $72,000, and the application deadline is October 1, 2010. For eligibility, fellowship and application details, see www.princeton.edu/~sf.
The National Humanities Center offers 40 residential fellowships for advanced study in the humanities during the academic year, September 2011 through May 2012. Applicants must hold doctorate or equivalent scholarly credentials. Young scholars as well as senior scholars are encouraged to apply, but they must have a record of publication, and new Ph.D.s should be aware that the Center does not support the revision of a doctoral dissertation. In addition to scholars from all fields of the humanities, the Center accepts individuals from the natural and social sciences, the arts, the professions, and public life who are engaged in humanistic projects. The Center is also international and gladly accepts applications from scholars outside the United States.
Located in the Research Triangle Park of North Carolina, near Chapel Hill, Durham, and Raleigh, the Center provides an environment for individual research and the exchange of ideas. Its building includes private studies for Fellows, conference rooms, a central commons for dining, lounges, reading areas, a reference library, and a Fellows’ workroom. The Center’s noted library service delivers books and research materials to Fellows, and support for information technology and editorial assistance are also provided. The Center locates housing for Fellows in the neighboring communities.
Application materials are available from the Fellowship Program, National Humanities Center, Post Office Box 12256, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 27709-2256, or the Center’s website: . http://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/ e-mail: nhc@nationalhumanitiescenter.org. Applications and letters of recommendation must be postmarked by October 15, 2010.
The Loeb Classical Library Foundation will award grants to qualified scholars to support research, publication, and other projects in the area of classical studies during the academic year 2011-2012. Grants will normally range from $1,000 to $35,000 and may occasionally exceed that limit in the case of unusually interesting and promising projects. Applicants must have faculty or faculty emeritus status at the time of application.
Grants may be used for a wide variety of purposes. Examples include publication of research, enhancement (“topping up”) of sabbatical salary, funding for conferences, travel to libraries or collections, dramatic productions, excavation expenses, or cost of research materials. Individual grant requests may be only partially funded.
A special selection committee will choose the persons to whom grants are to be awarded and recommend the amount of the grants. James Loeb directed in his will that income from the Loeb Classical Library beyond that needed for the maintenance and enhancement of the Library eventually should be used “for the encouragement of special research at home and abroad in the province of Archaeology and of Greek and Latin Literature” and that awards should be granted “without distinction as to sex, race, nationality, color or creed.”
Application forms, with detailed instructions for applying, reference cover letters, and the like can be downloaded from our website . Completed applications, including references, must be received by November 1, 2010. Loeb Classical Library Foundation, 204 Boylston Hall, Cambridge, MA 02138. Phone: (617) 495-4027; Fax: (617) 496-6720
The American Academy in Rome invites applications for the 2011 Rome Prize competition. One of the leading overseas centers for independent study and advanced research in the arts and the humanities, the Academy offers up to thirty fellowships for periods ranging from six months to two years. Rome Prize winners reside at the Academy’s eleven-acre center in Rome and receive room and board, a study or studio, and a stipend. Stipends for six-month fellowships are $13,000 and stipends for eleven-month fellowships are $30,000.
Fellowships are awarded in a number of fields including Architecture, Historic Preservation and Conservation, Ancient Studies, Medieval Studies, and Renaissance and Early Modern Studies. To apply visit the Academy’s web site at www.aarome.org or write to the American Academy in Rome, 7 East 60 Street, New York, NY 10022, Attn: Programs. Telephone: 212-751-7200, Ext. 47. E-mail: info@aarome.org. Please state specific field of interest when requesting information.
The Rome Prize competition is underwritten in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities. The competition deadline is November 1, 2010.
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Table of Contents
- Letter from the President
- Financial Statement for 2009 and 2008
- Board Meeting Minutes
- Report of the Delegate to the ACLS
- Report on the ACL Institute
- Departmental Membership
- Roundtable Discussion Session at the Annual Meeting
- 2010 Ballot Materials
- Call for Nominations for 2010 Precollegiate Teaching Awards
- APA/NEH Fellowship to TLL
- Pearson Fellowship Announcement
- Minority Scholarship Announcement
- Placement Service Notice
- University and College Appointments
- Dissertation Listings
- Reminder for Organizers of Panels at 2012 Annual Meeting
- Awards to Members
- Meetings/Calls for Abstracts
- Funding Opportunities
- Important Deadlines
- Cambridge University Press Advertisement
- Bolchazy-Carducci Advertisement
- Capital Campaign News
Message from the President: The APA Online
There are still many of us active in the profession who can remember when all messages from the APA came through the US Postal Service, and more urgent business was carried on by telephone. Those days are long gone, and now the APA, like the rest of the world, communicates with its members by email and through our webpage. Dues payments and campaign contributions are often made online, and last year online voting attracted the largest number of participants ever. This year saw the first ever submission of abstracts for the annual meeting online through the Social Science Research Network, as well as the introduction of the APA’s blog and RSS feed. If you have not yet registered for this free service go to the Association’s website and look for the RSS link on the bottom left. In two mouse clicks you will be ready to automatically receive timely information that used to appear in the Association’s Newsletter.
