Meggie Macdonald

The Chicago Flame, a publication devoted to reporting on the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC),  published an article last year regarding the transitional period underway in the Classics Department at the time.  Head of the department John Ramsay detailed that, in response to falling enrollment numbers in Latin and Greek courses, the university had requested that the department find a way to amalgamate the three majors – Latin, Greek, and Classical Studies – into one.  The hope was that, even with a single major, it could be flexible enough to accomodate students wishing to focus on languages, literature, archaeology, history etc.

This is an issue facing many undergraduate level classical studies programs throughout Canada and the United States:  how to encourage enrollment, how to maintain the high level of academic tuition, how to keep classics in the curriculum.  In very few cases, attempts have failed and the department of classics has either been absorbed into a larger unit, such as History or Near Eastern Studies or Religion, or done away with entirely apart from a few vagrant courses.

From reviewing the UIC Department of Classics website recently, I have noted that an alternative solution to the single major was developed and, thus far, seems to be doing well.  There are now two majors for UIC Classics students:  Classical Languages and Literature and Classical Studies.  In fact, it appears that the original three majors have been simplified:  Latin and Greek are included under a single umbrella major with a specialization in either or of the ancient languages.  A student no longer has to choose one or the other, languages or history, but can incorporate the two to establish their own academic specialization while still meeting the university requirements in the Faculty of Liberal Arts.

The solution from UIC’s Department of Classics is just one of a variety of options available to other departments and faculties facing tough times.  I for one am relieved to see that Classics at UIC was not absorbed and disbursed throughout the larger faculty and that it is still on the radar for students wishing to study the ancient world.  The creativity of academics is rarely so self-evident as in situations where their very survival depends on their ability to be flexible, sensible, and demanding simultaneously.

There’s hope for the fossilized bookish types yet!

Memorial University in Newfoundland and Labrador in Canada has developed a new social networking site, specifically for academics and academic research. Called a “research matchmaker” by reporter Elizabeth Church, yaffle.ca was created in response to larger ratios of government funding for universities, a sort of quantitative result-based initiative for a discipline that is rarely defined in such objective terms.

The project has been met with praise across the country.  York University President Mamdouh Shoukri states that a competitive society needs to use its knowledge.  Project head David Yetman reports:  “Persuading faculty to look beyond the lecture hall and the library is not always straightforward.  Academic success – and tenure – is based primarly on published research, not public works, making participation in such projects entirely voluntary”.  Mr. Yetman calls Yaffle the Google of university research, something that allows researchers, students, and professors to connect, share, trade, and unite their research into work that is mutually beneficial.

Hopefully this project will catch on at other universities – currently it is only linked to Memorial University projects – so that the globalization of knowledge can be developed and augmented.

There has been a good deal of archaeological work done at Bosra in Syria in the last months.  Initially, it was determined that foundations unearthed during excavations of a church revealed the private bath house from Trajan’s Palace (see Global Arab Network article from 19 October 2009).  More importantly, these excavations identified that the building originally thought to date from the second century CE and the reign of the Emperor Trajan was in fact of Byzantine origin and therefore likely the headquarters of the Archbishop of Syria.

Since then, tombs – also dating from the Byzantine period – have been uncovered in Bosra and Daraa city, Southern Syria.  These tombs contained bracelets and pot sherds that, coupled with the discovery of monks’ quarters and oil presses, suggest that the area dates from 500-700 CE.

These discoveries represent yet another example of how, despite civil unrest throughout the Middle East, archaeologists are still able to piece together the great puzzle of our collected cultural history.