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NCLG Spotlights
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News Spotlight Articles
on Advocates, ACL Awardees
Dr. Fauci, and MORE!
NCLG Announces Institute Prizes
Our winners for 2023 include:
Norma Goldman Ancient Attire Contest,
Catherine Thomas of UGa
Autobiography of WS Scarborough,
Katy Reddick of ETC
Black Classicists poster,
Vanessa Schmitz-Siebertz of UW Madison
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Spotlight on UK Advocacy:
Dr. Arlene Holmes-Henderson
Discusses Promising New Programs
In this Spotlight meet Dr. Arlene Holmes-Henderson, who brings together research, innovative programming and legislative policy.
Learn more about her advocacy journey in striving to both lead and collaborate with stakeholders at all levels to make Latin, as well as Greek and Classics,
more accessible to students in schools across the UK.
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Princeton University's Classics Degree
Click to read this interview article with
Dan McGlathery, NCLG Treasurer,
DEI Subcommittee Chair
and Princeton alumnus
about his experience
appearing on Russian TV News!
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Click to read more in this presentation
about the service and advocacy
of these two awardees!
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ACL Keely Lake Advocacy 2021 Awards
A tribute to Keely Lake, former NCLG Chair
Dawn Smith-Popielski and Nick Popielski have received the 2021 Keely Lake Advocacy Award from the American Classical League to recognize significant and meaningful advocacy for the study of Classics from leaders outside the field of Classics. Nick Popielski and Dawn Smith-Popielski are models of how those who love Classics can advance the field of Classics through their professional careers. Whether they are talking with students, working with alumni, or speaking with university administrators about the importance of classics, these two have been energetic in their support of classics. Nick, Head of Environmental Impact at Spire (St. Louis' gas company), Dawn, a cost analyst for Ascension Health in the Ascension Data Science Institute, are mainstays of the local chapters (in Columbia and St. Louis) of the Archaeological Institute of America. They serve as Secretary-Treasurer of the Alumni/ae Association of the American School of Classical Studies at Athens. They are regular and enthusiastic speakers to graduate and undergraduate students at Washington University, the University of Missouri, and elsewhere, about how a degree in Classics can lead not only to rewarding lives, but to successful careers in numerous fields. They are active at alumni events and eager to speak with administrators all the way up to the Provost and President. Dawn funded a scholarship, in the name of her father, for a Classics or archaeology student to travel to Greece. The American Classical League, founded in 1919, celebrates, supports, and advances the teaching and learning of the Greek and Latin languages, literatures, and cultures, and their timeless relevance.
Susan Pazavecchia has received the 2021 Keely Lake Advocacy Award from the American Classical League to recognize significant and meaningful advocacy for the study of Classics from leaders outside the field of Classics. As an administrator at Archbishop Chapelle High School, Susan Panzavecchia has gone above and beyond as an advocate for Foreign Language and especially Classics. Her support made it possible to have a JCL Club of over 70 students with many activities. When parents wonder whether their student should study a “dead language,” Susan personally reassures them of the value of Latin. When Latin III students are wary of taking AP Latin, she calls in each student individually to encourage them to continue their Latin education. She also attends all of our Classics events, takes photos, promotes us on social media and ensures that we have everything that we need to be successful and get recognition for all our hard work. She even makes sure that new technology is available for classics as well as STEM classes. Finally, she encourages the nominator to get more involved in ACL, attend meetings, propose workshops, and continue her education in classics. In sum, Susan Panzavecchia advocates for Latin as a way to open a student's eyes to ancient civilizations who have changed the landscape of our world forever.
Press Release May 21, 2021. For more information, contact Sherwin Little, Executive Director.littles@aclclassics.org
Announcing.....
NCLG Norma Goldman Ancient Costume Prize Winners
for "Best Dressed at Institute!"