While we have made great strides in carrying out the APA’s business online, much remains to be done. One desideratum is an electronic publishing program. Retrospective volumes of TAPA are now available throughJStor, and Project Muse provides new volumes online, but the textbook and monograph series are produced only in print. The APA/AIA Taskforce on Electronic Publication, chaired by Donald Mastonarde, and lately The Publication Committee, under the leadership of Vice-President James O’Donnell, have been wrestling with the difficult technological, legal, cultural and financial issues that must be faced in creating an optimal electronic publishing program. In the near future we can expect some thoughtful recommendations for first steps in this direction.
Another area that could benefit from more timely electronic communication is placement. Posting “Positions for Classicists” on the website each month was certainly an improvement over the printed lists sent only to registrants, and the more recent option of receiving listings by email twice a month, further increased the information flow. We could do better, however, with a blog for registered job seekers that brings notices of positions as soon as they are received by the Association.
The APA also needs to face the reality that Wikipedia is the first place students go to find out about the classical world. We should seriously consider using our collective expertise to make it better. The APA could enlist members, including graduate students, in a project to systematically review, revise and augment existing entries with reliable information, bibliography, and links to scholarly resources. We could also add new ones where the coverage is lacking.
Finally, the APA should update its website and the system it uses to manage the information on it. Here the only missing ingredient is funding. More financial resources, in fact, will make possible all of the suggestions sketched above and many we cannot yet imagine. Funds raised in the Campaign for Classics are intended, in part, to be an “innovation” fund for the future, as well as a means of improving communication within and beyond the profession. Give generously!
Dee L. Clayman
Financial Statements for 2008 and 2009 Fiscal Years
The Board of Directors of the American Philological Association met at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel, Anaheim, CA, on January 6, 2010. Those present were Profs. Josiah Ober, President, and Roger S. Bagnall, Dr. Adam D. Blistein, Profs. Barbara Weiden Boyd, Ward W. Briggs, Cynthia Damon, Dee L. Clayman, Alain M. Gowing, Judith P. Hallett, Robert A. Kaster, John Marincola, Donald Mastronarde, James M. May, and James J. O’Donnell, Dr. Lee T. Pearcy, and Prof. Kurt A. Raaflaub. Also present by invitation were the following Directors who would take office on January 9, 2010: Profs. Ronnie Ancona, Peter Bing, Kathleen Mary Coleman, and Ann Vasaly. Profs. Carole E. Newlands and S. Georgia Nugent were absent. Prof. Ober called the meeting to order at 3:35 p.m.
Action: The Directors approved the agenda for the meeting that they had received in advance.
Action: The Directors approved minutes of their meeting of September 25-26, 2009.
Report of the President
Prof. Ober thanked Profs. Bagnall and Briggs for their help in forming an ad hoc committee on archives, the vice presidents and committee chairs for their efforts during the year, and Dr. Blistein for agreeing to continue as Executive Director. He also noted the new design of the web site that had been implemented recently. The decline in financial markets had affected Association operations, but APA had still been able to implement new electronic means of communication and to conduct retreats of both the Publications and Research Divisions to determine what further initiatives would be most useful for members.
Report of the Outgoing Vice President for Education
Dr. Pearcy thanked the members of the committees in the Education Division for their hard work during his term, and he was especially grateful for the help he had received from Sherwin Little, whose term as ACL President overlapped with his own as Vice President. He also thanked the members of the APA/ACL task force who had developed the Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation and the designer of the printed version, Suzanne Lashner. The Directors had received a new version of this document in advance of the meeting.
Action: The Board voted to approve the publication of Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation and to express the Association’s thanks to the task force that developed it.
Dr. Pearcy reported that Prof. Vasaly had agreed to represent the APA on a College Board committee to develop the new Latin AP curriculum. He said that during his term the Education Division had focused in large part on secondary education, but the Division should not limit the scope of its activities to that area.
