Monmouth College Classics Department

08/18/2026

Classics Day will be back this fall! Saturday, October 3, from 1-3 PM on Monmouth College's campus! While there are still many details of this year’s Classics Day to be resolved, among its 50+ separate interactive opportunities will almost certainly be the following, all based on practices from one or more peoples from the ancient world: sporting events; military activities; tabletop games; clothing; stone-carving; languages, including modern ones and their ancient antecedents; mythologies from around the world; mosaic-making; hair-dyeing, hair-styling, and cosmetics; various technologies, including a catapult; magical practices; red- and black-figure vase-painting; weaving; appearances by people from the ancient world; and a host more. We hope to see you there! DM any questions you have!

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07/25/2026

Hello again, Monmouth Classics community! The NEH Summer Institute has now been over for a week, and if you'd like a written account of it, please see Barry McNamara's excellent article (https://www.monmouthcollege.edu/live/news/6008-gotta-get-back-in-time). Meanwhile, Prof. Simmons is handling the aftermath of the institute while also trying to take care of as many professional and personal matters as possible before starting SOfiA on August 3. We hope your summers continue to be refreshing and rejuvenating!

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07/16/2026

Hello, Monmouth Classics community! I hope your summers have been going well! Prof. Bob Holschuh Simmons was on local Monmouth radio this morning, along with Nathalie Roy Mitchell, Spenser Pasciolla, Sarah Allen, and Ryan Sellar, to talk about the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Institute on the Ancient Olympics and Daily Life in Ancient Olympia that Prof. Simmons and Nathalie are co-directing at Monmouth College, and in which Spenser, Sarah, and Ryan are participating. Shawn Temple did his standard thoughtful, energetic interview with us on Radio Monmouth. Give it a listen!

Bob Simmons, Professor of Classics and Chair of the School of Humanities and Civic Engagement at Monmouth College, and Nathalie Roy, educator at Glasgow

06/01/2026

The winner of the 2026 Bernice Fox Classics Writing Contest, sponsored by Monmouth Classics, is Alex Greuloch of the John Burroughs School in St. Louis! The Latin teacher with whom Alex worked to assemble his submission is Sorsha Maness. His story was titled "Myth," and it worked on the theme "Classical Adaptations, Retained Essences." Stay tuned for the prompt for next year's Fox Contest!

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04/29/2026

On a big day at Monmouth College (Scholars Day), Classics was well-represented, with lots of recognitions at Honors Convocation and lots of posters in the afternoon session. Bonus: Sydney Burge (who majors in Classics and Political Science) learned that she had been elected president of Student Senate for next year! Congratulations to Sydney, and to all of the students whose excellence was on display yesterday.

04/15/2026

At last night's Monmouth College Highlander Leadership Awards, Classics and Political Science major Sydney Burge '28 won the Emerging Leader Award! To those who know her work in school (both in classes and in cocurricular activities), in Pi Beta Phi, as a Scots Ambassador, in Student Senate, and at her other campus jobs, this is no surprise. Classics is grateful to benefit from the energy, courage, and commitment to excellence that she has in abundance. Well done, Sydney!

04/15/2026

Prof. Bob Holschuh Simmons is grateful for the opportunity to have delivered the 2026 “Classics in the New Millennium” lecture on Monday night at Augustana College - Illinois, with a talk titled “Demagogues and Masses in Athens and the Athenian Theatre: Class Anxiety and Apprehensions about Insurgencies in Euripides’ Tragedies.” He enjoyed talking further about the topic as well on Tuesday morning with Augustana’s Dr. Kirsten Day’s intermediate/advanced Latin students He especially thanks Dr. Day for inviting him to Augustana for this engagement. It is a pleasure to have the chance to share one’s research with other thoughtful people. Monmouth College

04/07/2026

Logan Serpette '27 and Prof. Bob Holschuh Simmons display their certificates for winning a faculty-undergraduate collaborative research award from the Classical Assn of the Middle West and South (CAMWS), worth $1000. The project for which they won this award is Logan's capstone, on creating all aspects of a semester-long class on hands-on ancient technology. He will present on a part of it at next year's CAMWS meeting in Cleveland. Monmouth College Classics has won this same award in each of the past two years as well; Prof. Simmons won it in 2025 with Jenn Ruscitti '26 for her capstone research (presented at CAMWS in Mobile, AL, this spring), and in 2024 with Jeff Schnetzler '25 for his (presented at CAMWS in Urbana-Champaign). Thanks for CAMWS for honoring excellence in this way, and thanks to Monmouth's Classics students, who keep finding ways to branch off of Prof. Simmons' research to make these collaborations meaningful.