Minutes of the Annual Business Meeting of CAMWS
115th Annual Meeting
Cornhusker Marriott, Lincoln, Nebraska
Saturday, April 6, 2019, Yankee Hill
The meeting was called to order by President Andrew T. Faulkner at 8:03 a.m.
The first item of business was approval of the Minutes of the April 8, 2018 Business Meeting. Faulkner noted that these minutes had been posted on-line at https://camws.org/2018businessmeetingminutes for several months. He then asked if there were any additions or corrections. There were none. A motion to approve these minutes was moved by Keely Lake and seconded by Roger Macfarlane. The motion was then approved by voice vote.
Secretary-Treasurer Thomas J. Sienkewicz then reported on the organization’s current membership and finances. He first presented the Membership Report by Category as of March 1, 2019 (Attachment A) and the Membership Report by Region as of March 1, 2019 (Attachment B). He noted that membership was generally healthy.
Sienkewicz then provided a Budget and Profit/Loss Statement as of March 1, 2019 (Attachment C) and noted that the significant imbalance between income and expenses was due to the fact that meeting registrations had been received but no payments to the hotel had yet been made. He projected that the end-of-year Budget and Profit/Loss Statement would reflect a more balanced relationship between income and expenses.
Finally, Sienkewicz said that the 2018 Audit Report prepared by Squire & Co of Orem, Utah, was satisfactory and that copies of the report were available to members upon request.
There were no questions about Sienkewicz’s report. Jamie Wheeler then moved and Kristin Lord seconded a motion to accept the Secretary-Treasurer’s report. This motion was approved by voice vote.
The first publication report was given by Antonios C. Augoustakis, Editor of The Classical Journal. He informed the membership that Volume 114 was complete and that the tables of contents for 115.1 and 115.2 (October/November 2019, December 2019/January 2020) were set and the issues ready to go into production as scheduled, in September and November 2019 respectively. Augoustakis reported that quality of submissions remains very high; submissions cover a wide variety of areas in Greek and Latin literature with a good balance between the two fields. The journal continues to receive submissions from a wide spectrum of junior and senior scholars. Of the 2018 submissions, the acceptance rate was 20%, rejections 44%, and “revise and resubmit” 36%. In Volume 114, 56% of published articles were authored by women. In 2018, submissions by women were at 44%; reviewers who served in 2018 were 50% men, 50% women.
Newsletter Editor, Timothy S. Heckenlively, reported that the Fall and Winter Newsletter issues for 2018-19 have been sent to members. The Spring/Summer issue will follow, as per norm, approximately one month after the Annual Meeting. In response to a growing number of items from institutional members such as Paideia, the editor has begun to consolidate announcements for the sake of space and readability. The first results may be seen in the recent Winter issue.
Heckenlively noted that CAMWS’s mailing list vendor, Constant Contact, made a major upgrade in their editor tools at the end of 2018. Heckenlively opted to move to their revised templates immediately rather than persist with the older version. The new editing software provides pre-built blocks that offer both attractive layout and better responsive formatting on mobile devices. The chief draw-back is that 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 e-mailed newsletter, envisioning it more as an introduction to linked material rather than a long, stand-alone e-mail. Feedback on this point is welcome. Alternatively, we 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.
John C. Gruber-Miller, Editor of Teaching Classical Languages, reported that Teaching Classical Languages Volume 9 was now complete, featuring a special issue on the revised Standards for Classical Language Learning. The tables of contents for 10.1 and 10.2 were set and should be published before the end of the CAMWS fiscal year. He said that there were currently enough submissions for 11.1, and more will come in after the CAMWS meeting and the ACL Centennial Institute in June. The quality of submissions continues to increase as those submitting see more high-quality examples of articles focused on the scholarship of teaching and learning Latin and Greek and become more comfortable utilizing quantitative and qualitative measures to support their conclusions. The journal receives articles from K-12 teachers as well as post-secondary instructors. Likewise, the journal actively attempts to find 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; 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 he concluded his second five-year term as TCL Editor, Gruber-Miller 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 article and 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 presented Gruber-Miller with a certificate of appreciation from CAMWS.
Faulkner then reported that there was no social media report due to the fact that there was currently no social media director. A new director would be appointed in the near future.
Del Chrol then moved and Lorenzo Garcia seconded a motion to accept all the publications reports. This motion passed by voice vote.
The first committee report was given by Keely K. Lake, Chair of the Committee for the Promotion of Latin. She summarized CPL activities and grants awarded, noting that a fuller report is posted on the CPL section of the CAMWS website (https://camws.org/node/1465).