Association Awards
Prof. Ober had circulated to the Directors a proposal for an award for an outstanding journal article along with a summary that Dr. Blistein had prepared for the previous Board meeting of awards offered by other learned societies in the humanities. He noted that in many respects, APA’s portfolio of awards was similar to that of its peers, except that it had none for journal articles. If the Board was interested in having such a prize, it would need to decide whether to restrict the award to members and what universe of articles would be eligible, establish nominating procedures, and find funding.
Action: After discussion, the Board approved the development of an ad hoc committee to develop guidelines for a journal prize.
APA Participation in Research Groups
In recent months the APA had been approached by several groups in Europe that were conducting research into specific areas of Classics scholarship. Typically, the groups were asking APA to become an institutional member. In at least one case, the focus of the group had matched that of a standing APA committee (on the Classical Tradition), and that Committee had participated in the group’s activities. Directors felt that in other cases the research group might want to consider the possibility of seeking affiliated group status.
Annual Meetings
2010 Annual Meeting. Dr. Blistein reported that 1,700 individuals had registered for the meeting in advance, and he estimated that 200 more would do so at the meeting itself. If that estimate was correct, the meeting would be only slightly smaller than the 2006 meeting in Montreal despite a considerably worse job market. In addition, the anticipated attendance was very close to the amount budgeted. When the meeting site had been selected in 2007, the Associations had booked additional rooms at the Hilton across the street from the Marriott in large part because while the latter hotel had sufficient meeting space, it did not have enough suites for rent by institutions conducting placement interviews. The subsequent economic decline had made a large number of those rooms unnecessary and had exposed the Associations to penalties for insufficient bookings at the Hilton. However, with assistance from the Marriott and Experient, the firm which had negotiated the contracts, it now appeared possible that the societies would avoid these penalties. Experient had already helped APA and AIA to obtain a reduction in the contracted sleeping room rates and the number of rooms reserved. Dr. Blistein also cited Heather Gasda for controlling audio visual and food expenses to obtain the cost savings approved by the Board in January 2009.
Future Annual Meetings. Dr. Blistein and Ms. Gasda were moving forward with staff of the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) on a system to offer online submission of panel proposals and abstracts for the 2011 meeting. On the following day Prof. Kaster and Dr. Blistein would meet with a director of SSRN with whom Prof. Ober had first explored this collaboration. In the interim, calls for abstracts for Organizer Refereed and Affiliated Group panels had been posted on the APA web site. Having abstracts for the former sessions go to Ms. Gasda via e-mail attachment was a temporary measure that should not be necessary again for the 2012 meeting.
In August, Dr. Blistein had reluctantly agreed that AIA staff could negotiate contracts for the 2013-2015 meetings without Experient, but no results were so far apparent. During the Winter it might be necessary for the Joint Management Committee to review the process of negotiating these contracts.
Financial Matters
Preliminary Statement for Fiscal Year Ending June 2009: The Directors had received a preliminary report from Dr. Blistein that was produced after auditors had begun but had not completed their work on the year. The report anticipated a deficit for the year of about $9,000. The report compared budget figures to projected final numbers, and Dr. Blistein noted that while income was below budget, half of the $90,000 discrepancy was the result of an intentionally reduced draw on General Fund in a year when the Association wanted to avoid liquidating its financial assets. The fact that expenses were about $40,000 below budget had made these savings possible.
Updated Budget for 2010 Fiscal Year: Dr. Blistein had distributed a revised budget that accounted for changed circumstances in the first six months of the fiscal year but (with one exception) no new expenses. The document anticipated a surplus of about $10,000 for the year assuming that the APA would meet its current challenge grant deadline and be able to claim the last installment of matching funds. A new reduced estimate for exhibit show revenue would reduce that surplus by $2,500, but the budget still contained an allowance for the same amount in hotel attrition penalties that might not be incurred.
In the category of Professional Services Dr. Blistein noted some unexpected savings achieved by the Placement Service. Because of decreased activity, Placement Director Renie Plonski used fewer assistants to schedule interviews in advance and brought one fewer person to the meeting. In addition, the fund-raising event at the Center for Hellenic Studies in September had cost less than expected. Dr. Blistein also noted that, pending a discussion at the meeting of the Committee on the Web Site and the Newsletter, he might ask the Board to approve an upgrade to the content management system for the new web site design that could cost close to $10,000.
Association Investments. Dr. Blistein had distributed a summary of investment values in the Association’s four funds. He noted that the General, Pearson, and Coffin Funds were about half-way back to the values they had at their approximate high points at the end of December 2007. Therefore, the trailing 3-year average that the Finance Committee would use in May 2010 to calculate disbursements for the 2011 fiscal year would be approximately 5% of the figures on the report. The Coffin Fund was now more than $3,500 above its permanently restricted value after being $7,000 below that figure in December 2008. Investment gains so far for the fiscal year were in the range of 11%-13% net of withdrawals.
