LIFT Grant @ Arizona State University Fall Forum 2022

Dr. Barbara Weinlich of ASU Tempe reports how the NCLG LIFT Grant supported their 2022 Fall Forum.

On Friday, November 18, about 320 high school students and their teachers (from 7 different institutions and/or groups) from the larger region of Phoenix attended Fall Forum, a half-day event hosted by the Classics program at ASU in conjunction with the AZJCL and the ASU Classics Club Solis Diaboli. This Fall Forum was generously sponsored by grants from both the Excellence Through Classics and the National Committee for Latin and Greek. The program, curated by Dr. Almira Poudrier (ASU, Classics, School of International Languages and Cultures) and Sarah Palumbo (AZJCL chair and Latin instructor at Rio Salado), focused on introducing career paths for undergraduate majors in Classics – first and foremost that of the Latin teacher – and included various Classics-related contests, lectures on topics in Classics, a tour of ASU’s Hayden Library and the Wurzburger Reading Room, opportunities to sit in on classes taught by ASU-faculty, and a service project.

Balancing the lectures and teaching presentations by ASU faculty, the active participation of two three high school teachers in this Year’s Fall Forum offered a first-hand experience of what their profession may look like in and beyond the classroom: Magister Yaggy’s presentation entitled “So you want to be a Latin teacher!” was complemented by Magistra Reveceur’s workshop on Greek Theater Masks as well as by Magistra Palumbo’s involvement in and tireless work during the organized event as chair of AZJCL.

An all-together new experience for the 320 participants were the prizes that the ASU Classics program was able to hand out thanks to the generous L.I.F.T. grant from the NCLG: Copies of the Oxford University Press Short Introduction-series for the winners of the certamina, ‘I Love Latin’- buttons for the winners of the scavenger hunt, a stuffed Pegasus and Doric squeeze columns (Kudos for the ETC-store!) for the winners of the impromptu-art contest. Evidently, these prizes will not end up in a box at home; rather they will be lasting memories of the visit of Fall Forum 2022 and hopefully also inspirations for taking Latin (and, of course, Greek and Classical civ-courses) as a future undergraduate.