Classics Advisory Service
1995-6
Report to the Board of
Directors, American Philological Association
from Michael Gagarin,
Director
October 21, 1996
My first year as Director of the
CAS has been productive on several fronts. While
continuing to supervise regular departmental reviews and
handling crisis situations, I have devoted most of my
efforts to developing resources to help Classics programs
avoid crises. I have been able to do this in part because
crises and potential crisis situations have been so ably
handled by Bill Ziobro and his staff. His effectiveness
has left me free to concentrate on two major initiatives,
the workshop planned for the 1996 annual meeting, and the
CAS Web Site.
1. The CAS made recommendations
for outside reviewers for two departmental reviews, Mary
Washington College and the University of South
Dakota.
2. Two situations involving
immediate threats to Classics required formal letters to
administrators, Southwest Missouri State University
(SWMSU) and Rollins College. In the first case the
results were quite positive, in the second case
apparently not. Additional letters, phone calls and
e-mail correspondence were involved in these cases and in
several other potential crises. Much of the work in these
cases was done by the APA office. The data-base that Bill
Ziobro and his staff have developed was extremely useful
in these efforts.
One lesson to draw from these
rescue operations is the importance of a broad-based
approach involving regional, state and local
organizations of professors and secondary school
teachers. SWMSU, for example, had previously had no
contact with the state Latin teachers' organization, but
after a threat to eliminate their Latin major they
discovered a state-wide need for Latin teachers. The
teachers' support played an important role in SWMSU's
successful effort to retain their major. CAS needs to
develop better means of cooperating with these other
organizations, and with the AIA, which is also developing
procedures to support the teaching of archaeology and
help programs in trouble. The joint workshop planned for
December should lead to greater cooperation with the AIA
in the future.
3. My original plan to sponsor a
workshop on small departments was broadened into a joint
APA-AIA workshop as a result of discussions with Jack
Davis (Cincinnati), representing the AIA. The joint
workshop was approved by both program committees and is
scheduled for Dec. 29 at 9 AM. An abstract of the
workshop is attached.
4. The creation of a CAS site on
the World Wide Web may be the most important development
for the long-term future of the CAS. The site is still in
rather rudimentary form, as this was my first experience
with creating a Web site, but with the help of Jim
O'Donnell and Linda Wright the site became active in
August. I hope to improve and expand it regularly in the
future (suggestions are welcome). The site is most easily
reached by going to the APA home page, where there is a
direct link to the CAS. The full CAS address is
http://scholar.cc.emory.edu/scripts/APA/frontpage/gagarin.html.
The existence of a CAS Web site
has raised the question whether a change or expansion of
the name "Campus Advisory Service" (to e.g. "Classics
Advisory Service") might be desirable so that those
searching the Internet for information about teaching
Classics at the college level are more likely to find the
site. I have not thought through the many different
aspects of this issue, and I would welcome any ideas or
suggestions.
5. Finally, partially in my
capacity as Director of CAS I visited Rhodes College in
June 1996, to assess a program to train classicists at
small private colleges in the South in using the Internet
to communicate with one another and share resources for
teaching and research. Almost all participants were
either the only classicist or one of only two classicists
at their institution. It is clear that technology will be
crucial to the ability of these individuals to
communicate with others in our discipline, and this
consortium approach may be a model for other small
programs. I expect Kenneth Morrell will have more to say
about this at the December Workshop.
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