The Research and Teaching Fund was now also above the value of initial contributions and had grown in recent months at a faster rate because of its more aggressive investment strategy. However, withdrawals from that fund would begin in July 2011; so, the Finance Committee would soon need to make the strategy more conservative. The APA’s advisors at BNYMellon Wealth Management continued to change the specific mutual funds in which they place APA investments although the types of investments (mid-cap, large-cap, bonds) and the overall strategy had not changed since June 2009. The small individual equity holding in the Research and Teaching Fund was temporary. BNYMellon holds Campaign gifts made with shares of stock for a few days or a few months depending on conditions and then sells them, investing the proceeds in the mutual funds that make up the bulk of the portfolio.
Executive Director Report
As was now customary, Dr. Blistein had posted a detailed report on the 2009 calendar year on the APA web site in advance of the meeting. He reviewed several important issues from that report with the Board.
Development. He reported that the Gateway Campaign had about 400 donors, most of them members, who had pledged just over $1.5 million. The challenge grant called for the APA to report $2.1 million in pledges by the end of January, and $2.6 million collected by Jan. 31, 2011. An extension would be needed, and Dr. Blistein would discuss this matter with the NEH’s Challenge Grants office after review of the situation at the combined Development/Campaign Committees Meeting the next day. The Campaign Committee had developed a new approach to Greek foundations and wealthy individuals that it was currently pursuing. It might be possible for the APA to set up a lecture series at the Greek Embassy in Washington, but given the financial difficulties of that country, this project was not likely to result in a significant campaign gift. A number of donors had made very generous one-time gifts to the Campaign as long as 4 years ago. The APA needed to solicit them again.
So far during the fiscal year the Association had received about $20,000 in annual giving contributions from all sources (online, dues, mail, registration). Members seemed to like the approach taken in the latest letter written by Profs. Christopher Brunelle and Allen Ward.
Placement Service. The number of institutions conducting interviews at the meeting was down from about 55 the previous year to just over 40. This was the lowest number in Dr. Blistein’s experience as Executive Director. He believed that the job situation in Classics was neither better nor worse than others in the humanities. The mailing of scheduling materials to candidates and institutions in November had been held up by poor mail service, which had given a further impetus to automating the collection of scheduling information in the future. It would be difficult to automate actual registration for the Service beyond making the current PDF form easier to fill in because of the necessity of checking two membership databases, and Dr. Blistein felt that human attention to the actual scheduling process was essential.
Penn Office. Dr. Blistein expressed his appreciation to the Penn School of Arts and Sciences for its flexibility in allowing the Office to remain in situ for another year and stated that he would start to seek new space at Penn after the annual meeting. His usual presentation to new graduate students in the Classical Studies Department had stimulated more discussion than usual, possibly because Prof. Joseph Farrell had scheduled it at the end of the semester instead of the beginning so that the students had a better context in which to place APA activities.
Communication with Members. Dr. Blistein was concerned that as the APA moved to more digital communication, it would reach fewer people less often. Although members seemed to respond positively to his communications via mass e-mail, the Association did not have a valid e-mail address for almost a quarter of the members. He reminded the Board of Prof. O’Donnell’s suggestion last September that he rely more on regular blogging rather than the Newsletter for communications from the Office and asked the Directors to begin a discussion of this issue that could continue in the meeting of the Committee on the Web Site and Newsletter two days hence.
Among the mechanisms suggested by Directors were APA sessions at regional meetings, development of a Facebook page, and development of a sophisticated blog with links and indices. If these new approaches were adopted, it would be acceptable to reduce the number of newsletters each year, particularly now that many of the functions that used to be performed by newsletter inserts (ballot, abstracts submission, annual meeting registration) were conducted largely or completely online.
Action: The Board approved Dr. Blistein’s suggestion that he be permitted to send a request for a valid e-mail address via first-class mail to all members who had so far not provided that information.
Other Business
Prof. Ober thanked the members of the Board who were concluding their service at this meeting: Prof. Raaflaub (President 2008), Prof. Briggs (Financial Trustee 2004-2010), Dr. Pearcy (Education Vice President 2006-2010), and Profs. Damon and Mastronarde (Directors 2007-2010).
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 6:15 p.m.