Matt Davis and Maureen Lamb
Winners of the NCLG GooseChase
"Mission Possible" Game
for Institute Attendees:
Maureen Lamb
Nicole Lehmann
Tashi Tredway
plus
"creative media posts"
Mary Beinemann and Nava Cohen
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Click NEW Spotlights on Black Classicists
"magazine' in the menu
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SPOTLIGHT ON
“BLACK CLASSICISTS:
A MURAL MOSAIC”
EXHIBIT
We are very pleased to announce that we have permission to share a new Mural Mosaic collage as well as two new Black Classicists posters that can be printed and displayed in schools and universities. The latter two were produced by the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard when they hosted Dr. Michele Valerie Ronnick’s traveling exhibit “Black Classicists: A Mural Mosaic.” These posters are informative as well as strikingly presented, and we urge instructors to share them with students and colleagues.
Dr. Ronnick has also announced a new panel sponsored by Dr. Sheila Murnaghan, President of the Society for Classical Studies, on William Scarborough’s important work, William Sanders Scarborough and the Enduring Legacy of Black Classical Scholarship. Check out a brand new blog , as well, from Oxford University Press. The blog on William Sanders Scarborough is authored by Professors Ronnick, Lee, Lawall, and Gates through the Oxford African American Studies Center.
You can go to this link to an NCLG folder of numerous materials from Dr. Michele Valerie Ronnick for printable images and other supporting documents. She has been producing materials, speaking and writing for the past 20 years on the important contributions of Black Classicists to classical scholarship.
We learned from Dr. Mary Pendergraft, current President of the American Classical League, that this exhibit was also shown recently at Wake Forest University. She remarked, “The Charlotte Hawkins Brown Museum (https://historicsites.nc.gov/all-sites/charlotte-hawkins-brown-museum), collaborated with Wake Forest University on their Classica Africana exhibit “Black Classicists: A Mural Mosaic,” based on the long-standing and ground-breaking work of Dr. Michele Valerie Ronnick, of Wayne State University in Detroit. Dr. Ronnick introduced a local artist, Leo Rucker, to Classics professors at Wake Forest University. Two of these, Professor Caitlin Hines and Professor T.H.M Gellar-Goad, secured special funding to commission painted portraits of three of those figures who had never before had painted portraits: Helen Maria Chesnutt, Charlotte Hawkins Brown, and Wiley Lane. These three portraits are being framed and preserved by specialists--and then will be photographed. Leo Rucker graciously gave WFU the rights of reproduction, so that these can be shared with a wider audience.
The photo below was taken at a reception for the traveling exhibit, which also went to the Center for Hellenic Studies at Harvard, and will next reside at the University of Detroit Jesuit High School and Academy, under the direction of Nick Young. The photo shows the unveiling of the portrait of Helen Maria Chesnutt. A formal reception at Wake Forest University for the portraits will be held when it is permissible to have large gatherings.
(L to R) Professor Caitlin Hines (WFU, now of University of Cincinnati), artist Leo Rucker (Old Salem Museums and Gardens) who painted portraits of Helen Maria Chesnutt (shown here), Charlotte Hawkins Brown and Wiley Lane, and Professor T.H.M. Gellar-Goad (WFU). The book Helen Maria Chesnutt is holding is one that she co-authored, The Road to Latin. Thanks to Lauren Downey, Co-Director of LupercalLegit, for working to get this book released on Google Books.
These pdf images print up beautifully!
(Photo by permission of Elizabeth Heintzelman)
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Helen Maria Chesnutt
An Influential and Innovative Latin Teacher
Helen Maria Chesnutt was born to Charles and Susan Chesnutt in Fayetteville, NC on December 6, 1880. She earned her B.A. from Smith College in 1902, At this time, Helen, her sister, and one other black student, Otelia Cromwell, were the only African-American students at Smith. All three lived off campus. Otelia became the first African-American graduate of Smith, followed the next year by Helen. Later, in 1925, Helen earned her M.A. in Latin from Columbia University. She belonged to the American Philological Association from 1920–1934.
