TIDEWATER REGION
ANNUAL REPORT
2001-2002
NORTH CAROLINA: Richard Cartwright, Vice President
1) Information on the activities of the state classical association
The North Carolina Classical Association (NCCA) continues to hold semi-annual meetings. The fall meeting was again held in Raleigh as part of the annual three-day conference of the Foreign Language Association of North Carolina (FLANC). Caroline Kelly and Alice Yoder presented papers focused on pre-reading strategies and instructional strategies to improve reading comprehension, and Joe Wieczorek from Prentice Hall introduced the Ecce Romani series to North Carolina teachers. Tom Elliott spoke about teaching materials, approaches and assistance available from the Ancient World Mapping Center <http://www.unc.edu/depts/awmc/> located in Chapel Hill, NC. Nancy Billman spoke on using PowerPoint in the classroom, and Mary Pendergraft spoke about the SAT II-Latin test. The Spring 2002 meeting will held at Davidson College, unfortunately at the same time as the CAMWS meeting this year. The program was not available as this report was being written.
2) Promotional activities in the state
Promotional efforts this year have continued most of the same activities as last year (coordinating registration efforts, sponsoring National JCL chapters, Latin clubs, etc.). Richard Cartwright (Guilford County) uses his AP students to make entertaining presentations at the two middle schools that feed his high school, and reports that the results on new enrollments this year have been positive.
Among the activities reported for this year were the following. Sarah Wright (Northwest Guilford High School) sponsors an annual Hercules night that attracts attention to her program, and also reports that her JCL chapter won a school-wide contest for the best homecoming banner: she has two, one in Latin and one in Greek! Page High School in Greensboro sponsors a 'toga night' for one of its home football games and sets up a special JCL booth during an all-day curriculum fair. Eastern Guilford High School, under the guidance of Robin Farber (our NCCA president), won first place in at the National JCL convention for their publicity efforts. Elizabeth Barbee (Enka High School in Buncombe County) reports that her students were personally recognized by the Board of Education for their outstanding performance at the state JCL convention this past year. Barbee also reports that her JCL chapter received a $1000.00 award from a foundation in Florida for the Latin skit (script and video recording) performed during that convention.
Three teachers and eighteen students from three high schools in Guilford County spent eight days traveling in Italy over spring break. As a result, other teachers have been encouraged to try such trips. Naturally, advertising and promoting such trips can make Latin an attractive and exciting alternative.
Some of the past years’ efforts have begun to pay off. Although the largest district in the state (Charlotte-Mecklenberg) still has only one middle school with a Latin program, we have seen some progress in other counties: the newest middle school in Guilford County (Kernodle Middle School) has a full-time Latin teacher as does the newest middle school in Chapel Hill, and Cumberland County (Fayetteville) has expanded and strengthened their year-round classical school (grades 6-12) with the addition of a second full-time teacher. At the high school level, Sarah Wright has also introduced ancient Greek into the course offerings at her public school.
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg school system will host an AP Latin workshop for the second summer in a row this summer after last year’s successful workshop taught by Peter Howard, the chief AP reader. We hope this workshop will provide another opportunity for teachers to share ideas and plan activities to promote Latin throughout the state for the upcoming year.
3) CAMWS membership (efforts at promotion and results)
Current membership remains about the same as last year. The published statistics indicate only about a 3% overall decline in membership over the past decade. The Vice-President targeted unaffiliated teachers throughout the state using available e-mail addresses and school addresses, but does not yet have the results of these efforts.
4) Use of CPL monies, interest in CAMWS scholarships, etc.
Two requests for CPL money were made and granted. Mary L. Carroll invited a classicist to her school during Black History Month to speak about the contributions of Afro-American Classicists. Both Latin and U.S. History students attended the program. Ms. Carroll received $400 to defray the travel and lodging expenses of her guest speaker. Diann Nickelsburg also received $400 to support Legio XIIII which visited schools in the Staunton, VA and Elizabeth City, NC areas and the Tidewater region. This proposal was particularly welcome as it funded an important activity in both states of the region.
5) Problems and Challenges in the state
Although key persons in each of the major school systems in North Carolina report that the teacher shortage was not a major problem this past year, several schools interested in starting up a Latin program were unable to do so for lack of a teacher, and several programs were cut or curtailed after the retirement of a teacher. This suggests that while Latin is stable in the state, it is being prevented from growing as it might otherwise do. Thus, the recruiting and training of new teachers remains the biggest challenge in this state. The M.Ed. in Latin program at UNC Greensboro continues to graduate a small number of students and to work towards offering more of its courses through some form of distance learning. Several programs in the state continue to offer teacher training programs at the undergraduate level as well, and university and secondary school teachers need to work together to attract more students to these programs.
A secondary challenge is to build community throughout the state and to encourage greater use of CPL resources by teachers in North Carolina.