The Board of Directors of the American Philological Association met at the Anaheim Marriott Hotel, Anaheim, CA, on January 9, 2010. Those present were Profs. Dee L. Clayman, President, Ronnie Ancona, Roger S. Bagnall, and Peter Bing, Dr. Adam D. Blistein, Profs. Barbara Weiden Boyd, Kathleen Mary Coleman, Bruce W. Frier, Alain M. Gowing, Judith P. Hallett, Robert A. Kaster, John Marincola, James M. May, S. Georgia Nugent, Josiah Ober, James J. O’Donnell, and Ann Vasaly. Prof. Carole E. Newlands was absent. Prof. Clayman called the meeting to order at 12:00 noon.
Action: The Directors approved the agenda which they had received in advance of the meeting.
Action: In accordance with By-Law #14, Profs. Kaster and Boyd were chosen by lot to be members of the Executive Committee for 2010.
Report of the President
Prof. Clayman thanked Prof. Ober for his accomplishments as President and the APA Office staff for organizing the annual meeting. During her year as President she hoped to continue the discussion of scholarly communication that Prof. Ober had initiated.
Reports of the Vice Presidents
Professional Matters. Prof. May reported that the Subcommittee on Professional Ethics was working on two cases, one of which might require Board review of a Subcommittee proposal for public action. The Placement Service had registered 445 candidates, but only 40 institutions were conducting interviews at the meeting. The Joint Committee on Placement had decided that it was no longer necessary to print the annual collection of CV's and was exploring ways to automate the placement process where appropriate and to publicize the availability of teaching positions on the secondary level.
The Committee on the Status of Women and Minority Groups had asked that other relevant APA committees share responsibility for the surveys it produced. For example, it felt that the Publications Committee should contribute to the survey of journal editors. Prof. Joseph Farrell, the current convener of the regular meeting of Chairs of Ph.D. programs had met with the Professional Matters Committee to discuss the possibility of the APA collecting additional information on the outcomes of students entering graduate study in Classics.
In advance of the meeting, both the Committee and the Directors had received an issue brief prepared by the Coalition on the Academic Workforce that proposed guidelines for the treatment of adjunct and part-time faculty. The Committee had reviewed this document and had recommended that the APA endorse it. Directors agreed that the employment conditions of contingent faculty needed to be improved but felt that some of the remedies proposed in the issue brief were impractical or inappropriate.
Action: The Board declined to endorse the Coalition on the Academic Workforce's issue brief.
Publications. Prof. O'Donnell reported on the recent retreat of the Publications Division that had been made possible by a grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. All of the Association's publications series were in good condition and were benefiting from the work of excellent editors. Still, this was a good time to consider appropriate changes to the program, particularly because both of the APA's major publications agreements, with Oxford University Press for book publication and with the Johns Hopkins University Press for the publication of TAPA and for management of the membership database, were up for renewal.
The expanded Publications Committee that had met during the retreat had established a set of principles for all Association publications. Its subsequent recommendations included the development of a greater capacity to produce digital publications, increasing the visibility of TAPA, and using the APA web site for more communication with interested laypersons. Prof. O'Donnell distributed to the Directors a document providing more details of these principles and recommendations. The Committee on the Web Site and Newsletter had discussed an earlier draft of this document in Anaheim and would continue the discussion in New York during the Spring.
Action: The Board urged the Publications Committee to develop the programs outlined in the principles and recommendations document and to produce detailed proposals and budgets.
Program. Prof. Kaster reported that the 2010 meeting had gone well. Although there were fewer sessions than in previous meetings, attendance at the sessions had been good. He thanked Prof. Boyd for filling in at the last minute as a presider at a session, and he also thanked staff member Heather Gasda for her contributions to many aspects of the meeting.
The Program Committee had held a workshop on abstract writing that had been well attended and that had resulted in a new set of guidelines that would be published before the next call for abstracts was issued. That call would include a new abstract category for gender and sexuality.
Action: At Prof. Kaster's suggestion, the Board adopted a policy already in place for AIA sessions that the Association would no longer provide computers for presenters making digital presentations, and it added to that policy a provision that presenters needing to rent computers would be required to deal directly with the audio-visual company.
Research. Prof. Bagnall reported that he had formed task forces to investigate the feasibility of projects identified as promising at the Research Division's retreat in early September. He described the grant proposal that Prof. Eric Rebillard, Editor of l'Année philologique on the Internet, had submitted to the Mellon Foundation. This proposal sought funding to create a Classical Works Knowledge Base (CWKB) that would make it possible to link l'Année records to classical works cited in those records. CWKB would be designed to provide links from other resources to ancient works. For example, a project editing the works of early American political writers was interested in using CWKB to link to the ancient texts mentioned in those writings.
