Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting of CAMWS
115th Annual Meeting
Cornhusker Marriott, Lincoln, Nebraska
Yankee Hill III Room
Saturday, April 6, 2019
President Andrew T. Faulkner called the meeting to order at 8:03 am and asked for a motion to approve the minutes of the April 8, 2018 Business Meeting held in Albuquerque, New Mexico (posted on-line at https://camws.org/2018businessmeetingminutes). A motion to approve was moved by Keely Lake and seconded by Roger Macfarlane. There were no corrections or additions and the motion was approved by voice vote.
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas J. Sienkewicz then gave a report on the current membership and finances of the organization. Referring to this Report on Membership by Category (March, 2019), he noted that the number of individual memberships in all categories, as well the number of institutional members, are similar to those in recent years, while the number of library subscriptions continued its long, historical decline. He also provided this Report on Membership by Region (March, 2019) and drew attention to the significant increase in memberships in Nebraska where this year’s meeting took place.
He then discussed this Budget and Profit/Loss Statement (March 1, 2019) and reminded the membership that this statement reflects the income generated by meeting registration fees but not the costs related to the meeting and predicted that the end-of-fiscal-year report would not show such a significant income surplus.
Sienkewicz also announced that the audit report for FY18-19 had been completed satisfactorily and that members were welcome to review a copy.
Kristin Lord then moved and Davina McClain seconded a motion to accept the Secretary-Treasurer’s report. This motion was approved by voice vote.
President Faulkner then asked for Publications Reports, the first of which was given by Antonios C. Augoustakis, Editor of The Classical Journal. Augoustakis said that Volume 114 was now complete. The table of contents for 115.1 and 115.2 (October/November 2019, December 2019/January 2020) were set, and the issues would go into production, as scheduled, in September and November 2019 respectively. He noted that the quality of submissions remained very high and that submissions covered a wide variety of areas in Greek and Latin literature with a good balance between the two fields. The journal continued to receive submissions from a wide spectrum of junior and senior scholars. Of the 2018 submissions, the acceptance rate was 20%, rejection 44%, and a “revise and resubmit” 36%. 56% of articles in volume 114 were written by women. In 2018, submissions by women were at 44%; reviewers who served in 2018 were 50% men, 50% women.
CAMWS Newsletter Editor Timothy S. Heckenlively then reported that the Fall and Winter Newsletter issues for 2018-19 had been sent to members and that the Spring/Summer issue would appear approximately one month after the Annual Meeting. In response to a growing number of items from institutional members such as Paideia, he has begun making an effort to consolidate announcements for the sake of space and readability. The first results may be seen in the recent Winter issue.
Heckenlively also noted that CAMWS’s mailing list vendor, Constant Contact, made a major upgrade in their editor tools at the end of 2018. Starting with the most recent issue he has opted to move to their revised templates immediately rather than persist with the older version. The new editor provides a number of pre-built blocks that offer both attractive layout and better responsive formatting on mobile devices. The chief draw-back is that the Constant Contact has removed the option for linking within the document itself (e.g. table of contents to a specific article). Long term, this might lead us to reconsider the format of the emailed newsletter, envisioning it more as an introduction to linked material rather than a long, stand-alone email.
Alternatively, CAMWS could explore moving the mailing list to Mailchimp (a competing service), which still supports intra-document links and is of comparable price to Constant Contact.
Heckenlively concluded his report by welcoming feedback on the issues he raised.
John C. Gruber-Miller, Editor of Teaching Classical Languages, then reported the completion of Volume 9, a special issue on the revised Standards for Classical Language Learning. The Tables of Contents for 10.1 and 10.2 were now set and Volume 10 would be completed before his term of office ended on June 30, 2019. He said that there were currently enough submissions for 11.1, and that more would come in after the CAMWS meeting and the ACL Centennial Institute in June. He observed that the quality of submissions continued to increase as those submitting saw more examples of high-quality articles focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning Latin and Greek and became more comfortable utilizing quantitative and qualitative measures to support their conclusions. Gruber-Miller was pleased to report that the journal receives articles from K-12 teachers as well as post-secondary instructors and that the journal actively sought readers from both groups to referee each article. Over the past five years, 68% of submissions have been published, always through multiple revisions, 21% have been rejected, and 11% are in the Revise and Resubmit phase. Over that same time period, authors of published articles have been 50% women and 50% men. Women and men have submitted in equal proportions (50% each). Reviewers who served were 45% women and 55% men.
As his second five-year term came to an end, he expressed his gratitude to the many teachers, graduate students, and college faculty readers who have found Teaching Classical Languages inspirational, stimulating, and provocative. He said he was deeply indebted to the generosity of those who have been willing to referee articles. He especially praised his hard-working and responsive Editorial Board members and Editorial Assistants, Meghan Yamanishi and Keely Lake. Finally, he wished his successor, Yasuko Taoka, Dean of Arts and Humanities at Wayne State College in Nebraska, his best wishes for continued success with the journal.
President Faulkner then thanked Gruber-Miller for his excellent work as editor and presented him with a certificate of appreciation.
President Faulkner then noted that there was no Social Media/Website report because the position of Social Media Director was currently vacant. An appointment to this position would be made soon.
Del Chrol then moved and Lorenzo Garcia seconded a motion to accept the Publications Reports. This motion was approved by voice vote.
