Classics Advisory Service
1996-7
Classics Advisory Service 9/1/96
- 8/31/97
Report to the Board of
Directors, American Philological Association from Michael
Gagarin, Director
December 17, 1997
My second year as Director of
the CAS has been a bit quieter than the first year. After
a rather hectic Fall preparing for the very successful
Joint AIA-APA Workshop on "Small Classics Departments and
Programs," I have continued to make recommendations for
regular departmental reviews and to handle specific
requests for help. I am pleased that among the latter
were not only cries for help from those who felt
threatened in some way, but also two requests for help in
expanding or taking advantage of
opportunities.
As before, I received invaluable
assistance throughout the year from Bill Ziobro -- or
perhaps it would be more accurate to say that in most
cases I was assisting him, since he took the lead on so
many matters. The transition to a new Executive Director
was accomplished right at the end of this period, and I
expect I will receive similar assistance from Bill's
successor, John Marincola. In particular, the APA
database, which is kept in the APA office, is more and
more in demand, especially by small departments. These
often need to explain or justify themselves to
administrators who can only be impressed by numbers. The
database gives us solid statistics to support our
cases.
Rather than discuss individual
cases in detail, let me raise two questions involving
more general matters of policy.
Several situations during the
past year have raised the general question, to what
extent should the CAS respond to the problems facing
Classics departments in countries other than the US and
Canada. I received one request for support from South
Africa (University of Natal) and one from Australia
(Australian National University). I responded to the
former because it came from an APA member and there are
other APA members in the department there. (It may also
have mattered that I know the people and the Department
there well.) The second request did not involve any APA
members, and in fact only reached me third-hand from
various e-mail lists. I did not respond, feeling I did
not have enough contact with the situation. The Board may
wish to consider whether we should have a policy with
regard to overseas requests.
The second question was raised
at the Board meeting on December 30, 1996. One Director
wondered whether the CAS might not provide the additional
service of making recommendations for outside evaluators
in promotion cases, particularly for classicists teaching
in other departments (e.g. Foreign Languages). In
discussions with others, I have not been able to
ascertain whether there is a need for such a service. My
own view is that I have no objection to making
recommendations if asked in a specific case, but I am a
bit hesitant to incorporate this formally as a CAS
service. For now I would urge anyone who thinks that such
a service is needed and could usefully be provided by the
APA, whether through the CAS or in some other way, to
make their views know to me and to the Board.
Michael Gagarin
Director, Classics Advisory
Service
gagarin@mail.utexas.edu
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