Chesnutt taught Latin at Central High School in Cleveland, Ohio, where she inspired her notable pupil, Langston Hughes. In 1932, she co-authored a beginning level textbook, The Road to Latin, an influential work that went on to have multiple print runs. She belonged to the American Philological Association from 1920–1934. A reviewer in Classical Journal stated that the book and teaching methods, which relied on oral presentation of Latin, intensive rather than extensive reading, and a paraphrase method, were discussed and appraised positively in research into teaching of Latin in the US at that time. She also wrote a biography of her father, entitled Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line, which remains an important source of information about him and his works.
Miss Chesnutt also wrote a biography of her father titled Charles Waddell Chesnutt: Pioneer of the Color Line. More information about Miss Chesnutt can be found in “Classical Education and the Advancement of African American Women from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century,” in Unsealing the Fountain: Pioneering Female Classical Scholars from the Renaissance to the Twentieth Century Helen died in Cleveland Heights, Ohio, on August 7, 1969 at age 88.
Dr. Michele Valerie Ronnick of Wayne State University gave a keynote address on the life of Helen Maria Chesnutt for the Classical Association of New England's Annual 2021 Meeting, as they announced a new Helen Maria Chesnutt Scholarship. Here is the link to the presentation, In Search of Helen Maria Chesnutt.
Central High School
I want to share a bit more about Central High, because I grew up east of Cleveland and my mother grew up in this exact same neighborhood when it was an enclave of German immigrants. Case Western Reserve University documents state that Central was the first public high school in Cleveland, and existed from 1846-1952. In fact it was the first high school supported by public funds “west of the Allegheny Mountains.” Early students included John L. Severance, John D. Rockefeller, Marcus A. Hanna, Samuel Mather, and Langston Hughes. The curriculum included English, math, foreign languages, social science, physical science, commercial education, technical education, home economics, and music! Here is the previous building… on East 40th Street, when it celebrated its Centennial in 1946.
Langston Hughes
Case Western also documents that Helen Chesnutt’s student I mentioned above, Langston Hughes, was born in Joplin, Missouri, and moved to Cleveland in 1916. He “began writing seriously while a student at Central High School, where his efforts were encouraged by his teachers.” He spent a year at Columbia, dropped out to travel in Europe and Africa. He later studied and degreed at Lincoln University. He spent his lifetime writing prolifically – novels, volumes of poetry, children’s books, plays, essays and black history. He also founded the Negro Theater in Los Angeles in 1939 and wrote a film script. Throughout his life, Hughes lectured and was active in the Black civil rights movement and worked to establish the Black identity.
SOURCES Link to sources used for this NCLG website Spotlight article on Helen Maria Chesnutt. Katie Robinson 2-22-21
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Two States Honor Dr. Fauci!
Michigan Classical Conference
honors Dr. Anthony Fauci with an OVATIO!
Nick Young, Michele Ronnick, and Reed Demarco have shared with us some exciting news from Michigan.
An Ovatio was bestowed upon Dr. Anthony Fauci by the Michigan Classical Conference! Here we share a recent letter to their Michigan colleagues:
Dear MCC Members,
Recently, two of your past presidents and the Secretary-Treasurer sent a message to Dr. Anthony Fauci on behalf of the Michigan Classical Conference. Dr. Fauci, in case you did not know, received a Classical education at the Jesuit high school in Brooklyn: 4 years of Latin, 3 years of Greek. He went to the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts for his undergraduate degree/pre-med majoring in Classics: Greek philosophy focus. We felt that since he is not shy about praising his background, we should not be shy in thanking him.
We created an OVATIO for him and forwarded it to his office. We realize that he is extremely pre-occupied right now, but we wanted to let him know that people think highly of him for things besides this pandemic and how he is trying to help us through it. (He still credits his background in philosophy as a help.)
We have received the following response from his staff:
Thank you for your recent email directed to Anthony S. Fauci, M.D., director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health. As you may imagine, Dr. Fauci has a great deal of professional responsibilities at this time. For this reason, he has asked me to respond to your email.