President Faulkner then called for Committee Reports. The first of these was given by Keely K. Lake as Chair of the Committee for the Promotion of Latin. She began by noting that a fuller report on CPL activities and grants was posted on the CPL section of the CAMWS website. She then thanked the members of CPL—Steven Jones, Alison Keith, Garrett Jacobsen, David Wharton, Robin Anderson, and Lynn LyCalsi, as well as all the State, Provincial and Regional VP’s and Secretary-Treasurer Sienkewicz and Jevanie Gillen, his administrative assistant, for their help in the successful work of CPL. She also thanked Rebecca Allen, Mark Haynes, and Daniel Stoa for being part of the 2019 CPL Workshop, “Mentoring New Teachers, Promoting the Profession,” as well as to Krishni Burns and Clara Bosak-Schroeder for organizing the 2019 CPL Panel “Learning Disabilities in the Classics Classroom.” Lake then congratulated this year’s winners of a CPL Award for Promotion: Salvador Bartera of Mississippi State University (Collegiate level), and Leigh Grace Rouyer of St. Joseph’s Academy (K-12 level).
Lake announced that John Hansen of Oklahoma was the Outstanding CAMWS State/Provincial Vice-President for 2019. Hansen was not present to receive his award. Lake then awarded Davina McClain of the Gulf Region the Outstanding Regional VP Award. McClain was present to accept her award.
Lake concluded her report by thanking the membership for all they do for the Classics and said that it had been her pleasure to serve CAMWS as CPL Chair for the past three years.
President Faulkner then thanked Lake for her service and presented her with a certificate of appreciation.
As Chair of the Development Committee, John F. Miller then reported that the main focus of the Development Committee has been the Teacher Training Initiative, a campaign launched in 2017 to generate funds to support the recruitment, training, and sustaining of K-12 teachers of Latin. Miller noted that such recruitment and training continues to be a keen need in the profession and has long been at the core of CAMWS’s concerns and indeed of our identity. After the first phase of the campaign raised $12,000, it was decided around the start of 2019 to follow up with a renewed appeal to the membership. To stimulate that effort, we asked the Executive Committee to grant from the endowment $10,000 in matching funds, which were granted. The consulares immediately contributed $5,000, which became $10,000 with the match, so CAMWS was now headed towards $25,000 and a goal of $30,000 for this initiative.
Miller reported that, in conversation with the Secretary-Treasurer, the Committee decided to refocus the aim of the Teacher Training Initiative from the initial idea of a small flexible all-purpose endowment that could be directed in a given year to a particular area of need already supported by CAMWS to a fund expended immediately on new ways of enhancing the recruitment and training of K-12 teachers. Miller said that various ideas were under discussion, such as recruiting efforts led by master teachers in high schools and colleges to establishing partnerships between veteran and beginning teachers to expanding the application of start-up funds for newly felt needs. The Committee has asked the President and Executive Committee to appoint an ad-hoc committee on dispersing the funds from the Teacher Training Initiative, and that committee was now being formed.
Miller noted that the membership at large had been invited and urged to contribute to the Teacher Training Initiative in the latest CAMWS Newsletter, and by President Faulkner at the ACL event on Thursday evening. He reminded members that there was a link on the website for this purpose and that envelopes for pledges and donations had been conspicuous at this meeting, He concluded by stating that the committee hopes that many members would see their way to contribute in any amount to what Miller hoped all would agree was a worthy cause. He concluded by thanking the members of CAMWS for their consideration and for their support of the Teacher Training Initiative.
Finance Committee Chair Mathias Hanses then reported that the Committee’s main task this year was to conduct a cost analysis relating to a number of increases in stipends for CAMWS officers that had been suggested by the Executive Committee. We determined that CAMWS could afford an annual expenditure of $26,500 on stipends. In a follow-up conversation with Raymond James Investment, our contact RJ Chester stated that if we were to offset these expenses by making withdrawals from the endowment (which has not been done since 2009) then the endowment should be able to sustain a withdrawal rate of 4% of the portfolio value per annum. In CAMWS’s case, this would equate to approximately $40,000 annually. (It was determined, however, in conversations on the Executive Committee that money withdrawn from the endowment should be used only for awards and scholarships.)
Incidentally, the endowment continues to perform well, albeit not quite as well as it did in the previous year. In our last report from March 31, 2018, we noted that the portfolio’s value stood at $1,091,585 after an increase of 8.8%. This year, as of February 28, 2019, the value stands at $1,109,883.28. This is an increase of $18,298 or 1.7%.
On a related note, concerns were raised regarding a possible stock-market downturn, but our contact at Raymond James recommends not to make any changes in anticipation of this event. The average length of a downturn tends to be only about 18 months. After that, the endowment would likely recover quickly. In the meantime, they are holding $195,000 (i.e., almost 20% of the portfolio) in short-term investments, meaning they are easily accessible. We could use this buffer to make approximately 7 years’ worth of withdrawals before we run into any sort of trouble.
Finally, the Finance Committee noted a decline in contributions to the Ruebel fund and recommends that the membership be encouraged to contribute to this and other awards.
On behalf of the Graduate Student Issues Committee, Samuel Hahn reported that over the past year, the Graduate Student Issues Committee (GSIC) has instituted new changes, rejuvenated old initiatives, and developed programming for the conference in Lincoln.
At the last meeting of CAMWS in Albuquerque, Hahn (University of Colorado Boulder) replaced Sarah Keith (University of Michigan) as committee chair after her successful two-year term. Over the summer, the Committee bid farewell to one colleague but welcomed two new members: Sara Hales-Brittain (University of Iowa) and Chad Uhl (University of Kansas). The Committee also streamlined communication by establishing an online workspace through Slack.
During the fall, the members of GSIC agreed to reassert the Committee’s presence online; Sara Hales-Brittain assumed responsibility of the Facebook page and boosted engagement through frequent postings, and Erica Meszaros (Brown University)—with a post on January 10th responding to the racist incidents at the SCS-AIA meeting in San Diego, CA—relaunched the blog.