He also described the work of Prof. Lora Holland, funded by a grant to the Association from the Packard Humanities Institute, to create l'Année records of articles in collected works that the various offices had not captured. The policy of l'Année's governing body, the Société Internationale de Bibliographie Classique (SIBC), gave such works a low priority, and Profs. Bagnall and Clayman would write to SIBC requesting a change in that policy.
Education. Prof. Ancona reported that the Minority Scholarships Committee had renewed its commitment to making awards that could make a difference in an applicant's career. The Committee had noted a decline in the number of applications. The scholarship offered did not usually cover all costs of a summer program; so, the decrease might be caused by the economy. Prof. Ancona also described the annual meeting panels that the Committee on Ancient History had put on in Anaheim and was organizing for the future.
Prof. Ancona hoped that the National Committee for Latin and Greek (NCLG), which the APA supports with annual dues, would increase the level of its communication with members. NCLG had produced a video about the benefits of studying Latin, and a link to this should be posted on the APA web site.
The Education Committee intended to make contact with Classics teachers in community colleges and to post more information on the APA's web site. A grant from Hunter College would make it possible to update the existing set of links to teaching certification requirements in individual states. The departments that currently offer teacher training programs were considering the formation of an affiliated group similar to the ones for M.A. and Ph.D. program chairs.
The Directors discussed the upcoming addition of Caesar to the Advanced Placement curriculum and the requests of secondary school teachers who had never taught this author for web-based resources they could use. Profs. Marincola and Vasaly volunteered to produce an annotated bibliography for the APA web site.
Outreach. Prof. Hallett described the annual meeting panels that the Committee on the Classical Tradition had presented for 2010 and would organize for 2011. She also passed on a request from the Committee that its name be changed to include the term "receptions".
Action: The Board requested a specific proposal for a name change from the Committee.
As a cost-saving measure Amphora was currently being published only once a year. The next issue would appear in the Spring, and subsequent issues would appear each January as long as this publication schedule had to be maintained.
Action: The Board extended the terms of Editor, T. Davina McClain, and Assistant Editor, Diane L. Johnson, until January 2012.
After sponsoring a showing of silent films with classical themes in Anaheim, the Committee on Ancient and Modern Performance would return to producing a reading of a play, in this case Thesmophoriazusae, for the 2011 annual meeting. It was also developing a roster of members knowledgeable about Classical themes in modern music and would continue to assist the Aquila Theatre Company with its NEH-funded programs that brought productions of scenes from ancient dramas to public libraries. In addition to organizing panels at the annual meetings, the Committee on Outreach would encourage nominations for the new President's Award and improve the Speaker's Bureau listing on the web site to include presenters' discussions of their current research.
Financial Matters
Report of the Development Committee. The combined Development and Campaign Committees had met on January 7. Staff had presented updates on gifts received to date for both annual giving and the capital campaign, and Committee members suggested a number of new prospects who should be approached for the Gateway campaign. The APA was supposed to claim its next installment of NEH matching funds for its challenge grant on January 31. It currently needed to raise about $600,000 to claim the full amount available and the Committees agreed it would need an extension of time to do so. The Committees also discussed the content, design, and follow-up plans for the Gateway appeal to be sent to members during the Winter and a proposed fund-raising event in New York City with a performance by the Aquila Theatre Company. Unlike the event held in September at the Center for Hellenic Studies, admission would be charged. The Committees also endorsed a request from a regional association that had contributed to the Gateway campaign that the APA publicize a fund-raising effort of its own.
Action: The Board approved the publication in the Newsletter of fund-raising notices from organizations that had supported the Gateway campaign.
Report of the Finance Committee. Prof. Nugent reported on the meeting of the Finance Committee that had taken place earlier in the day. The Committee had two major concerns: First, if the Association was committed to increasing the amount and quality of its communications, it needed to set aside funds to develop the necessary resources to make major improvements in its web site. The Committee had approved a proposal to spend about $9,000 to improve the current content management system but wanted the Board to understand that a much more substantial upgrade would be needed to realize the ambitions of the Gateway campaign.
The second concern was the Gateway Campaign itself. The delay in claiming matching funds could create a budget deficit for the current year, and the campaign needed to convey a clearer message with a greater sense of urgency. Directors suggested several ways in which the Gateway Campaign could be described more effectively as well as techniques to distinguish the campaign from the traditional and ongoing annual giving appeals.
Action: The Board approved the addition of $9,000 to the budget for the current fiscal year to purchase an upgrade to the web site's content management system.
