Assessment Details
Academic Year: 2020-2021 Level: Undergraduate
Campus Department: Morrissey College of Arts & Sciences [UG and Grad]
Program Type: Major [UG] / Program [Grad]
Program Name: Classics BA (Link)
Description of Data Collection:
We collect samples of written work (i.e. exams and/or papers) completed by majors in classes pertaining to the language, literature, art, or culture of ancient Greece and Rome over the course of their undergraduate careers. Graduating seniors fill out an exit questionnaire that asks them to reflect on the strengths and weaknesses of their Classics major and how well they feel it prepared them for their post-graduation plans.
Review Process:
The Director of Undergraduate Studies and at least two other members of the department evaluate and interpret the data at the end of each academic year. They report their findings as well as suggest changes to curriculum, if appropriate, to the chair of the department
Resulting Program Changes:
This year’s graduating class illustrates both what the Classics dept. does consistently well and our primary area of concern. A single Classics major graduated this year (two others who began in the class of 2019 will graduate in 2019-20). That student was extremely well served: he had been struggling at BC until he found a home in the Classics dept., where he credits “the mentorship and support I’ve received from every single person in the department” with enabling him to remain and thrive at BC. He took an astounding 22 Classics courses, plus a summer program in Greece run through Boston University. He also worked as a research assistant in the department and ran our new after-school Latin program. He leaves BC with sterling language abilities, mature skills of research and writing, and valuable pedagogical experience. The Classics major worked perfectly for him. Our concern is to find ways to expand our reach more widely. Our Ancient Civilization minor has been flourishing (a record 15 students in the class of 2019), but we need to find ways to serve more students in the language side of our program.
To that end, we’ve made two new changes this year. First, this year we added minors in Latin and ancient Greek, with the aim of enticing strong language students to continue with coursework at the advanced level without the commitment of a full major. We have one declared Latin minor so far, and expect that the numbers will rise as word gets out. Second, this year we launched an after-school Latin program called Aequora at Nativity Prep Middle School in Jamaica Plain. This program, started by the Paideia Institute, uses a fun, games-based, literacy-focused curriculum to teach Latin and Roman culture, especially to under-served minority populations. Our goals for our own students were 1) to provide teaching experience for advanced students considering teaching careers, and 2) to offer students in our lower-level Latin classes an exciting way to engage with and take ownership of their Latin learning. The initial pilot worked exactly as we intended: the senior Classics major who coordinated the program described it as “life-changing,” and we developed a dedicated, high-morale cadre of younger advanced- and intermediate-level student volunteers, all of whom are planning to continue with the program and as Classics majors or minors. At its current scale the program can accommodate only a small fraction of our Latin students, so its impact on retention and enrollments will be limited, but even a fairly modest increase in retention and morale in our language courses could make a big difference.
In the longer term, after our last program review, we changed the requirements for our major to require students to take more courses on ancient history and culture, and to allow elementary Greek to count toward the Classics major. Our goals were to make the Classics major more flexible and accessible to students who did not study Greek or Latin in high school, to encourage majors to pursue both classical languages at least to the intermediate level, and to have majors develop broader competence in Greek and Roman history and culture. A second change, starting in AY17, was to expand our Core offerings, so that Classics now offers courses in 3 different parts of the Core (Fine Arts, Literature, and History). The primary goal of that change was to increase our contributions to the Core curriculum and expose a wider population to the study of Classics, but a secondary benefit may be to make it easier for students to fit a Classics major into their schedule.
Too few Classics majors graduate each year to permit robust analysis. In the last 5 years, 61% (11/18) of our graduating seniors took at least one semester of ancient Greek; 6 of the 18 reached the advanced level in both Latin and Greek. We would like to see more Classics majors take both Greek and Latin, but that goal is in tension with our desire for students to take a wide range of Civilization courses in order to acquire a broad basic knowledge of the ancient world. On the latter front, our students do now tend to graduate with a somewhat wider array of coursework in ancient history, art, culture, etc., but what they’ve covered remains rather eclectic. We would love to add a 3000-level capstone Civilization course for our majors, but at present numbers that seems impractical.
Our goal of making the Classics major more accessible to those without high school Latin or Greek has had mixed success. 2017 was a high-water mark: 3 of our 5 majors entered college with no Latin or Greek at all, and started at the Intermediate level. No general conclusions can be drawn from this, and our 2018 and 2019 graduates had all begun one or both languages in high school, but it does suggest that we have made it easier for students to switch into the Classics major midstream, and to add Classics as a second major. Even so, “walk-on” Classics majors face significant barriers to entry, and often need to do a summer language program to accelerate their progress toward advanced language coursework.