Following the successes of last year’s workshop on intersectionality and panel on publishing, GSIC is offering another workshop on pedagogy, over which Samuel Hahn will preside, as well as a panel on grant writing organized by Samuel Kindick (University of Colorado Boulder) at the meeting in Lincoln. GSIC is also holding a round table and happy hour so that undergraduate and graduate students can meet current members, learn about the committee, and share their concerns with peers.
Hahn concluded by noting that in the future the Committee was looking to diversify and hoping to add new members as older colleagues finish graduate school.
Membership Committee Chair Roger T. Macfarlane reported the following on behalf of fellow Committee members Holly Sypniewski, Douglas Clapp, Arum Park, Jessica Blum, and Cecilia Peek: Referring back to the Secretary-Treasurer’s Report on Membership by Category (March, 2019) and Report on Membership by Region (March, 2019) Macfarlane said that, in the Committee’s opinion, the good news outweighs the less good. As of March 1, 2019 total individual memberships were essentially at the 1500-mark and likely to approach the decade high (of 2011) by the end of the fiscal year. Library renewals, which are reported in membership numbers, continue to decline. JSTOR subscriptions are accountable for this and will likely continue to do so in the future. For individual memberships: By state, there are noteworthy gains in individual memberships in West Virginia, North Carolina, and Georgia. In Nebraska, even the intermediate, pre-conference totals show doubled individual memberships. In states where membership numbers show declines, most were meagre at the mid-year accounting. These hopefully can still increase before the close of the fiscal year. We will support state and provincial VPs in efforts to encourage membership renewals through the spring.
Immediate Past President Laura K. McClure then reported as Chair of the Nominating Committee that the Committee accomplished four important tasks this year: the selection of a new Teaching Classical Languages editor; the selection of a new Member-at-Large to the Executive Committee; the selection of a President Elect; and the selection of a Secretary-Treasurer Elect. Yasuko Taoka, Dean of Arts and Humanities at Wayne State College, has been nominated as the new TCL editor for a five year term. Del Chrol (Marshall University) was selected as the new Member-at-Large for a three-year term. David Schenker (University of Missouri) was nominated as President Elect. Finally, Davina McClain (Northwestern State University of Louisiana) was chosen as Secretary-Treasurer Elect and will begin serving a five-year term as Secretary-Treasurer on July 1, 2020.
President Faulkner then reported that the 2018-19 Program Committee consisted of the following members: Jennifer Ferris-Hill (Miami University), Andrew Foster (Fordham University), Rebecca Futo Kennedy (Denison University), Alison Futrell (University of Arizona), Ellen Greene (University of Oklahoma), Zoe Stamatopoulou (Washington University in St. Louis), Anne Groton (St. Olaf College; President Elect, ex officio), Laura McClure (University of Wisconsin-Madison; Past President ex officio), and Andrew Faulkner (University of Waterloo; President, Chair ex officio). He thanked all members of the Committee, who worked with much dedication and professionalism in reviewing submissions. Their attention to detail and respect for tight timelines was extraordinary. He also expressed gratitude to Zina Giannopoulou (University of California Irvine), who assisted the Committee in reviewing the panels.
The program for Lincoln includes 97 paper sections in 11 sessions from the evening of Wednesday April 3rd to the afternoon of Saturday April 6th. There were accepted for the program: 316 individual papers, 12 panels, 5 workshops, and 15 Round Table Discussions.
He also thanked the Secretary-Treasurer and his administrative assistant for all of their work in putting together the program, whose Herculean efforts shaped the program into its published form. As well, Anne Duncan and the Local Organizing Committee in Lincoln were essential contributors to the organization of the program. It has been a pleasure to work with them all.
The committee for adjudicating submissions for the Presidential Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper consisted of Laura McClure (Past President), Anne Groton (President Elect), and Andrew Faulkner (President). There were 14 submissions. The President identified 5 of these 14 to be of particularly high quality, which the others on the committee reviewed carefully. Anne Groton also looked at the other lower-ranked submissions and concurred with the selection of the top five. Faulkner announced that the winner of this award was Noreen Sit (Yale University) for her paper Starring Messalina as Maenad, for both its argumentation and style. The committee also made awards to two runners-up, Jenna Rice (Missouri-Columbia) for her paper Dogs of War?: Reevaluating Dogs in Greek Warfare and Rebecca Moorman (Wisconsin-Madison) for her paper Lying Eyes? Autopsy, Credibility, and the Senses in Apuleius, Met. 1.4. Both Sit and Moorman were present to receive their awards.
Faulkner concluded his report by extending his thanks to Laura McClure and Anne Groton for their work on this committee, which had to be completed in a very short time.
Jennifer L. Larson, chair of the Subcommittee on the CAMWS First Book Award then announced that there were two recipients of the 2019 award: Andrew C. Johnston (Yale University) for The Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain (Harvard University Press, 2017) and Thomas Keeline (Washington University in St. Louis) for The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire: The Rhetorical Schoolroom and the Creation of a Cultural Legend (Cambridge University Press, 2018). Larson noted that the criteria for this award include excellent quality, wide significance within a scholarly domain, and demonstrated awareness of international trends and that the Subcommittee is especially interested in books which shift the conversation substantially in the relevant field of research. These citations were read about the winners. Larson concluded by congratulating both Keeline and Johnston, who were both present to receive their awards.
On behalf of Chair Barbara Weiden Boyd (Bowdoin College), Mary Hamil Gilbert (Birmingham Southern University) gave the report of the Subcommittee on the Bolchazy Pedagogy Book Award. She began by acknowledging the other members of the Subcommittee: Sydnor Roy (Texas Tech University), Cynthia White (University of Arizona), and Timothy Winters (Austin Peay State University).
