Classics Collaboration across Campuses: Weaving Penelope's Tapestry Penelope Painter Hal Haskell Southwestern University Susan Frost Emory University Suzanne

Classics CollaborationClassics Collaborationacross Campuses:across Campuses:

Weaving Penelope's TapestryWeaving Penelope's Tapestry

Penelope Painter

Hal HaskellHal Haskell

Southwestern UniversitySouthwestern University

Susan FrostSusan Frost

Emory UniversityEmory University

Suzanne BonefasDirector, Technology Center

Associated Colleges of the South

Attic red figure skyphos, Chiusi, Penelope Painter:Penelope and Telemachos, ca. 430 BCE

Infrastructure

The Curricular Need

Weaving Penelope’s Tapestry


Small Liberal Arts Institutions:

>small liberal arts learning environment

>opportunities of large research university

studentsfaculty

breadth, depth, visibilityThe Curricular Need


Mellon Pilot Program, beginning in 1996.Rhodes College

/ InfrastructureThe Curricular Need


Small Liberal Arts Institutions:

Thucydides: alliance of individual city-states for a common purpose

Sunoikisis seeks to develop a set of common goals and achieve a degree of depth, breadth, and prominence that goes beyond the capacity of a single program.

SunoikisisSunoikisis


Small Liberal Arts Institutions:/ InfrastructureThe Curricular Need

Rebecca Frost Davis, “Collaborative Classics: Technology and the Small LiberalArts College,” C. Blackwell, R. Scafe, edd., Classics@ vol. 2 (The Center forHellenic Studies ay Harvard University)


/ Infrastructure

•Archaeological Field School Program in Turkey




Teaching and learning across campuses?

Weaving Penelope’s Tapestry•Archaeological Field School Program in Turkey

Infrastructure

Weaving Penelope’s Tapestry•Archaeological Field School Program in Turkey

Teaching and learning across campuses

•faculty lecturingwithin expertise

•discussionduring class, withfaculty modelling

Synchronous classes

Asynchronousexchanges

•Upper level Latin and Greek literature courses



COURSE CYCLE2000 Literature of the Early Empire2001 Literature of the Roman Empire, 70-180 C.E. Greek Lyric Poetry2002 Late Antique and Medieval Literature Hellenistic Literature2003 Literature of the Early Republic Homeric Poetry2004 Literature of the Late Republic Greek Comedy2005 Literature of the Early Empire Greek Literature of the Fourth Century




Attic red figure, after the Siren Painter,ca. 450 BCE


•Sunoikisis Department Meetings

Course Preparation Seminars (summer)

Program Committee (fall)



National professional meetings






•Undergraduate Research Symposium




Alicia Wilson, Furman University“Pandora and Eve: The legacy of two women”




•Study Abroad



College Year at Athens

Athens




•Study Abroad


Intercollegiate Center for Classical Studies in Rome


Athens

Rome





•Sabbatical Replacements

•Study Abroad






•Sabbatical Replacements

•Study Abroad

•Speakers Bureau


»Startup Funding (Mellon)

»Training (not top down)•Faculty / Student collaborative learning and research

Results. A faculty perspective:•“Virtual” department offering breadth, depth, andvisibility to Classics curriculum

•Interdisciplinary studies

Classroom

Field

•Faculty development


•Faculty recruitment

Sunoikisis aims to promote liberal arts learning, new technologies, and collaborative teaching and learning. Is it meeting its goal?

If so, how can institutions sustain the program beyond the grant period?

How can the value of similar programs be judged?

Our questions…

“The workshops contribute to my professional development…much more than I could learn on my own. It’s a magnificent way to get up to speed in areas we lack in our tiny departments…. I am better prepared as a classicist.”

A summer workshop participant

“In short, I learned more about Homer in the last three days than in the last twenty years.”

A faculty member describing the summer workshop

“The interaction among lecturers makes me feel more connected, which is positive for students to see.”

“You teach less from an authoritative model when there is live interaction among faculty. It’s a model of communal struggle, communal endeavor.” Comments about team teaching

“Classicists are cave dwellers--collegial but proprietary about what should be in our courses. Collaboration is a whole lot easier when the person is not right next door.”

- A scholar describing an unexpected gain

Sunoikisis succeeds because it is innovative, collaborative, and evolutionary. Combined with constantly improving technology, those traits will lead to new ways for intuitions to interact.

A preliminary finding

“It’s not just that you don’t have to do all the lectures. You spend more time on the lectures you deliver. You have bright colleagues out there and it raises the bar. The lectures are getting toward publishable papers.”

A scholar who collaborates across colleges

Questions we are considering:

Is technology integral to liberal arts learning? It is a “paramount issue of the day.”

Is the program sustainable beyond the funding period? Can other studies of sustainability help address this question?

Documents

Classics Collaboration across Campuses: Weaving Penelope's Tapestry Penelope Painter Hal Haskell Southwestern University Susan Frost Emory University Suzanne