Lake thanked the members of CPL (Steven Jones, Alison Keith, Garrett Jacobsen, David Wharton, Robin Anderson, and Lynn LiCalsi), the State and Regional VPs, and the Secretary-Treasurer and his administrative assistant Jevanie Gillen for their help and support throughout the year. She also thanked Rebecca Allen, Mark Haynes, and Daniel Stoa for being part of this year’s CPL Workshop, “Mentoring New Teachers, Promoting the Profession,” as well as Krishni Burns and Clara Bosak-Schroeder for organizing the 2019 CPL Panel “Learning Disabilities in the Classics Classroom,”
Finally, she congratulated this year’s winners of a CPL Award for Outstanding Promotional Activity: Salvador Bartera of Mississippi State University (collegiate level), and Leigh Grace Rouyer of St. Joseph's Academy (K-12 level). Congratulations were extended as well to John Hansen of Oklahoma and to T. Davina McClain of the Gulf Region for winning the State and Regional V-P Awards, respectively, this year. Only McClain was present to accept her award in person.
Lake concluded by saying that it had been her pleasure to serve CAMWS as CPL Chair these past three years.
President Faulkner then presented Lake with a certificate of appreciation for her work on this committee.
John F. Miller, Chair of the Development Committee, reported that the primary focus of the committee this past year had 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. He emphasized that this is has been 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 in early 2019 to follow up with a renewed appeal to the membership. To stimulate that effort, the committee asked for $10,000 in matching funds from the endowment; the Executive Committee approved the request. The Consulares immediately contributed $5,000, which became $10,000 with the match, so we are headed towards $25,000 and our goal of $30,000 for this initiative.
In conversation with the Secretary Treasurer, it was 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 consideration, 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. Miller noted that such a committee was now being formed.
Miller reminded the membership-at-large that they had been invited to contribute to the Teacher Training Initiative both in the latest CAMWS Newsletter and by President Faulkner at the ACL event on Thursday evening. There is a link on the website for this purpose (https://camws.org/node/1362). Envelopes for pledges and donations were conspicuous at the meeting, and the committee hoped that members would see their way to contribute in any amount to this worthy cause. Miller concluded by thanking the membership for its consideration and for its support of the Teacher Training Initiative.
Mathias Hanses, Chair of the Finance Committee reported that the committee’s main task this year was to conduct a cost analysis relating to a number of stipend increases for CAMWS officers that had been suggested by the Executive Committee. The Finance Committee determined that CAMWS could afford an annual expenditure of $26,500 on stipends. In a follow-up conversation with Raymond James Investment, it was determined that if CAMWS 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. The Executive Committee had emphasized, however, 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%. 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 CAMWS’s 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, Raymond James is holding $195,000 (i.e., almost 20% of the portfolio) in short-term investments, meaning they are easily accessible. CAMWS could use this buffer to make approximately 7 years’ worth of withdrawals before we run into any sort of financial trouble.
Finally, Hanses observed that 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 Students Issues Committee, Chair Samuel Hahn reported that, over the past year, the committee had instituted several changes, rejuvenated old initiatives, and developed programming for this conference.
Hahn said that, at last year’s CAMWS Meeting in Albuquerque, he had replaced Sarah Keith as the committee chair after her successful two-year term. Over the summer, the committee bid farewell to one colleague but welcomed two new members. 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 for the Facebook page and boosted engagement through frequent postings, and E. L. Meszaros—with a post 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 offered another workshop on pedagogy, over which Hahn presided, as well as a panel on grant-writing organized by Samuel Kindick. GSIC also held a round table and happy hour so that undergraduate and graduate students could meet current members, learn about the committee, and share their concerns with peers.
In the future, Hahn said, the committee is looking to diversify and hoping to add new members as older colleagues finish graduate school.
Roger T. Macfarlane, Chair of the Membership Committee, reported on behalf of his other committee members, Holly Sypniewski, Douglas Clapp, Arum Park, Jessica Blum, and Cecilia Peek. Referencing the membership statistics presented by Sienkewicz, Macfarlane observed that, in the opinion of the committee, the good news outweighs the less good. As of March 1, 2019, total individual memberships were essentially at the 1500-mark and on track 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 the cause of this and will likely continue to be in the future. There have been noteworthy gains in individual membership in several states, especially 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 are meager at the mid-year accounting. These hopefully can still increase before the close of the fiscal year. The committee continues to support state and provincial V-Ps in their efforts to encourage membership renewals through the spring.