Gilbert said that the Subcommittee received seven nominations for this year’s award, three of which were ineligible. Of the remaining four textbooks, furthermore, two were “re-nominations”—that is, they had been nominated for the prize last year as well. After some discussion of re-nomination procedure with the Secretary-Treasurer, the Subcommittee decided to add the following wording to the description of the award that appears on the CAMWS website: “The subcommittee may, at its sole discretion, retain an unsuccessful nomination for consideration in the following year.” The Subcommittee believes that this gives them some important flexibility, especially when (as happened with the 2018 award) the members of the Subcommittee can vary widely in their preferences and votes; with several new members this year, the current Subcommittee fortunately found itself very much consistent in its evaluation of the four eligible books, so the choice was clear.
Of the eligible textbooks, two were pitched at the college level; one was aimed at an audience at both the secondary and college levels; and one was pitched at both the elementary and secondary levels. This distribution resembles what the Subcommittee has seen every previous year, and can make distinguishing between and among the nominated books a real challenge. Fortunately, one book stood out quite clearly from the others this year, and we therefore recommend one award this year; in the future, however, the Subcommittee may wish to consider—or the Steering Committee may wish to recommend—that two awards be given, one at the collegiate level and the other at the pre-collegiate level.
Though the pool of four books was small, all were of consistently good quality. We hope that as the award becomes better known the subcommittee will receive more nominations. One continuing challenge involves getting copies of each of the nominated books to each of the Subcommittee members. Most of the publishers we dealt with managed to distribute the books eventually, but it was slow going; and one Subcommittee member suspects that he never received one of the books (though he may have misplaced it). In this case, fortunately, the book in question was not otherwise a top contender for the award; but going forward it may be desirable to centralize the mailing of books so that distribution is guaranteed.
Gilbert announced that this year’s winner was Adam Serfass of Kenyon College, for Views of Rome: A Greek Reader (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018) and read this citation. Serfass was not present to receive his award.
Gilbert concluded by extending Boyd’s thanks to this year’s Subcommittee members for their careful readings of the nominated volumes, their detailed and nuanced evaluations, and their congenial contributions to the task at hand.
Co-chair Margaret W. Musgrove then gave the report for the Subcommittee on School Awards. She began by noting that, for the fifth year, the CAMWS Latin Translation Contest featured both Intermediate and Advanced levels of competition, at both the high school and college levels. She said that the contest continued to be most popular among high schools, but that participation at the college level was slowly increasing.
At the high school level, 54 schools in 16 states and one European country registered; Georgia, Tennessee, and Virginia were the states with the highest levels of participation. A total of 1067 high school students participated in the competition (630 intermediate and 437 advanced), marking a 3% increase from 2018. At the college level, 34 schools in 16 states and 1 Canadian province entered. North Carolina, Ohio, Texas, and Virginia had the most schools entered. A total of 319 college students participated (145 intermediate and 177 advanced), about a 3% increase from last year. Musgrove observed that it was certainly wonderful to have so many schools and students participating every year but that the massive scale of this contest continued to create significant administrative challenges.
For the second year, schools had the option of submitting their papers either by e-mail or by US mail. The e-mail option continues to be the overwhelming preference. The high-school co-chair, Nick Fletcher, has developed a procedure for handling the pdf files of electronic submissions; in the future, this procedure should make distribution of the papers to graders run much more smoothly. A topic which has emerged for discussion concerns the timing of the registration and administration of this exam; several schools at the college and high-school level have run into conflicts with the late-fall time period. Possible adjustment of dates was discussed among committee members. Musgrove encouraged CAMWS members to provide input on this topic or others related to the exam, especially by attending the round-table meeting scheduled for later in the day.
Musgrove said that, as always, top-performing students in the competition were recognized with cash awards, book awards, and certificates of commendation. A full list of the winning students, along with comprehensive performance and participation statistics, have already been e-mailed to participating teachers. The high school results would be ready in a few days. All results would eventually be posted on the CAMWS website.
Musgrove observed that the Subcommittee members deserved the thanks of the CAMWS membership as a whole, and the thanks of the Subcommittee co-chairs in particular, for their service: William S. Duffy (Alamo College, TX), Krishni S. Burns (University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign), Scott Cochran (Siegel High School, TN), Caleb Dance (Washington and Lee University, VA), Evelyn Adkins (Case Western Reserve University, OH), and Karl Frerichs (University School, OH). The Subcommitee co-chairs also thanked the small army of CAMWS members who generously volunteered to grade high school exams. Their assistance makes the high school contest possible each year. Their names and schools were printed in the CAMWS meeting program on page 65. The Subcommittee is also grateful to Bolchazy-Carducci Publishers for helping CAMWS offer gift certificates to these graders as thanks for their efforts, and to the Secretary-Treasurer for negotiating these gift certificates.
Timothy S. Heckenlively, Chair of the CAMWS Undergraduate Awards Subcommittee reported that the Subcommittee received three applications for Faculty-Undergraduate Collaborative Research Project Awards and made awards to
- Dr. Amy Norgard and student J. Alexander Lynn of Truman State University (MO) for their project "Johann Josef Fux's Gradus ad Parnassum: Missing Chapters of a Neo-Latin Treatise" (Abstract)
and
- Dr. MacKenzie Lewis and student Stone Chen of Waterloo University (ON) for their project, "Digitizing Data from the Villa del Vergigno Archaeological Project" (Abstract)
Only Norgard was present to accept an award.
Heckenlively said that there was a smaller field this year (eleven applicants) for the Manson A. Stewart Undergraduate Awards. The clearest break in the collective rankings was between six and seven, so it made sense to the Subcommittee to call for 6 awards, the number typical of most years. This year’s recipients were: Grace Miller (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Olivia Zitkus (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill), Peter Psathas (William & Mary), Sophia Elzie (Agnes Scott College), Susanna Emeline McClellan (University of Georgia) and Benjamin Baturka (Kenyon College). None of these recipients were present.