We truly appreciate your kind remarks and thank you for sharing your Ovatio to Dr. Fauci.
We extend our best wishes to you and the members of the Michigan Classical Conference.
Here is a copy of the Ovatio
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Maryland presents an Ovatio in January
Ovatio: Anthony Fauci, MD
We would like to share the attached Latin ovatio, a formal speech of praise,
honoring Dr. Anthony Fauci.
Hodie virum praecellentem, sanandi peritissimum, de terra pila ludentium derelictorum egressum culmen investigationis medicinae publicaeque sanitatis ut perveniret, laudamus. Deo et patriae Academia Regis dedicationem erexit, optimam disciplinam apud universitatem Sanctae Crucis, ubi ad percipiendam colendamque virtutem litteris Latinis et Graecis atque scientiis praemedicinis se contulisset. Gradu perfecto medicinae doctoris apud universitatem in urbe commemorante patriam Ulixis, experimenta magna rerum novarum de morbis contagiosis persequebatur, transformans investigationes in salubritatem. Experimentorum peritia consuetudinibus eruditioneque fictis inter vitam totam usus, meritus est Coronam Libertatis, a Praeside Patriae Nostrae tributam. Cum ratio nova morborum, mortifer aestus, apparuit, via laeta patuit, itaque deservivit Concilio Domus Albae Pestilentiam Novam Investiganti. Conclaremus carminibus almae matris tuae. Plaudamus igitur Anthony Fauci, MD.
Having received this ovatio on New Years’ Day, this renowned scientist and public servant, and undergraduate classics major, responded with warm thanks:
“Thank you so much for sending this. It is terrific. You have my permission to share the text more widely. Happy New Year!
Best regards,
Tony”
Full text of the Ovatio awarded to Dr. Anthony Fauci by Classics colleagues in Maryland can be read HERE.
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"Dr. Fauci has a Classics degree!" A copy of an article featuring
some published reflections and comments by Dr. Fauci
on the value of his studies in the Humanities can be found HERE.
(This originates in a blog, Tales of Times Forgotten, posted by Spencer Alexander McDaniel
who is aClassics and History student at Indiana University - Bloomington.)
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Click To See Our Recent Grant Awardees!
Latinx Student Outreach in New York City
New Middle School program in Colorado
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SPOTLIGHT on NATHALIE ROY Chosen as
2021 Teacher of the Year for Louisiana!
And a SCS 2021 Awardee for
Excellence in Teaching at the Pre-Collegiate Level
“Languages aren't the only way to study the classical world!”
Nathalie Roy teaches Latin, Roman Technology, and Classical Myth Makers, at Glasgow Middle School in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, where she enjoys researching the classical world and introducing it to students through experimental archaeology. Her classes feature hands-on lessons about the ancient Romans and Greeks infused with STEM, a unique curricular idea that has garnered her much grant money. She is a fierce advocate for equity in her classes, actively recruiting students of color.
Roy is a proud graduate of a small-town public school in Avoyelles Parish where both her parents were teachers. Her childhood dream to become a paleontologist was dashed at a young age when her mother told her that scientists had already dug up all the dinosaurs. She earned her Bachelor of Arts and Master of Arts in Latin and Ancient Greek at Louisiana State University where she later returned to focus on pedagogy through a teaching certification program. Roy studied classical archaeology at the American Academy in Rome (as a Fulbright Scholar) and at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (as a Semple Fellow). She is a National Board Certified Teacher and a 2019-20 STEM Fellow for the Foundation for East Baton Rouge Parish Schools. In February of 2020, Roy was named a Coffin Travel Fellow by the Society for Classical Studies, which will allow her to visit the archaeological sites of Roman Britain (on hold due to COVID).
Roy has published articles on her Roman technology class with Cambridge University Press and the American Classical League, with whom she has partnered during the pandemic to offer free, live-stream, hands-on lessons on Roman technology to any children interested (Go to etclassics.org). She has served as a leader of the Louisiana Classical Association many times and currently runs its social media account.