Chair Laura K. McClure gave the report for the Nominating Committee and noted that the committee accomplished four important nominations this year: a new Teaching Classical Languages editor; a new Member-at-Large to the Executive Committee; the next President; and a new Secretary-Treasurer. Yasuko Taoka, Dean of Arts and Humanities at Wayne State College, has been nominated as the new TCL editor for a five-year term. E. Del Chrol (Marshall University) was selected for a three-year term as Member-at-Large. David Schenker (University of Missouri) was nominated as President Elect. Finally, T. Davina McClain (Louisiana Scholars’ College at Northwestern State University) was chosen as the new Secretary-Treasurer. She will serve in 2019-2020 as Secretary-Treasurer Elect and begin a five-year term as Secretary-Treasurer beginning on July 1, 2020.
President Faulkner then presented the report of the Program Committee, which he chaired ex officio. He began by thanking the members of the 2018-19 Committee: Jennifer Ferriss-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), and Laura McClure (University of Wisconsin-Madison; Past President, ex officio). He noted their extraordinary dedication and professionalism in reviewing submissions, their attention to detail, and their respect for tight timelines. He also expressed his gratitude to Zina Giannopoulou (University of California, Irvine), who assisted the committee in reviewing the panels, to the Secretary-Treasurer and his administrative assistant, whose herculean efforts shaped the program into its published form, and to Anne Duncan and the Local Committee in Lincoln, who were essential contributors to the organization of the program. Faulkner said that it has been a pleasure to work with them all.
Faulkner observed that the program for Lincoln included 97 paper sections in 11 sessions from the evening of Wednesday April 3rd to the afternoon of Saturday April 6th. The program included 316 individual papers, twelve panels, five workshops and fifteen round-table discussions.
Faulkner made a report concerning the Presidential Award for Outstanding Graduate Student Paper. The committee for adjudicating the submissions for this award consisted of Laura McClure (Past President), Anne Groton (President Elect), and Andrew Faulkner (President). Faulkner expressed his gratitude to both McClure and Groton for their work, which had to be completed in a very short time. Faulkner announced that the committee made the award to Noreen Sit (Yale University) for “Starring Messalina as Maenad,” for both its argumentation and style. The committee also made two runners-up awards, to Jenna Rice (University of Missouri-Columbia) for “Συστρατιώτης Κύων: The Dog in the Ancient Greek Military” and Rebecca Moorman (University of Wisconsin-Madison) for “Lying Eyes? Autopsy, Credibility, and the Senses in Apuleius, Met. 1. 4.” Sit and Moorman were present to receive their awards.
Jennifer L. Larson, Chair of the Subcommittee on the CAMWS First Book Award, announced that the committee presented two First Book Awards this year: one to Andrew C. Johnston (Yale University) for The Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain (Harvard, 2017), the other to 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 2018). She emphasized that the criteria for this award include excellent quality, wide significance within a scholarly domain, and demonstrated awareness of international trends. The committee is especially interested in books which shift the conversation substantially in the relevant field of research.
Committee members lauded Johnston’s book as a “deeply-researched, elegantly-written and original book which will have a lasting impact on the conversation around the culture of the Roman provinces” and “controls a massive amount of literary, epigraphic and archaeological evidence.” One member described The Sons of Remus as “one of the strongest books I’ve read for this committee,” adding that “it pushes forward the debate on interaction between Rome and its subject peoples by making persuasive claims for assertions of local identities.” Another said, “I am very impressed by the combination of nuance and learning.”
Keeline’s book was commended as a “well-written and meticulously researched book [which] analyzes the role played by the rhetorical schoolroom in shaping the way Cicero was imitated and remembered in the early principate.” One committee member described it as a “wittily written study of Cicero’s reception in the two centuries after his death,” and a “compelling and original” work which “enters a very congested area and truly says something new.” In the committee’s view, The Reception of Cicero in the Early Roman Empire is “a detailed study of the construction of a cultural legend” which has much to offer to students of Cicero as well as those interested in the role of rhetorical education during the early Empire.