Heckenlively also noted that the budget for 2018-19 was $5000, enough for five awards. Upon investigation of past years on the CAMWS website, it became clear that six awards was long-standing mos maiorum. The outlying years were those in which the Subcommittee requested a seventh award due to a particularly large and talented application pool and 2017, when the Subcommittee only made five awards due to an exceptionally small field that divided nicely between the fifth and sixth-place candidates. It appears that the diminished number was carried over from 2017 into the 2018 and 2019 budgets, leading to confusion about the number of available awards in both years. The Secretary-Treasurer and the Finance Committee ultimately approved an additional award for 2019 and the Finance Committee has been instructed to include six awards in subsequent budget planning.
Heckelively said that the Subcommittee has noted an unusually high number of nominations with no follow-through this year. Based on nominations, the Subcommittee expected a typical field of over 20, but barely half completed their application process. Since two different application deadlines were announced, it is possible that confusion of due dates and eligibility might have played some role. Heckenlively concluded by advising the incoming chair to monitor these trends during the 2019-20 application process.
Ruth R. Caston, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Stewart Teacher Training and Travel Awards, began her report by acknowledging the other members of the Subcommittee: Julie Langford (University of South Florida), Jason J. Hansen (Tempe Preparatory Academy), Katie J. James (Vanguard College Preparatory School), Erin Moodie (Purdue University), and Hilary Lehmann (Knox College).
Caston noted that this year the Manson Stewart Teacher Training and Travel Awards Subcommittee handled travel funding requests for the 2018 CAMWS-Southern Section meeting in Winston-Salem, NC, and three types of funding request for the 2019 CAMWS meeting in Lincoln, NE: Teacher Training and Travel Awards, Ruebel Undergraduate Travel Awards, and New Teacher Loan Asssistance and Start-up Funds Awards.
The Subcommittee approved funding for all seven requests for travel funding to the CAMWS-SS in Winston-Salem, NC. The recipients of these awards were Ginny Lindzey (Dripping Springs High School), Melanie Racette-Cambell (Memorial University of Newfoundland), Aaron Beek (University of Memphis), Nicolaus Overtoom (University of New Mexico), Nicholas Rockwell (Denver Center for International Studies), Milena Anfosso (UCLA/Sorbonne Université), and Darah vann Orr (University of Houston). These awards were made during the 2018 CAMWS-SS Business Meeting in Winston-Salem.
The Subcommittee received six applications for Teacher Training Awards and eleven applications for Travel Awards to Lincoln, NE. Teacher Training Awards were given to Chloe Kolbet (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Ian Hochberg (applying to MAT programs), Laura Malloy (Freehold Township H.S.), Steven Mondloch (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Timothy Morris (Northpoint Christian School), and Emma Vanderpool (University of Massachusetts Amherst). Of these only Vanderpool was present to accept her award.
Travel Awards to attend the 2019 meeting in Lincoln were awarded to Nancy VanderVeer (Blessed Trinity Catholic High School), Evan Dutmer (Culver Academies), Sergios Paschalis (Harvard University), Anthony Parenti (University of Kentucky), Brett Stine (Texas Tech University), Rebecca Deitsch (Harvard University), Tal Ish-Shalom (Columbia University), Alexander Claman (Texas Tech University), Elizabeth Torreson (University of Minnesota), and Melissa Velpel (Texas Tech University). All were present to accept their awards.
The Subcommittee received five applications for the Ruebel Undergraduate Travel Award and approved funding for all five applicants: Jiayan Chen (Grinnell College), Margaret Corn (Columbia University), Lauren Sides (Baylor University), Chloe Lowetz (Texas Tech University), and Claire Davis (Samford University). Caston noted that three of the five applications were received only only after the Secretary-Treasurer suggested a deadline extension. All recipients were present.
The Subcommittee received three applications for the New Teacher Loan Assistance and no applications for the Start-up Funds. Awards were made to Jason Hansen (Tempe Preparatory Academy) and Lucy Romero (Brookwood High School). Neither recipient was present to accept the award.
Caston concluded by noting that the Subcommittee would like to discuss ways to advertise the New Teacher and Ruebel Travel Awards.
Elizabeth Manwell reported on behalf of Ariana Traill, Chair of the Subcommittee on the CAMWS Travel Awards (Semple, Grant, and Benario Awards). The members of this Subcommittee included Andrew Alwine (College of Charleston), Elizabeth Manwell, (Kalamazoo College), Jennifer Starkey (South Dakota State University), Chair Ariana Traill (University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign), Amy E. K. Vail (St. John Fisher College), and Katherine Wasdin (George Washington University).
Manwell said that the recipient of the Grant Award to attend the summer session at the American Academy in Rome was Michelle Martinez (Walnut Hills High School). Eduardo García-Molina (University of Chicago) received the the Semple Award to participate in the summer session at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens. There were three recipients Benario Awards to attend summer programs of their choice: Jessie Craft (Winston-Salem / Forsyth County NC Schools) to attend Schola Latina-Scholae Aestivae in Italia; Maria Marable (Martin Luther King Academic Magnet School) to attend the Vergilian Society Tour on Caesar and Vergil; and Nicholas Bolig (University of Kansas) to attend the ASCSA Summer Seminar entitled "Ancient Greece from the Sea." Martinez and Bolig were present to accept their awards.
Manwell noted that the Subcommittee received significantly more applicants than it did for the 2018 awards (seven for Semple, five for Grant, and eleven for Benario). There was, however, a need for the chair to solicit applications as the deadline approached. She said that the Subcommittee was currently strategizing about ways to improve our advertising of the award so that we have a rich pool of applicants—both graduate students and primary/secondary school teachers—every year. The Subcommittee was also pleased that the Executive Committee doubled the amount of funding that they could distribute for the Benario Award. As a result this year they were able to fund three applications. Given the strength of application pool for all the awards, this increase was particularly welcome.
