OXFORD, Miss. – For classics majors at the University of Mississippi, summer is a time to gain insights and boost their educational experience by working in the field.
“The Department of Classics is fortunate to have resources expressly designed to support student study abroad experiences,” said Aileen Ajootian, UM professor of classics and art and chair of the classics department. “Classics majors in good standing are eligible to apply for these funds each spring. We have supported student travel to many different programs.”
Arcadia University in Pennsylvania runs many study abroad programs and is an affiliate of the UM Study Abroad program, which makes it easier to negotiate the application process. The programs in Sicily, Rome, Florence and Athens offer three-week units on ancient history, art, language and archaeology.
The UM classics website at http://classics.olemiss.edu/ and Facebook page list opportunities for students. Students can also find archaeological opportunities at http://www.archaeological.org/. One of the requirements for student funding for study abroad is that the students give a presentation on their experiences when they return.
The American School of Classical Studies in Princeton, N.J., has a well-established library and research headquarters in Athens, Greece. The school sponsors a controlled number of excavations and surveys, and assists scholars with getting permits to study material in museums. Each summer, the American School offers two study sessions for American students, some undergraduates, graduate students and teachers.
“The students visit sites all over Greece and get to use the library,” said Ajootian, who works there every summer. “For serious classics students who want to continue with their studies, attending a summer session is a must.”
One of the students who benefitted from such an experience is Colby Roberts, who participated in the archaeological excavation at the Agora in spring 2012.
“The Agora was the ancient marketplace in Athens, and the excavations are in the center of the city itself, which makes it fairly unique,” said Roberts, who graduated in May with a bachelor’s degree in classics and economics. “What I did specifically was dig under the supervision of archaeologists and Ph.D. candidates. The program consisted of two months working in the Agora, digging in areas that contained material from about 500 B.C. to 1200 A.D.”
A native of Poplarville, Roberts is attending Southern Methodist University’s law school this fall.
Robert Christopher Miller went on three study trips abroad while he was a student, getting scholarships from the classics department for two of them. He spent a semester at the Center for Hellenic Studies in Athens during fall 2011; a month at the Kenchreai Archaeological Field School in Greece in June 2012; and a month in England in July 2012.
While in Greece, he received a full scholarship from Sunoikisis, an organization dedicated to students of the classics.
“We worked clearing the dirt and brush off of a part of the harbor of the ancient city, washing pottery in preparation for its analysis, and sorting through unclassified objects in the Isthmia Museum from an earlier excavation of the site that had taken place in the 1960s,” said Miller, a native of Gautier who will be entering the classical studies Ph.D. program at Columbia University this fall to study Greek art, archaeology and history.