Both Johnston and Keeline were present to accept their awards
On behalf of Barbara Boyd, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Bolchazy Pedagogy Book Award, committee member Mary Hamil Gilbert reported that the subcommittee received seven nominations for the award, three of which were ineligible. Of the remaining four textbooks, 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 committee believes that this provides 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, Gilbert noted that 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. 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. The committee hopes 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 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 then announced that the winner of this year’s award was Adam Serfass (Kenyon College) for Views of Rome: A Greek Reader (University of Oklahoma Press, 2018). Serfass’s perfectly fits, even surpasses, all the criteria for the award: it is appropriate for the target audience; material is presented clearly; the quality of both the selections and the commentary is strong; the pedagogical aims are clear, and clearly met; and the potential for broad impact is evident. In addition, it is strikingly original in conception and well suited to the modern multicultural Classics classroom. Highlights of the praise offered by subcommittee members include the following:
• “It has the potential to encourage research/dissertations on Hellenistic Greek prose writers, which are presently understudied.”
• “It makes sense as a textbook, especially for students whose first exposure to Classics comes thorough Rome and Latin …. the depth of research is obvious.”
• “… a broad view of Rome from the circumference rather than the center. The theme … allows for so much Greco-Roman/Ancient Mediterranean interplay in addition to literary, e.g., politics, material remains, history ad infinitum!”
• “I am always looking for ways to help my students understand the complexity of antiquity, and this book provides a great opportunity to do that. It allows Classics majors the opportunity to see that these two cultures did not exist in silos.”
• “A novel textbook, perfectly suited not only to its original context (on-site learning) but to any college classroom in need of a broader view of the ancient Mediterranean world …. the execution is appealing and accessible.”
Unfortunately, Serfass was unable to be present to accept the award.
Gilbert concluded by extending Boyd’s gratitude to this year’s committee members for their careful readings of the nominated volumes, their detailed and nuanced evaluations, and their congenial contributions to the task at hand.
Margaret W. Musgrove, Co-Chair (with Nick Fletcher) of the CAMWS School Awards Subcommittee, reported 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. The contest continues to be most popular among high schools, but college participation is 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), making 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. Although it is certainly wonderful to have so many schools and students participating every year, the massive scale of this contest continues to create significant administrative challenges.
For the second year, schools had the option of submitting their papers either by e-mail or by U.S. 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. The timing of the registration and administration of this exam has become an issue: 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; if CAMWS members have input on this topic or others related to the exam, they are encouraged to attend the round-table discussion today at noon.
As always, top-performing students in the competition will be recognized with cash awards, book awards, and certificates of commendation. A full list of the winning students, along with comprehensive performance and participation statistics, will be e-mailed to participating teachers and posted on the CAMWS website. (College results had already been sent out; high-school results would be ready in a few days.)
On behalf of the subcommittee’s co-chairs, Musgrove expressed gratitude to all of the subcommittee members: William S. Duffy (St. Philip’s College, TX), Krishni S. Burns (University of Illinois at 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). CAMWS is indebted to them for their service.
Musgrove concluded by thanking the small army of CAMWS members who generously volunteered to grade the high-school exams. It is assistance from the graders that makes the high-school contest possible each year. She noted that their names and schools were printed on page 65 of the CAMWS Meeting Program. The committee was 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.
As Chair of the Subcommittee on CAMWS Undergraduate Awards (consisting of Joel Christensen of Brandeis University, Connie Rodriguez of Loyola University of New Orleans, Kristen A. Ehrhardt of John Carroll University, Christopher Polt of Boston College, and Valerio Caldesi Valeri of University of Kentucky), Heckenlively reported that the subcommittee had received three applications for 2018-19 and that the following two awards were granted: 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” and McKenzie Lewis and student Stone Chen of Waterloo University (ON) for their project, “Digitizing Data from the Villa del Vergigno Archaeological Project”. Norgard was present to receive the award.
Heckenlively then moved to the Manson A. Stewart Undergraduate Awards. The subcommittee noted an unusually high number of nominations with no follow-through this year. Based on nominations, a typical field of over 20 was expected, but barely half (11) completed the application process. Since the date for submitting applications was announced as both January 6 and January 15 in different communications, it is possible that confusion of due dates and eligibility might have played some role. Heckenlively advised the incoming chair to monitor these trends during the 2019-2020 application process. He noted that the clearest break in the collective rankings was between six and seven, so it made sense to the committee to call for six awards, the number typical of most years. This year’s recipients were: Grace Miller and Olivia Zitkus of University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Peter Psathas of William & Mary, Sophia Elzie of Agnes Scott College, Susanna Emeline McClellan of the University of Georgia and Benjamin Baturka of Kenyon College. None was able to accept the award in person.