Reporting for Chair Sandra Blakely, Shannon R. Flynt said that the Excavation and Field School Award Subcommittee received a total of 22 applications this year–five MA/MAT, five PhD, and twelve undergraduates. This represented a 3-fold increase over last year, with the quality throughout very high. Thanks to the generosity of the Executive Committee, the Subcommittee we were able to grant four awards instead of three–two for undergraduates, one for an MAT candidate, and one for a PhD student, with alternates for each. There were no applications from teachers this year.
The first undergraduate recipient was the winner of the Peter Knox Award: Jordan Chapman will undertake her first field work experience this summer excavating at the Sanctuary of the Great Gods of Samothrace, under the direction of Bonna Wescoat. Jordan will graduate from Emory University this Spring with a Bachelor’s degree in Art History and International Studies. The second undergraduate recipient Rebecca Gaborek has been accepted to the 2019 Poggio Civitate project, where she will be excavating under the direction of Jason Bauer. She is a senior at William and Mary, graduating this May with a BA in Classical archaeology and Anthropology. The MA/MAT award winner was Steven Mondloch, who was in the MAT program in Latin at University of Massachusetts, Amherst, This summer would be his first excavation experience, working at Poggio Civitate in Murlo under Anthony Tuck. The PhD winner was Elise Poppen who was completing her PhD in Classics at SUNY Buffalo, and would be using her CAMWS award to return to Olynthos, where she has worked under the direction of Lisa Nevett since 2016.
The Subcommittee was very happy with the high number and quality of applicants for this year, but was surprised to see that no teachers applied. Strategies moving forward include more robust advertising across the board. The numerical increase seems a positive response to two changes in the descriptions of the award, which allowed applications that include work in illustration, digital recording, faunal and ceramic analysis as well as excavation, as well as applicants who are returning to the field, though the Subcommittee will continue to give priority to those for whom this summer is a first-time experience.
Chair Laury A. Ward reported for the Kraft and CAMWS Teaching Awards Subcommittee. She began by listing the members of the Subcommittee: Laury A. Ward (Hillsdale College), Howard W. Chang (Flint Hill School), J. Matthew Harrington (Tufts University), Ian N. Hochberg (St. Stephen's & St. Agnes' School), Adrienne Hagen (Monmouth College), Daniel Turkeltaub (Santa Clara University), Jeanne Neumann (Davidson College), and Brian Duvick (University of Colorado at Colorado Springs).
For the Kraft Award, nine previous nominees were still eligible and three more were nominated for this year. Once one incomplete application was eliminated and two were set aside due to the nominees’ decisions not to renew their CAMWS memberships, there were a total of nine nominations considered. For the college award, there were five previous nominees and two new nominations.
The Subcommittee once again used the published criteria to evaluate the applications. Subcommittee members were pleased with the number of nominations and hope that future years will see more as well. The Chair would like to thank her Subcommittee for their hard work. She also noted the service of Howard Chang, whose term expired this year. The Chair would also like to express her appreciation to the previous Chair, Mary Pendergraft, who made herself readily available for procedural questions and greatly aided in the transition process between Chairs.
The Subcommittee made the Kraft Award to Lynn LiCalsi. The recipient of the college award was Laurialan Reitzammer and Ward read these commendations for LiCalsi and for Reitzammer. Both recipients accepted their awards in person.
In the absence of Chair Wilfred E. Major, Antony Augoustakis gave the report of the ad-hoc Committee on the College Greek Exam. He explained that the College Greek Exam, housed for ten years at Louisiana State University and under the website dramata.com, came under the aegis of CAMWS in the Fall of 2018. The ad-hoc committee administered the exam in Fall 2018 and Spring 2019. At its meeting in Lincoln the Executive Committee approved a proposal to formalize the adoption of the exam under CAMWS and the ad-hoc committee will become a Subcommittee of the Steering Committee on Awards and Scholarships.
Steering Committee Chair Lorenzo F. Garcia, Jr. reported that he had no awards to give, except his charis for the chairpersons of the various awards Subcommittees who comprise the Steering Committee. The members of the 2018-2019 Steering Committee were: Lorenzo F. Garcia Jr. (Chair), Arianna Traill (Subcommittee on the CAMWS Travel Awards--Semple, Grant, and Benario Travel Awards), Jennifer Larson (Subcommittee on the CAMWS First Book Award), Nick L. Fletcher and Margaret Musgrove (Subcommittee on the CAMWS School Awards), Timothy Heckenlively (Subcommittee on the CAMWS Undergraduate Awards), Ruth Caston (Subcommittee on the CAMWS Stewart Teacher Training and Travel Awards), Laury Ward (Subcommittee on the CAMWS and Kraft Teaching Awards), Sandra Blakely (Subcommittee on the CAMWS Excavation and Field School Awards) and Barbara W. Boyd (Subcommittee on the CAMWS Ladislaus J. Bolchazy Pedagogy Book Award).
Lorenzo thanked the chairs of the eight subcommittees for their leadership and careful stewardship of their award funds this year. He also expressed his thanks for help received from our President, Andrew Faulkner, and especially from the Secretary-Treasurer and his able assistant.
Lorenzo then placed this year’s awards in context with the following Subcommittee News, Comments, and Recommendations:
(1) The CAMWS Semple, Grant, and Benario Travel Awards Subcommittee received eleven applications for the Benario, five for the Grant, and seven for the Semple, a large increase in applications for the Benario (up from three in 2018, seven in 2017, five in 2016). The Subcommittee requested an increase from $1000.00 to $3000.00 (approved by the EC) for increased funding for Benario awards and would like to recommend a permanent increase to the Benario award amount for future award cycles.