Other Business
Pearson Fellowship. The Pearson Fellowship Committee had discussed the request made by the Board in September that it consider modifications to the Fellowship because the annual stipend available no longer covered the full costs of a year's study in the UK. The Committee was reluctant either to expand eligibility to first-year graduate students or to students taking a gap year or to offer the Fellowship in alternate years (in which case a larger stipend could be offered). Instead it proposed to keep offering the Fellowship on its current terms but to make the call for nominations more explicit about the extent to which it could fund a year's study. It also suggested possible donors to an expanded fund.
Action: The Board accepted the recommendation of the Pearson Fellowship Committee to retain the current guidelines for the Fellowship but to improve the call for nominations.
Plenary Session and Business Meeting. The Board discussed the modest attendance at the Plenary Session and the very low attendance at the Business Meeting. Directors agreed that announcing award winners in advance and reducing the time devoted to the reading of award citations might increase the audience at the Plenary Session, and Dr. Blistein stated that he would ask the Association's attorney to review the APA's legal obligations as regards the Business Meeting.
Action: The Board asked the Program Committee to propose a new format for the Plenary Session.
Next Meeting. Dr. Blistein stated that he would circulate an e-mail to the Directors to determine which of three dates in September or early October was the best for the Board's next meeting. The Board would also hold a conference call in June to approve a budget for the 2011 fiscal year and to handle any other urgent matters.
There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 3:05 p.m.
Report of the Delegate to the ACLS
The annual meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies took place May 6-8 at the Sheraton Society Hill in Philadelphia. Representing the American Philological Association were Adam D. Blistein, Executive Director, and Helen F. North, Swarthmore College Emerita, Acting Delegate.
The ACLS plays a unique role in American academic life, bringing together representatives of most of the humanistic disciplines and related social sciences and providing an annual opportunity for the exchange of ideas, the discussion of current issues, and the meeting of delegates in an environment conducive to the renewal of old friendships, the making of new acquaintances, and the recognition of our debt to colleagues who have left us in the last year. At the 2010 meeting the roll-call of the Council produced 71 voting members, and there were also many representatives of ACLS affiliates, such as the Presidents of constituent societies and distinguished visitors speaking for a variety of humanistic interests. Only a few items from the crowded agenda can be mentioned here.
Because the ACLS from its foundation in 1919 has devoted itself to providing scholarship assistance to its members, special attention is always paid to this aspect of the work of the Council. In a time of such economic depression the success of the ACLS in maintaining its traditional assistance to humanistic scholars at various stages of development was impressive, although a deduction in the number of its fellows from 65 to 57 was necessary this year. A newly organized fellowship program (ACLS New Faculty Fellows) beginning in the fall of 2010, deserves special mention. It addresses the dire situation of newly minted PhDs and provides for two years a salary of $50,000 plus a $5,000 research travel allowance annually, health insurance and a moving allowance. This year 46 awardees were hired each by one of 96 participating institutions. The program was funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, to which an application has been made for similar support for next year.
The absorbing report of President Pauline Yu dealt not only with the fellowship program. but with the need to appeal to forces outside academic boundaries, particularly the federal government, and appropriately the luncheon speaker was the recently appointed Chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, Jim Leach, whose previous experience includes 30 years in Congress and teaching at Princeton. He has received many awards testifying to his support of the humanities and has been elected to two wrestling halls of fame, which suggests that he is a fighter. We hope so.
Among other items in the program of special interest to classicists was a discussion by recent fellows of Emerging Themes and Methods of Humanistic Research, which included John N. Hopkins, a doctoral candidate at Austin, Texas, just off the plane from Rome, where he is studying the development of Roman temple design. There was also a symposium on the consequences of Google's digitization for access to necessary material, featuring James J. O'Donnell, Provost at Georgetown University and Secretary of the ACLS Board of Directors.
And finally there was the crowning event of the day, the delivery of the Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecture on The Life of Learning. The scholar honored on this occasion was Professor Nancy Siraisi, Hunter College Emerita, who delivered the 28th in this notable series, describing the studies that led to her eminence in the mastery of European medicine of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. She proved entirely worthy of the honor paid to her by the ACLS.
We were pleased to represent the APA at the 63rd Institute of the American Classical League (ACL) at Wake-Forest University this past June. Over 300 teachers of Classics at the primary, secondary, and college levels as well as a number of graduate students attended the Institute and participated in three days of sessions, workshops, and social events. The Institute also has a teaching materials exhibit at which APA sets up its regular table top display. The Institute Program on the ACL web site gives a detailed picture of the meeting's activities.