Ruth R. Caston, Chair of the Stewart Teacher Training and Travel Awards Subcommittee, reported that the subcommittee had dealt with travel funding requests for the 2018 CAMWS-Southern Section Meeting in Winston-Salem and with three types of funding requests (Teacher Training and Travel Awards, Ruebel Undergraduate Travel Awards, and Awards for New Teachers) for the 2019 CAMWS Annual Meeting in Lincoln. More applications for the Ruebel and New Teacher Awards would be welcome; the subcommittee is discussing better ways of advertising these new awards. Caston encouraged CAMWS members to help the subcommittee spread the word about them.
Caston then announced the names of the recipients of the New Teacher Awards: Jason Hansen (Tempe Preparatory Academy) and Lucy Romero (Brookwood High School). The winners of the Teacher Training Awards were Chloe Kolbet (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Ian Hochberg (applying to MAT programs), Laura Malloy (Freehold Township High School), Steven Mondloch (University of Massachusetts Amherst), Timothy Morris (Northpoint Christian School), and Emma Vanderpool (University of Massachusetts Amherst). Vanderpool was present to receive her award.
Receiving Manson Stewart Travel Awards to attend the 2019 CAMWS Meeting in Lincoln were 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), and Melissa Velpel (Texas Tech University). All were present to receive their awards.
The following undergraduates received Ruebel Travel Awards: Jiayan Chen (Grinnell College), Margaret Corn (Columbia University), Lauren Sides (Baylor University), Chloe Lowetz (Texas Tech University), and Claire
Davis (Samford University). All were present to receive their awards.
On behalf of Ariana Traill, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Semple, Grant, and Benario Travel Awards, Elizabeth Manwell reported that the subcommittee had received significantly more applicants this year than last but that there was a need for the chair to solicit applications as the deadline approached. The committee was currently strategizing about ways to improve advertising of the award so that a rich pool of applicants—both graduate students and primary/secondary school teachers—would exist every year. The committee was pleased that the Executive Committee doubled the amount of funding for the Benario Award so that the committee could make three awards. Given the strength of the applicant pools for all of the awards, this increase was particularly welcome.
Manwell said that the subcommittee had made the following awards for 2019: The Grant Award to attend the summer school at the American Academy in Rome was awarded to Michelle Martinez of Walnut Hills High School in Ohio. Martinez was present to receive her award. The Semple Award to attend the summer school at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens was awarded to Eduardo García-Molina of the University of Chicago. Garcia-Molina was not present. Benario Awards to attend a summer travel program of the applicant’s choice were awarded to Jessie Craft of the Winston-Salem/Forsyth County (NC) Schools (Schola Latina-Scholae Aestivae in Italia), Maria Marable of Martin Luther King Academic Magnet School in Tennessee (Caesar and Vergil, Vergilian Society Tour), and Nicholas Bolig of the University of Kansas (ASCSA Summer Seminar: Ancient Greece from the Sea). None of the Benario Award recipients was present.
On behalf of Sandra Blakely, Chair of the Subcommittee on the CAMWS Excavation and Field School Awards, subcommittee member Shannon R. Flynt reported that 22 applications were submitted this year: five from MA/MAT students, five from PhD students, and twelve from undergraduates. This represents a three-fold increase over last year, with the quality throughout very high. The committee granted four awards, two for undergraduates, one for a MAT candidate, and one for a PhD student, with alternates for each. There were no applications from teachers this year. Flynt added that the committee was very happy with the high number and quality of this year’s applicants, but surprised that no teachers had applied. Strategies moving forward include more robust advertising across the board. The numerical increase seems a positive response to two changes in the description of the award, allowing applications that include work in illustration, digital recording, faunal, and ceramic analysis, not just excavation, as well as applications from individuals who are returning to the field. Priority continues to be given, however, to those for whom this summer is a first-time experience.
Flynt then announced the award recipients: Jordan Chapman, an undergraduate at Emory University (GA), was the winner of the Peter Knox award. 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. She will graduate from Emory University this spring with a Bachelor’s degree in Art History and International Studies. The second undergraduate winner was Rebecca Gaborek of William & Mary (VA), who has been accepted to the 2019 Poggio Civitate project, where she will be excavating under the direction of Jason Bauer. She is a senior, graduating this May with a BA in Classical archaeology and Anthropology. The MA/MAT award winner was Steven Mondloch, who is in the MAT program in Latin at University of Massachusetts Amherst, due to complete the degree in May 2020; this summer will be his first excavation experience, working at Poggio Civitate in Murlo under Anthony Tuck. The PhD winner was Elise Poppen who is is completing her PhD in Classics at SUNY Buffalo, and will be using her CAMWS award to return to Olynthos, where she has worked under the direction of Lisa Nevett since 2016. None of the award winners was present.