(2) The CAMWS First Book Award Subcommittee received 22 nominations for the award, a significant increase over the previous years (12 in 2018, 16 in 2017). Several nominations were determined to be ineligible because the authors were not current CAMWS members. The Subcommittee dealt with an additional issue pertaining to eligibility of multi-author or multi-editor books. The Subcommittee decided to honor two outstanding submissions this year: Andrew C. Johnston (Yale University) for his book The Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain. (Harvard, 2017) and Thomas Keeline (Washington University in St. Louis) for his book The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire: The Rhetorical Schoolroom and the Creation of a Cultural Legend. (Cambridge 2018). The First Book Award Subcommittee does not recommend any increase in funding for future award years, but would like to continue to be able to request additional funds of the EC on an ad hoc basis.
(3) The CAMWS Undergraduate Awards Subcommittee received 11 applications this year, a decrease from previous years. Although budgeted for only five awards (only five awards were offered in 2018), the Subcommittee requested six awards as had been offered in years prior to 2018. The Subcommittee would like to recommend maintaining funding for six awards ($6000.00) per award cycle. The Subcommittee also made two collaborative-research awards.
(4) The CAMWS Teacher Training and Travel Awards Subcommittee was especially busy this year, with the consideration of travel awards for the 2018 CAMWS-SS meeting in Salem-Winston, NC (7 awards given) in addition to the Manson A. Stewart Teacher Training awards (7 awards given), Stewart Travel Awards (10 awards given), Ruebel Undergraduate Travel Awards (5 awards given, after additional time to turn in applications was allowed), and New Teacher Awards (2 awards given) awarded for the 2019 CAMWS meeting in Lincoln, NE. It is gratifying to see—at last!—applications for the New Teacher awards. Nevertheless, the Subcommittee plans to work on ideas for better advertisement of the Ruebel and New Teacher awards at the Lincoln meeting.
The Subcommittee also dealt with two issues: (1) A Teacher Training Award winner asked whether she could apply the funds awarded by the committee to a different program than the one she applied for (since she also received a second, more generous award from a different funding source for the same program)—upon consideration, the Subcommittee approved the request; (2) An issue came up where an awardee for a Teacher Training Award had also been selected for an award by the Field School Award Subcommittee, although the two awards were for different projects—both Subcommittees approved the awards. The situation does raise a question for EC for future award cycles: Should there be restrictions against a single applicant winning multiple awards in the same award cycle? If so, some kind of language preventing someone from applying to multiple awards will be necessary.
Finally, although the TT&T Subcommittee does not make any formal request for additional funding for future award cycles in their report, Garcia said that he would like to do so on its behalf. (As a former chair of the TT&T Subcommittee, he claimed a good sense of the needs of the Subcommittee.) With the rising cost of travel and lodging as well as the reluctance of educational institutions to reimburse faculty for travel to conferences (something true at UNM, and, at many other schools and universities), an increase in funds available specifically for travel to the CAMWS convention would make a great impact. This year, the Subcommittee offered 17 travel awards totaling $4075.00 (including both CAMWS and CAMWS-SS), an average of under $240.00 per award, which covers only a fraction of the cost to attend the conference. Garcia recommended the TT&T Subcommittee be given an additional $2500.00 earmarked for travel awards each year, putting the annual travel award funds at something closer to $5000.00 to $6000.00 (not including the additional funds made available for CAMWS-SS years, and depending somewhat on the number and quality of the applications for the Stewart Teacher Training Award).
(5) The CAMWS and Kraft Teaching Awards Subcommittee was very pleased at the large number of nominations for both awards. The Subcommittee received nine nominations for the Kraft Award. Next year the Subcommittee expects at least seven nominations (not counting new nominations) for the award. This year the Subcommittee received seven nominations for the college award. The Subcommittee expects at least seven nominations for the award next year (not counting new nominations). The Subcommittee does not recommend any additions to their award funds for future award cycles.
(6) The CAMWS Excavation and Field School Awards Subcommittee received 22 uniformly strong applications this year, a remarkable three-fold increase over applications from last year. The Subcommittee requested an additional $2000.00 for an additional award (approved by EC) and selected four winners: two undergraduate, one MA and one PhD. The Subcommittee does not recommend a permanent increase for funding but would like to continue to request additional funds ad hoc; it may reconsider, should trends in the number of applicants continue to rise. Additionally, after noting a wild variety in quality of letters of recommendation (some far too short, some far too long to be useful), it may be useful to add a notice for recommenders to the website page, providing some instructions on what is most desirable in a letter for an applicant.
(7) The CAMWS Ladislaus J. Bolchazy Pedagogy Book Award Subcommittee considered four bona fide books this year, including two works that were reapplications from the previous year. The Subcommittee, in consultation with the Secretary-Treasurer, added text to the website stating: “The subcommittee may, at its sole discretion, retain an unsuccessful nomination for consideration in the following year.” The new language is hoped to provide the committee flexibility in their considerations. The Subcommittee noted two challenges: (1) Low number of submissions—the Subcommittee hopes that as the award becomes better known, the number of submissions will increase; (2) Challenges in distribution of review copies to Subcommittee members—the Subcommittee suggests asking publishers to submit copies to a central distribution center instead of sending copies directly to Subcommittee members (books were late, and some may not have ever arrived). The Subcommittee does not recommend any increase in award monies.
(8) The CAMWS Special Service Award had three nominations, all of which were approved. These awards were announced at the 2019 Banquet. Recipients were Dr. Donde Plowman (University of Nebraska Lincoln); Dan and Tamara Sloan (Lincoln, Nebraska) and Warren and Barbara Winiarksi (The Winiarski Family Foundation CA).