6) Other
UNC Chapel Hill’s post-baccalaureate degree in Classics for students wishing to explore graduate work is now operating. It is a full-time program that can be finished in 14 months.
VIRGINIA: Trudy Becker, Vice President
1) Information on the activities of the state classical association
The cornerstone of Virginia’s Classical studies continues to be the Classical Association of Virginia (CAV). Membership in CAV, which peaked in 2000, remains strong, and many of its members are also members of CAMWS. The spring meeting of CAV will be hosted by Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond on April 2, 2002, and will include a tour of and guide through the Greek and Roman materials there. Results of the CAV-sponsored 2001 Latin Essay Contest, the Classical Essay Contest (seven different contests and levels), and the 72nd Latin Tournament will be announced at that meeting. As always, interest and participation in these contests remain high.
2) Promotional activities in the state
In addition to CAV, many other organizations, secondary, university, and student-led, promoted Latin and the classics in 2001-2002. Their activities included lectures, conferences, and symposia by Virginia Tech, University of Virginia, Hollins University, William and Mary and Hampden-Syndey. Several programs were designed to work with and/or benefit high school students as well as high school teachers. In an effort state wide to contribute to student success on the Virginia Standards of Learning test (3rd grade includes Greece and Rome), many schools worked with elementary teachers. One of these was Virginia Tech which organized its fourth year of outreach to the third grade teachers and students at nearby Kipps Elementary School. The Classics faculty at Virginia Tech, Trudy Harrington Becker, Andrew Becker, and Terry Papillon visited and lectured at the elementary school, and directed college students’ presentations there. Other programs included hosting a public reading, marathon-style of Ovid's Metamorphoses on April 27, 2001; it took 12 hours to finish. A similar reading on Vergil's Aeneid will be done on April 27, 2002. The public is invited, and local Latin teachers are expected to bring their students, if only for a short time. Another program popular with high school teachers and their students was offered by Hollins University in the semi-annual Hollins Classics Symposium, in the fall on Roman comedy and in the spring on domestic spaces and social identities. Hollins played host again to the state sponsored Governor’s Latin Academy (its 14th year) during the summer of 2001, and Randolph-Macon sponsored another version of its much appreciated semi-annual Saturday Seminar for high school and college teachers in December of 2001. In the summer of 2001, University of Virginia offered again Latin as one of its summer foreign language institutes. The Virginia Junior Classical League enjoyed another successful state convention in November of 2001 in Richmond, Virginia. The Augusta County Institute, a summer program for elementary school children modeled on the Governor's Latin Academy, enjoyed a successful run. The Institute will occur again this summer of 2002, and is already advertising its third annual workshop for teachers, to be held concurrently with the program for children, on "Integrating Classics on the Elementary & Middle Levels: An Interdisciplinary Approach".
3) CAMWS membership (efforts at promotion and results)
Membership in CAMWS from the state of Virginia remains high. As of the time of this report, less than 15% had not renewed their membership; many of these are young teachers who will get some extra attention. CAMWS flyers and a poster of CAMWS awards were present at CAV meeting in the fall, and Trudy Harrington Becker sent a written report to the CAV executive board meeting, and at the meeting itself news of CAMWS activities and plans were announced, and the audience was reminded of the benefits of membership in CAV. Additionally, CAMWS announcements as well as a call to membership were included in the CAV newsletter and on the CAV on-line newsletter.
4) Use of CPL monies, interest in CAMWS scholarships, etc.
Only one application for a CPL grant was received this year, that to host a visit from Legio XIIII as noted in the NC section of this report. This funding to a Virginia applicant does not appear on the CPL web page as the funds were given to a North Carolina applicant and shared by the two states of Virginia and North Carolina. Publication of CPL grant opportunities was made through announcements and flyers at the fall meeting of the CAV and through announcements in CAV newsletters. Many teachers still are unaware of the ease of application and the breadth of programs CPL will finance.
5) Problems and Challenges in the state
The granting of funds from CPL continues to be a concern. We need to find more effective ways to inform potential grantees of this money, and at the same time, we need to find other ways to continue supporting worthwhile projects which may already have received CPL funds. As stated above, it appears that many teachers are not convinced that the process is a simple one and that their project might be funded.
6) Other
This year Virginia Wesleyan College in Virginia Beach, Virginia has added a Classics degree. Additionally, Virginia Tech is nearly finalization of a two-year process to revise and reinvigorate its classics major. Previously, students studying Classics at Virginia Tech had graduated with a degree in interdisciplinary studies with a degree option in classics. Now Virginia Tech will have its own freestanding Classics major and, as the state of Virginia still has more high school students studying Latin than other states, these two new majors offer an opportunity for further study of Latin in these colleges.
It is worth mention finally that the National Latin Exam and the Mythology (Medusa) exam continue their success; both of these are Virginia products.
This material was posted on the web by CPL Chair, Tom Sienkewicz, at Monmouth College, Monmouth, Illinois. If you have any questions, you can contact him at toms@monm.edu.
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