Laury A. Ward, Chair of the Subcommittee on the Kraft and CAMWS Teaching Awards, began her report by acknowledging the members of her committee: Howard W. Chang of Flint Hill School, J. Matthew Harrington of Tufts University, Ian N. Hochberg of St. Stephen's & St. Agnes' Schools, Adrienne Hagen of Monmouth College, Daniel Turkeltaub of Santa Clara University, Jeanne Neumann of Davidson College, and Brian Duvick of the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. She thanked them for their hard work, noting especially the service of Howard Chang, whose term expired this year. Ward also expressed 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 once again used the published criteria to evaluate the applications.
Ward reported that, for the Kraft Award, nine previous nominees were still eligible and three more were nominated for this year. After one incomplete application was eliminated and two were set aside due to the nominees’ decisions not to renew their CAMWS memberships, there were nine nominations left to be considered. The subcommittee made the award to Lynn LiCalsi (Fairview High School, Boulder, CO). The eligibility period expired for five of the other candidates, and the Chair contacted them with that information. Four nominees have one more year of eligibility; three have two more years. Assuming all choose to renew their CAMWS memberships and complete their applications, there are seven nominees already for the 2019-2020 award, before new nominees have been considered.
For the CAMWS Award, there were five previous nominees and two new nominations. The subcommittee made the award to Laurialan Reitzammer (University of Colorado Boulder). Five nominees remain eligible for one more year, one for two more years. One additional nominee requested that his application be delayed for a year, so his first year of consideration will be 2019-2020. Overall, then, there are seven nominees already for the 2019-2020 award. The subcommittee was pleased with the number of nominations and hopes that future years will see even more.
Ward read the following abbreviated versions of the commendations for the winners. Full commendations for both winners are available via the CAMWS website. Both recipients were present to receive their awards.
The recipient of the 2019 Kraft Award for Excellence in Secondary School Teaching is Lynn LiCalsi. Since 2001 LiCalsi has taught Latin at Fairview High School, in Boulder Colorado, where she has more than doubled the Latin program from 80 students to between 175-180, all of whom she serves as the sole Latin instructor. At her school, students regularly participate in the National Latin Exam and the Colorado Junior Classical League, and frequently win NLE scholarships and go on to study the Classics in college. But her devotion to her profession extends far beyond the walls of Fairview High School; she serves on the Boulder Valley School District's Curriculum Council, leads the new District Pilot Test in Latin, and recently rewrote the Latin passages for the Novice through Intermediate ACTFL texts. To quote one of her colleagues, “Lynn has that magic set of qualities, which on rare occasions combine in a single individual to create a famous teacher. She possesses impressive intelligence, full command of the details of her subject matter, excellent understanding of adolescent psychology, knowledge of the myriad ways to motivate students, and consistent dedication to both innovative teaching methods and understanding of important issues in communities of educators.” Says one student, “Bottom line, Lynn LiCalsi, is the person that I will always remember for pushing the limits of what it means to be a teacher. I can speak to, but I can't properly convey her deep commitment to every single one of her students and her enthusiasm to make us life-long learners.” On behalf of the subcommittee Ward saluted LiCalsi’s indefatigable energy and generous openness, and her devotion to the growth and development not only of her own teaching, but also of the teaching of others.
Ward then acknowledged Laurialan Reitzammer of the University of Colorado Boulder as the recipient of the 2019 CAMWS Award for Excellence in College Teaching and read the following citation:
Teach Greek online, you say? Design a course from scratch that stretches the limits of traditional application designs and involves recording more than 100 instructional videos? Who would be crazy enough to do that? Well this is but one of the many projects that Dr. Lauri Reitzammer has taken on in her illustrious teaching career. As an associate professor of classics at University of Colorado, Boulder, Reitzammer teaches a wide range of courses beyond the typical departmental offerings to include innovative courses, such as a First-Year Seminar on “Immigrants and Refugees in Literature and Culture” and the cross-cultural course, “Gods and Monsters: the Greek and Hindu Epics.” She has served as Associate Chair for Graduate Studies and on the board of the Faculty Teaching Excellence Program, and is an advocate for her students, a mentor to junior faculty, and an inspiration to her profession. One colleague describes her as “not only adept but outright virtuosic in multiple areas of teaching: impact on student intellectual development, evidence of student engagement, mentoring of other faculty or teaching assistants, enriching the scholarship of teaching and learning, development of new curricula, new courses, etc., and advocacy for excellence in teaching at CU Boulder.” Her students also sing her praises, “She is an exceptional teacher and advisor, with great skill at encouraging and supporting students.” “Professor Reitzammer has an enormous and ongoing impact on her students … She truly encourages lifelong learning, and she both sparks and nurtures a passion for Classics and academic excellence in her students.” For these reasons, Ward concluded her report by asking the membership to congratulate the very talented Reitzammer.