On behalf of CAMWS Historian and Committee Chair Ward W. Briggs, Jr., Anne H. Groton reported that the primary focus of the History Committee this year had been its CAMWSCorps oral history project. For the past seven years the Committee has been recording interviews of senior members of CAMWS, each conducted by a graduate student. Here in Lincoln the committee just cracked the 100 mark! CAMWS now has 106 recordings, stored in a password-protected part of the CAMWS website, where future researchers can have access to them.
The Committee has also begun a related, spin-off project of producing CAMWS podcasts. Scott Lepisto created the first one, based on the CAMWSCorps interview of the late consularis Jim Ruebel. Scott introduced the podcast last year in Albuquerque at a meaningful panel in memory of Jim. On the strength of this success, CAMWS has enlisted a graduate student, Sam Kindick, to create a second podcast, this one based on the CAMWSCorps interview of the late Ellie Leach. These podcasts are now posted on the CAMWS Podcast website, where anyone can listen to them.
The Executive Committee has approved the appointment of Kindick as the official CAMWS Podcaster for a three-year term and he is already at work recording interviews with this year’s book award winners. The Committee will be surveying CAMWS members to gauge the popularity of the podcasts, and Kindick will be helping to devise and implement a podcasting strategy.
Groton expressed special thanks go to two members of the Committee, Hip Kantzios and Theo Kopestonsky, for overseeing the interviews during this meeting and to graduate student Vanderpool, our sine qua non, the only person who understands how to work the recorder!
These meeting resolutions were then read by Kristin O. Lord, chair of the Resolutions Committee.
Christopher Craig then moved and Laura McClure seconded a motion to accept all the committee reports. This motion was approved by voice vote.
On behalf of CAMWS Historian Ward W. Briggs, Jr., President Faulkner then read the following list of CAMWS members whose deaths had recently come to the attention of the organization:
Barbara Tsakirgis (Vanderbilt University), January 16, 2019
Thomas H. Watkins (Western Illinois University), November 15, 2018
James Helm (Oberlin College), October 29, 2018
Diane Hatch (University of Mary Washington), October 13, 2018
Robert Adam Seelinger (Westminster College), September 22, 2018
Edwin Menes (Loyola University Chicago), August 25, 2018
Richard Dudley (White Norfolk Collegiate School), July 22, 2018
Steven Douglas Strauss (Notre Dame Academy), July 20, 2018
Olin Storvick (Concordia College), June 16, 2018
Consularis Eleanor Goltz Granger Huzar (Michigan State University), May 7, 2018
Stephen Lee Pearce (Jesuit High School), December 4, 2017
William C. Waterhouse (Penn State University), June 26, 2016
Following the reading, the membership stood for a moment of silence in their memory.
Under Old Business, Secretary-Treasurer Sienkewicz reminded members that the dates and locations of future CAMWS meetings were printed in the program and appear on the website. He then asked Randy Todd of Samford University to extend to members an invitation to attend the 116th CAMWS meeting in Birmingham in 2020.
Following Todd’s enticing presentation, CAMWS-SS Secretary Treasurer David J. White announced that the 2020 CAMWS Southern Section meeting would take place at Baylor University at some fall date yet to be determined.
There was no new business.
Under Announcements, President Faulkner read the following statement:
The CAMWS Executive Committee would like to inform the membership of its recent deliberations concerning the 2023 CAMWS Annual Meeting scheduled to take place in Provo, Utah at the invitation of Brigham Young University. In January of this year the Executive Committee received a letter from some colleagues in our profession expressing concern about the Committee’s decision, taken in 2017, to accept the invitation of colleagues in Classical Studies at Brigham Young University to hold the meeting in Provo in 2023. The letter raised concerns about the protection of free speech and a safe environment for all attendees of our conference, given BYU policies on vetting invited speakers and statements on sexuality in the BYU student honor code.
The Executive Committee takes very seriously these concerns. Safeguarding academic freedom and ensuring a safe and inclusive environment for all are foundational principles of the organization, and CAMWS proactively strives to ensure their protection. Just recently we formally endorsed the SCS ethics statement and we have produced a code of conduct, which underlines the inclusive and respectful behaviour we expect of all who attend and host our meetings.
In response to the concerns raised, we have revisited the Committee’s decision in 2017 to accept the invitation of BYU. At that time, the Committee considered carefully whether BYU policies would in any way affect CAMWS’s commitment to free speech and a safe and inclusive environment for all of our members, and we remain satisfied that these foundational principles will be respected. We have received written assurances from the Dean of the College of Humanities at BYU, who in a recent letter states that ‘in the context of on-campus academic meetings, it is [BYU’s] institutional policy both to respect and honor the academic freedom of all participants.’
The Executive Committee is at the same time taking three specific actions moving forward to ensure that we continue to maintain and promote the highest standards of inclusivity and academic freedom as an organization. In the coming year we will be forming a standing Committee on Diversity and Inclusion, which will serve to promote and speak for diversity and inclusivity within CAMWS and the wider discipline of Classics; we will secondly be encouraging at all future meetings inclusive panels and roundtables on questions of diversity, inclusivity, and academic freedom; we will also be introducing a policy of establishing with all future host institutions, including BYU, a Memorandum of Understanding, which makes clear our ethical standards, code of conduct, and commitment to diversity, respect, and freedom of speech.
Faulkner then encouraged members to read and sign the petition regarding the Classics Program at the University of Vermont. He also noted that University of Nebraska Lincoln students were collecting money for flood relief.
Faulkner then passed the gavel to Groton, who presented Faulkner with a plaque commemorating his presidency. She then adjourned the meeting at 9:50 a.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Thomas J. Sienkewicz
Secretary-Treasurer