As we have rebuilt our FT faculty, we have made it a high priority to find faculty who could add innovative and compelling courses on classical civilization to our major and/or the Core curriculum, as well as strong language courses at every level. More diverse course offerings is something our graduating seniors consistently request, and we have taken important steps toward that goal. Recent additions include courses on the City of Rome, Multiculturalism in the Roman Empire, Greeks and Barbarians, Death & Dying in Ancient Greece, Beast Literature, and Ancient Medicine.
Beginning in fall 2014, we added a new “Advanced Intermediate” Latin course. This course was designed for entering students whose high school Latin preparation placed them beyond Intermediate Latin I, but not at the right level to begin Advanced Latin immediately (e.g. those who scored a 3 on the AP Latin exam), and for incoming students who have the language skills but not the maturity for advanced coursework. Secondarily, that course serves students who have come through our Intermediate Latin sequence, but are not quite ready to move on to Advanced Latin; two such students took the class in F18 and have now successfully completed an advanced course. The goal was to raise the level of our advanced courses by offering weaker students an option better suited to their level. Enrollment in Advanced Intermediate Latin has risen modestly but steadily in the last few years, from 3 (F16) to 5 (F17) to 7 (F18), and the yield for the major is high. Of the 4 students (3 + 1 auditor) who took the course in F16, 2 continued into Advanced Latin and the Classics major or minor. This year’s graduating senior started with this course, and another student from that class will graduate with a Classics major in December 2019. At the same time, we’ve been able to reduce the time spent on remediation in advanced Latin classes. We feel that this course is meeting an important need.
The revision of our Elementary Latin courses continues. We are still trying out new elementary Latin textbooks in the hope of finding one that will be both more accessible and better preparation for intermediate-level courses. Another long-standing goal is to add a fourth hour for language drill. In AY18 and 19, we took advantage of higher than usual graduate student yield to pilot first an optional drill section for the elementary Latin courses, then to hire a tutor for one-on-one sessions with struggling students. We continue to look for more effective ways to provide support for students outside class.
Even at its small size, the Classics major serves a fairly diverse constituency, which can differ widely between cohorts. In some years (e.g. 2015), most of our graduates go on toward Classics-related careers; in others (e.g. 2016), the bulk of our majors are double majors for whom the other major represents their main career aspiration. For those students, Classics offers a rigorous and varied liberal arts training that supplements mostly STEM and social science majors. In 2017, we had a mix: of our 5 graduates, 1 is now in med school, 1 in conservatory for conducting, 1 pursuing a career in a rock band, while 2 others went on to post-baccalaureate programs in Classics; of those, one is now pursuing a PhD in Classics and the other is applying to HS teaching jobs. In 2018, 1 graduate entered Notre Dame’s ACE Teaching Fellows program; the other is in law school. Our 2019 graduate will be getting an MA in Classics from the University of Florida, heading toward K-12 teaching. The strong liberal arts character and flexibility of our major enables us to equip a wide variety of students well for their post-graduation aims.
Date of Most Recent Program Review:
This year’s graduating class illustrates both what the Classics dept. does consistently well and our primary area of concern. A single Classics major graduated this year (two others who began in the class of 2019 will graduate in 2019-20). That student was extremely well served: he had been struggling at BC until he found a home in the Classics dept., where he credits “the mentorship and support I’ve received from every single person in the department” with enabling him to remain and thrive at BC. He took an astounding 22 Classics courses, plus a summer program in Greece run through Boston University. He also worked as a research assistant in the department and ran our new after-school Latin program. He leaves BC with sterling language abilities, mature skills of research and writing, and valuable pedagogical experience. The Classics major worked perfectly for him. Our concern is to find ways to expand our reach more widely. Our Ancient Civilization minor has been flourishing (a record 15 students in the class of 2019), but we need to find ways to serve more students in the language side of our program.
To that end, we’ve made two new changes this year. First, this year we added minors in Latin and ancient Greek, with the aim of enticing strong language students to continue with coursework at the advanced level without the commitment of a full major. We have one declared Latin minor so far, and expect that the numbers will rise as word gets out. Second, this year we launched an after-school Latin program called Aequora at Nativity Prep Middle School in Jamaica Plain. This program, started by the Paideia Institute, uses a fun, games-based, literacy-focused curriculum to teach Latin and Roman culture, especially to under-served minority populations. Our goals for our own students were 1) to provide teaching experience for advanced students considering teaching careers, and 2) to offer students in our lower-level Latin classes an exciting way to engage with and take ownership of their Latin learning. The initial pilot worked exactly as we intended: the senior Classics major who coordinated the program described it as “life-changing,” and we developed a dedicated, high-morale cadre of younger advanced- and intermediate-level student volunteers, all of whom are planning to continue with the program and as Classics majors or minors. At its current scale the program can accommodate only a small fraction of our Latin students, so its impact on retention and enrollments will be limited, but even a fairly modest increase in retention and morale in our language courses could make a big difference.