On behalf of Wilfred E. Major, Chair of the ad hoc Committee on the College Greek Exam, committee member Antonios C. Augoustakis reported that the College Greek Exam, housed for ten years at Louisiana State University under the website dramata.com, had been administered in the fall of 2018 and the spring of 2019 by an ad hoc CAMWS committee. At its recent meeting in Lincoln, the CAMWS Executive Committee had voted to formalize the adoption of the exam. In the future it will be administered by a subcommittee of the CAMWS Steering Committee on Awards and Scholarships.
As Steering Committee Chair, Lorenzo F. Garcia, Jr. reported that he had no awards to give, except his charis for the chairpersons of the awards subcommittees who comprise the Steering Committee. He thanked these eight subcommittee chairs for their leadership and careful stewardship of their award funds this year. He also wished to express his thanks for help received from President Faulkner, and especially from the Secretary-Treasurer and his able administrative assistant.
He then placed this year’s awards in context:
(1) The CAMWS Semple, Grant, and Benario Travel Awards Subcommittee received 11 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, and five in 2016). The committee requested an increase from $1000 to $3000 (approved by the Executive Committee) for the Benario Awards this year and recommended a permanent increase in the 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). A number of nominations were determined to be ineligible because the authors were not current CAMWS members. The committee dealt with an additional issue pertaining to eligibility of multi-author or multi-editor books. While this subcommittee does not recommend any increase in funding for future award years, it would like to continue to be able to request additional funds of the Executive Committee on an ad hoc basis.
(3) The CAMWS Undergraduate Awards Subcommittee received only 11 applications this year, a decrease from previous years. Although budgeted for only five awards (only five awards were offered in 2018), the committee requested six awards as had been offered in years prior to 2018. The committee would like to recommend maintaining funding for six awards ($6000) per award cycle. The committee 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 (seven awards given) in addition to the Manson A. Stewart Teacher Training awards (six awards given), Stewart Travel Awards (nine awards given), Ruebel Undergraduate Travel Awards (five awards given, after additional time to turn in applications was allowed), and New Teacher Awards (two awards given) awarded for the 2019 CAMWS Meeting in Lincoln. It is gratifying to see—at last!—applications for the New Teacher Awards. Nevertheless, the committee plans to work on ideas for better advertisement of the Ruebel and New Teacher Awards in the future.
Garcia said that the committee 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 from 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 committee approved the request; (2) An issue came up where an awardee for a Teacher Training Award was also been selected for an award by the Field School Award subcommittee, although the two awards were for different projects—committees of both Teacher Training and Travel and Field School approved the awards. The situation does raise a question for the EC for future award cycles: Should there be restrictions against a single applicant winning multiple awards in the same award cycle? If so, language preventing someone from applying to multiple awards will be necessary.
Although the Teacher Training and Travel Subcommittee does not make any formal request for additional funding for future award cycles in its report, Garcia said that he would like to do so on its behalf. (As a former chair of the TT&T subcommittee, he said that he had a good sense of the needs of the committee.) 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 committee offered sixteen travel awards totaling $4075 (including both CAMWS and CAMWS-SS), an average of under $240 per award, which covers only a fraction of the cost to attend the conference. Garcia recommends the TT&T committee be given an additional $2500 earmarked for Travel awards each year, putting the annual Travel award funds at something closer to $5000 to $6000 (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 committee received nine nominations for the Kraft award. The committee expects at least seven nominations for the award next year (not counting new nominations). The committee 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 committee requested an additional $2000 for an additional award (approved by EC), and selected four winners: two undergraduate, one MA, and one PhD. The committee does not recommend a permanent increase for funding, but wishes to continue requesting 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 to the website page a notice for recommenders, 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 committee, 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 committee noted two challenges: (1) Low number of submissions—the committee hopes that as the award becomes better known, the number of submissions will increase; (2) Challenges in distribution of review copies to committee members—the committee suggests asking publishers to submit copies to a central distribution center instead of sending copies directly to committee members (books were late, and some may not have ever arrived). The committee does not recommend any increase in award monies.