The Institute's theme was Peace & War and featured a number of paper sessions on Caesar, Cicero, Vergil, and Roman history. The Institute also marked the recent publication of our joint effort with ACL, Standards for Latin Teacher Preparation by offering a session devoted to presentations about that document (Ronnie was one of the speakers), as well as several other sessions devoted to teacher training, certification, and evaluation. Martha Abbott, Director of Education at the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages, gave a particularly useful presentation on federal legislation and regulations that may affect Latin teachers in the near future. At a session on upcoming inclusion of Caesar in the AP Latin exam, participants thanked us for the material we've recently posted on our web site about that author: https://classicalstudies.org/caesar
This was the last Institute of Sherwin Little's ACL Presidency. Sherwin, a Latin teacher at Indian Hill High School in Cincinnati, is the first secondary school teacher to serve as ACL President, and he has been an enthusiastic and effective partner with the APA throughout his four-year term, whether the issue was recruitment of secondary school teachers, preparation of the Standards document (he co-chaired the task force that developed that document with Lee Pearcy), or the APA's capital campaign (he serves on the campaign committee). We welcome Peter Howard of Troy University as the new ACL President and are glad to report that we will continue to work with Sherwin as he takes over responsibility for ACL's Placement Service. APA members should be aware, if they are not already, that ACL manages the most comprehensive listing of positions for Classics teachers at the primary and secondary school levels: http://spectrum.troy.edu/~acl/.
Departmental Membership in the American Philological Association
The American Philological Association (APA) invites college and university departments offering programs in classical studies to become departmental members. The APA instituted this category of membership as a way of giving recognition to those departments that are willing to support the entire field while they do the essential work of passing on an understanding of classical antiquity to each new generation of students. Departmental members will be listed on the Association's web site, in an issue of the Association's Newsletter, and on a page in the Annual Meeting Program. The APA will issue outstanding achievement awards to students designated by the department. Departmental members will also be able to obtain certain APA publications and other benefits at no charge, and they will support two important international classics projects in which the APA participates: the American Office of l'Année philologique and its fellowship to the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae. Departmental dues revenue that exceeds the value of benefits received will be used to support these two projects and will make the APA eligible to receive matching funds from the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) which is currently the major supporter of these two projects.
A form for enrolling a department as a member is available on the APA web site: https://classicalstudies.org/sites/default/files/documents/Dept_Member_Form.pdf. Departments may select a membership category that corresponds to the highest academic degree that each one offers. However, departments selecting the higher Supporting or Sustaining categories will enable the Association to claim additional matching funds from the NEH so that the Association can focus its fund-raising efforts on the capital campaign and on unrestricted annual giving.. The web site and Program listings of member departments will give appropriate recognition to those selectingthe higher levels.
As of July 31, 2010, the following departments are participating in the program for this year.
2011 Annual Meeting: Deadline for Proposals for Roundtable Discussion Sessions Extended
This 90-minute joint session with the AIA consists of a number of tables devoted to discussions of a variety of topics, with at least one discussion leader for each topic. Members are invited to propose themselves as roundtable discussion leaders. Topics may be the leader’s area of scholarly interest or an issue important to the profession. Since certain topics lend themselves to presentation by more than one leader, proposals for multiple leaders are welcome. The Program Committee believes that these sessions can provide an excellent opportunity for younger registrants (both graduate students and recent Ph.D.'s) to interact with established scholars in a less formal environment than a session or a job interview. Leadership of a roundtable discussion does not count as an “appearance” on the annual meeting program; i.e., roundtable leaders may present a paper or serve as a respondent in an APA paper session.
The Program Committee invites members to submit brief (50-100 word) descriptions of a suitable topic for a roundtable. These submissions for the annual meeting in San Antonio, TX should be sent to the Executive Director's Office by September 7, 2010.
The slate of candidates for this Summer's election has been posted on the APA web site. Once again, members will have the option to cast ballots online and will receive voting instructions in August.
Call for Nominations for 2010 Precollegiate Teaching Awards
Pearson Fellowship Call for Nominations
APA/AIA Minority Summer Scholarship
The 2010-2011 Placement Service Year has begun. Instructions for using the Service this year as well as forms for institutions and candidates can be found on the APA web site.
University and College Appointments
The following are the names of the candidates who have obtained new positions through the 2009-10 Placement Service. Additional names will be printed in a future issue of the Newsletter, and we are still accepting submissions. Candidates whose names appear in bold and italics represent individuals who filled a new position at that institution. Also listed are institutions who contacted the Placement Service and stated that no one was hired as a result of their candidate search.