Dedicated to service and citizenship, Roy is a longtime volunteer with Girl Scouts Louisiana East where she leads two troops. As a life-long Girl Scout, she strives through teaching to build students of courage, confidence, and character who make the world a better place. You can follow her on Twitter @MagistraRoy.
Here is the official press announcement by her district!
Here is a bit more about a few of her creative, appealing classes:
Roy says, "Many students take my classes who are not interested in Latin. Roman Technology, however, is the most requested elective class at the school (65 kids are now enrolled in 3 sections currently). With strong historical French and Spanish influences here in Louisiana, most students view those options as more practical than Latin. Undeterred, I developed these creative alternatives to Latin to feed students' fascination with classical civilization, particularly the STEM aspects of it. This class allows students to study the classics without the years-long commitment to Latin, and I'm ok with that. If this class someday sparks them to invent a new way to clean water or to filter air or in any way make the world a better place, I'll be thrilled knowing that their creative classical training inspired that design thinking."
In Nathalie Roy's Roman Technology class, students recreate the products and processes of ancient Roman daily life through experimental archaeology. Each lesson is a hands-on exploration of how classical technology was built and functioned. Students construct aqueducts, design mosaics, arrange hair, weave, fire kilns, cook bread (and many other projects), and learn about the archaeological record of artifacts that help us understand the Romans and their physical world. Many of the projects feature STEM challenges which connect ancient Roman science, technology, engineering, and math to their modern inspirations.
In Classical Myth Makers, students study classical myth to inspire maker projects and STEM challenges. They have learned to weave like Arachne, constructed the cardboard version of the Argo, and produced Hades' Haunted House, an interactive Halloween experience for the school's fall festival.
Gridding an archeology study site
A student firing up the kiln she built to bake her authentic Roman bread
2020 ACL Keely Lake Award for Advocacy
Plaudite, quaeso, Edlyn Niimi!
Last year, the ACL instituted a new Advocacy Award, to recognize leaders outside our field who have advocated significantly for the value of Classics education. This year, ACL renamed the award in memory of Keely Lake, past Chair and long-time advocate for Classical Languages at the federal, state, and local levels.
Keely Lake
Recipients may be business leaders, legislators, writers, school administrators, or anyone else who strongly and effectively advocates for the Classics, and this year Edlyn Niimi was recognized for her support.
Check the ACL website for further details
and watch a VIDEO presentation!
Norma Goldman Costume Contest Winners Announced
Congratulations to the winners of the Norma Goldman Costume Contest for the American Classical League Virtual Summer Institute:
GRATULATIONES,
Nathalie Roy Mitchell and Brian Briggs!
Norma Goldman was a respected author, teacher, mentor, ACL Merita Winner, and inspiration to many. Norma studied in Rome and created authentic costumes based on the art and sculpture from the past. She produced fashion shows to share her work. As a member American Classical League, Norma would dress in costume for the ACL Banquet each year and encouraged others to do the same. The NCLG established this award in her memory to continue the tradition.
This year the contest was held using an online PADLET so images were uploaded for voting by the NCLG Norma Goldman Costume Contest Judging Committee (Mary Pendergraft-ACL President and NCLG Past Chair, Katie Robinson-NCLG Interim Chair, and Zee Ann Poerio-NCLG Committee for Supporting Young Learners.) The winners were announced via Zoom during the final ACL Virtual Institute Happy Hour by John Gruber-Miller, ACL Vice President. The winners were selected for their amazing costumes, but both entries truly displayed a sign of the times.
Nathalie's entry shows how she dressed in Costume for her students to distribute their National Mythology Exam Awards at their drive-by awards ceremony in mid-May. (N.B. She is wearing her face mask).
Brian's entry also reflected a sign of the times, since we were at home during the Virtual conference. His family also dressed in costumes. The stola and palla that his daughter is wearing was made by Brian to show his students.
Each winner will receive a reproduction Roman Bronze Fibula and a certificate. Thanks to all who entered the contest this year and congratulations to the winners!