Garcia concluded his report by acknowledging the three recipients of the CAMWS Special Service Award who had been honored at the Friday-evening banquet and whose citations are here hyperlinked to their names: 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 Ward W. Briggs, Jr., CAMWS Historian and Chair of the History Committee, Anne H. Groton reported that the primary focus of the History Committee this year was 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. In Lincoln the number of interviews cracked the 100 mark. There are now 106 recordings, stored in a password-protected part of the CAMWS website, where future researchers can have access to them.
Groton added that 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 James Ruebel. Lepisto introduced the podcast last year in Albuquerque at a meaningful panel in memory of Ruebel. On the strength of this success, the committee enlisted Sam Kindick to create a second podcast, this one based on the CAMWSCorps interview of the late Eleanor Winsor Leach. Both podcasts are now posted on the CAMWS website. Groton announced that the CAMWS Executive Committee has approved the appointment of Kindick as CAMWS Podcaster for a three-year term. He is already at work recording interviews with this year’s Book Award winners. The History Committee plans to survey the CAMWS membership to gauge the popularity of the podcasts. Kindick, as an ex officio member, will help the committee devise and implement a podcasting strategy. Groton concluded by extending special thanks to two members of the committee, Hippokratis Kantzios and Theodora Kopestonsky, for overseeing the interviews during this meeting and to graduate student Emma Vanderpool, the committee’s sine qua non, the only person who understands how to work the recorder!
Kristin O. Lord, Chair of the Resolutions Committee, read the resolutions, which are posted here: https://camws.org/resolutions2019.
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 Briggs, President Faulkner then read the necrology. The deaths of the following CAMWS members had recently come to the attention of the association: Barbara Tsakirgis of Vanderbilt University (January 16, 2019); Thomas H. Watkins of Western Illinois University (November 15, 2018); James Helm of Oberlin College (October 29, 2018); Diane Hatch of the University of Mary Washington (October 13, 2018); Robert Adam Seelinger of Westminster College (September 22, 2018; Edwin Menes of Loyola University Chicago (August 25, 2018); Richard Dudley White of Norfolk Collegiate School (July 22, 2018); Steven Douglas Strauss of Notre Dame Academy (July 20, 2018); Olin Storvick of Concordia College (June 16, 2018); former CAMWS President Eleanor Goltz Granger Huzar of Michigan State University (May 7, 2018); Stephen Lee Pearce of Jesuit High School (December 4, 2017); and William C. Waterhouse of Penn State University (June 26, 2016).
Under Old Business Secretary-Treasurer Sienkewicz noted that the sites of future CAMWS meetings through 2024 were printed in the program and posted on the website. Randy Todd of Samford University, Chair of the Local Committee for the 2020 meeting in Birmingham, Alabama, then gave a presentation about the attractions of Birmingham, especially its monumental statue of Vulcan, who will welcome members to the Pittsburgh of the South.
CAMWS Southern Section Secretary-Treasurer David J. White announced that the 2020 CAMWS-SS would be held at his home institution, Baylor University.
There was no new business.
Under Announcements President Faulkner read the following statement regarding the 2023 meeting in Provo: In response to concerns raised, the CAMWS Executive Committee deliberated last week about the 2023 CAMWS Annual Meeting scheduled to take place in Provo, Utah at the invitation of Brigham Young University. After careful consideration, we stand by our decision to accept the invitation of BYU. As is the case for all CAMWS Annual Meetings, the policies, procedures and programmatic decisions of the meeting are controlled by CAMWS rather than the host institution. Safeguarding academic freedom and ensuring a safe and inclusive environment for all are foundational principles of the organization (https://camws.org/codeofconduct). We do not believe that BYU’s policies will in any way infringe on 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. To that end, the Dean of the College of Humanities at BYU has confirmed to the Executive Committee 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.’ We look forward to welcoming all of our members at the meeting in Provo in 2023. [Please note that this issue was reconsidered by the Executive Committee after the meeting. See this New CAMWS Statement on Provo.]
Faulkner then drew attention to a petition concerning the Classics program at the University of Vermont, which he encouraged CAMWS members to sign. He also noted that students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln were collecting money for flood relief.
President Faulkner then symbolically passed the presidential gavel to Anne H. Groton, who would assume the presidency at the beginning of the next fiscal year (July 1, 2020). Groton gave Faulkner a plaque and a gavel as a token of appreciation for his wise and exemplary leadership as CAMWS President in 2018-2019.
Groton then adjourned the meeting at 9:50 a.m.
Respectfully submitted.
Thomas J. Sienkewicz
Secretary-Treasurer
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