Vol. 82, No. 2, Summer 2008 - Monmouth College

Tara Stewart of Zeta Betais reading the Lament ofAndromache from theIliad, and Gabby Countryis reading the descriptionof Fama from Aeneid4. To their left is JuliettaBekker, the organizer of theevent, at which studentsand faculty read from 25different languages.We held several informational eventsfor Classics majors and minors. These weremeant to be useful especially for thosegoing on to graduate school for Classics,or to the post-baccalaureate program atthe University of Pennsylvania to honetheir language skills. Our first guest wasthe extremely organized Lyndy, whocame over from Rutgers and fed us somevaluable morsels of information about theapplication process and subsequent lifein graduate school. During the week offall finals, we took a break from studyingto listen to the advice and musings of Dr.Sampanaro and Dr. Markovic, who areboth recently finished with their doctoraldegrees. Several of us later finished up theinformation sessions at a meeting with Dr.Jackie Murray and Traci Dougherty, who iscurrently in the UPenn post-bac program.They brought the insight of experience andsome material examples to the mystique ofgraduate school applications to those of usabout to embark on that journey.In January Dr. Davis, Libby and Lyndywere again traveling to represent EtaSigma Phi, this time at the AmericanPhilological Association meeting in Chicago,where we joined Dr. Sienkewicz andJes Geary in manning the Eta Sigma Phiinformation table.We held two initiation ceremonies,one at the annual Winter Solstice Partyin December. Ryan Horowitz and ShannonBaxter were initiated, and Dr. LauraSampanaro, who has been our enthusiasticand valuable faculty co-sponsor this year,became an honorary member. The partywas filled with joy and laughter as we sangLatin songs, ate delicious potluck dishes,including Apicius recipes, and enjoyed thecompany of cherished friends. Our springinitiation brought us Lauren Faralli, KellyHeckler, Heather Holtzapple, Pat Knabeland Amanda Thompson as our newestmembers.This spring semester we held anotherPizza and Poetry session, where we readfrom Horace. Our chapter decided to takeadvantage of the spectacular opportunitieswhich Philadelphia provides, and went as agroup to see a performance of the Odysseygiven by the Curio Theatre and SarahRuhl’s Eurydice at the Wilma Theatre inMay.Six of our chapter members studied atTemple’s Rome Campus during this year,some for a semester,and one for an entireyear. Another chaptermember, now graduated,spent a summer sessionin Rome learning spokenLatin with Father ReginaldFoster.Immediately uponreturning from Amherst,we held a “Libby AppreciationDay” in honorof Libby Torresson, ourchapter prytanis andretiring Megale Grammateus.Libby was verysurprised — she almostmissed the occasion. Wepresented her with ajeweled Eta Sigma Phi owl pin. As it turnedout, we celebrated two other achievementsthat day: Lyndy Danvers was presentedwith an owl pin for her outstanding leadershipin preparing the Philadelphia Convention,and our Dr. Eric Kondratieff receiveda Classics mug from the Mt. HolyokeMuseum in recognition of his Excellence inTeaching Award as a Lecturer in our College.A card arrived from the new MegalePrytanis, Jes Geary, in time for the party.As we look back on our year, we realizethat we represented Eta Sigma Phi andClassics not only at conventions and meetings,but across the world as far away asMongolia. Much of the proceeds from ourfundraising efforts went to the project ofproviding books for learning English andbooks about Greco-Roman civilization toa Peace Corps initiative in which one ofour chapter members, now an attorney, has35