In the longer term, after our last program review, we changed the requirements for our major to require students to take more courses on ancient history and culture, and to allow elementary Greek to count toward the Classics major. Our goals were to make the Classics major more flexible and accessible to students who did not study Greek or Latin in high school, to encourage majors to pursue both classical languages at least to the intermediate level, and to have majors develop broader competence in Greek and Roman history and culture. A second change, starting in AY17, was to expand our Core offerings, so that Classics now offers courses in 3 different parts of the Core (Fine Arts, Literature, and History). The primary goal of that change was to increase our contributions to the Core curriculum and expose a wider population to the study of Classics, but a secondary benefit may be to make it easier for students to fit a Classics major into their schedule.
Too few Classics majors graduate each year to permit robust analysis. In the last 5 years, 61% (11/18) of our graduating seniors took at least one semester of ancient Greek; 6 of the 18 reached the advanced level in both Latin and Greek. We would like to see more Classics majors take both Greek and Latin, but that goal is in tension with our desire for students to take a wide range of Civilization courses in order to acquire a broad basic knowledge of the ancient world. On the latter front, our students do now tend to graduate with a somewhat wider array of coursework in ancient history, art, culture, etc., but what they’ve covered remains rather eclectic. We would love to add a 3000-level capstone Civilization course for our majors, but at present numbers that seems impractical.
Our goal of making the Classics major more accessible to those without high school Latin or Greek has had mixed success. 2017 was a high-water mark: 3 of our 5 majors entered college with no Latin or Greek at all, and started at the Intermediate level. No general conclusions can be drawn from this, and our 2018 and 2019 graduates had all begun one or both languages in high school, but it does suggest that we have made it easier for students to switch into the Classics major midstream, and to add Classics as a second major. Even so, “walk-on” Classics majors face significant barriers to entry, and often need to do a summer language program to accelerate their progress toward advanced language coursework.
As we have rebuilt our FT faculty, we have made it a high priority to find faculty who could add innovative and compelling courses on classical civilization to our major and/or the Core curriculum, as well as strong language courses at every level. More diverse course offerings is something our graduating seniors consistently request, and we have taken important steps toward that goal. Recent additions include courses on the City of Rome, Multiculturalism in the Roman Empire, Greeks and Barbarians, Death & Dying in Ancient Greece, Beast Literature, and Ancient Medicine.
Beginning in fall 2014, we added a new “Advanced Intermediate” Latin course. This course was designed for entering students whose high school Latin preparation placed them beyond Intermediate Latin I, but not at the right level to begin Advanced Latin immediately (e.g. those who scored a 3 on the AP Latin exam), and for incoming students who have the language skills but not the maturity for advanced coursework. Secondarily, that course serves students who have come through our Intermediate Latin sequence, but are not quite ready to move on to Advanced Latin; two such students took the class in F18 and have now successfully completed an advanced course. The goal was to raise the level of our advanced courses by offering weaker students an option better suited to their level. Enrollment in Advanced Intermediate Latin has risen modestly but steadily in the last few years, from 3 (F16) to 5 (F17) to 7 (F18), and the yield for the major is high. Of the 4 students (3 + 1 auditor) who took the course in F16, 2 continued into Advanced Latin and the Classics major or minor. This year’s graduating senior started with this course, and another student from that class will graduate with a Classics major in December 2019. At the same time, we’ve been able to reduce the time spent on remediation in advanced Latin classes. We feel that this course is meeting an important need.
The revision of our Elementary Latin courses continues. We are still trying out new elementary Latin textbooks in the hope of finding one that will be both more accessible and better preparation for intermediate-level courses. Another long-standing goal is to add a fourth hour for language drill. In AY18 and 19, we took advantage of higher than usual graduate student yield to pilot first an optional drill section for the elementary Latin courses, then to hire a tutor for one-on-one sessions with struggling students. We continue to look for more effective ways to provide support for students outside class.
Even at its small size, the Classics major serves a fairly diverse constituency, which can differ widely between cohorts. In some years (e.g. 2015), most of our graduates go on toward Classics-related careers; in others (e.g. 2016), the bulk of our majors are double majors for whom the other major represents their main career aspiration. For those students, Classics offers a rigorous and varied liberal arts training that supplements mostly STEM and social science majors. In 2017, we had a mix: of our 5 graduates, 1 is now in med school, 1 in conservatory for conducting, 1 pursuing a career in a rock band, while 2 others went on to post-baccalaureate programs in Classics; of those, one is now pursuing a PhD in Classics and the other is applying to HS teaching jobs. In 2018, 1 graduate entered Notre Dame’s ACE Teaching Fellows program; the other is in law school. Our 2019 graduate will be getting an MA in Classics from the University of Florida, heading toward K-12 teaching. The strong liberal arts character and flexibility of our major enables us to equip a wide variety of students well for their post-graduation aims.
Attachments (if available)