Presidential Letters

President's Message - February 2016

No one who was present at the presidential panel organized by John Marincola in San Francisco will soon forget the combination of analysis, passion, and practicality offered by the speakers, as they sought to quantify and personalize the plight of those looking for permanent academic employment today (Eleanor Dickey, Stephanie Budin), to suggest a wider range of career possibilities for those with doctorates in classics and the humanities more broadly (John Paul Christy), and to propose ways large and small in which all of us can help make the working conditions of adjunct faculty more huma

Appointment of New Executive Director

I am delighted to announce the appointment of Dr. Helen Cullyer as the next Executive Director of the Society for Classical Studies. She is a classicist, with special interest in classical philosophy, educated at Oxford and Yale, where she received her doctorate in 1999. She taught at Evergreen State College and the University of Pittsburgh before moving in 2008 to the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, where she is currently Program Officer in the Scholarly Communications Program.

Letter from the President: Advisory Groups

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.

Letter from the President: Expanding the Audience for Classics

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.