Summary of Task Force on Undergraduate Implications of Graduate Education in the Classics
"'Better' because 1) the present system shows numerous signs of needing to be fixed and 2) because the observations of Claude Pavur as well as some of those who are discussing, as a special focus, the particular issue of language acquisition, suggest that changes in the ways we teach languages at the early graduate level are possible, in fact show real promise. Part of the 'better' will be arriving at more satisfactory measures for credentialing our graduates than those we have. Without real and credible assurances that young PhDs can in fact handle the languages reasonably, we rely on measures, like sight tests sponsored by hiring institutions, that are imprecise and disheartening to the people we take some responsibility for when we bring them into our graduate programs.
"It will be rightly pointed out that at present there aren't sufficient mechanisms in place to take the talented late-starter to sufficient mastery quickly enough. There is too much else to do and learn in graduate school. To be sure, summer institutes exist as do post- baccalaureate programs in a few institutions around the country and in Europe. Another few universities are experimenting with novel ways of promoting language proficiency more quickly. Late starting undergrads should be encouraged to take full advantage of these resources; if funds are available, summers at one of the Greek and Latin institutes and a year at Penn or Cambridge, among a few other options, might be an enormous boost in this important regard.
"That said, it is only fair to note that these are, precisely, extraordinary measures. They cost money and represent considerable disruption of settled lives. The fact is that we as a discipline, on the level of the early graduate curriculum, haven't yet turned our minds to creating, systematically, the means to take bright and interested students from elementary levels of language proficiency to reasonable grad-student competence.... Lots of the work will have to be done by tenured faculty dedicating themselves nearly full-time to the job. Special courses will have to be designed; post-bacc. years dedicated to intensive language work probably have to be incorporated into the majority of graduate programs. The design of the regular graduate curriculum will need to be adapted, perhaps along lines similar to those adumbrated in M. Williams's suggestions raised some weeks ago.
"Why go to all the trouble? Because as several have noted, times have changed so radically that we cannot afford not to take the trouble. The ongoing marginalization of the field is a product, in part, of our failure to adapt. We need the intellectual strength and interests not only of those fortunate graduates of the relatively few strong 'pure' language programs across the country, but also those who come from earlier experience in History, English, Archeology, Science, anywhere, and can bring their breadth of knowledge to our work. We need too, just as importantly, to find ways to bring classical studies into the mainstream of college and university curricula, ensuring, as part of our regular graduate training, substantial conversance with the intellectual movements and issues that drive other disciplines in the humanities. Classics must be as much a part of the present as past, a valued and contributing voice in a larger conversation. What is Classics? It is all of what we do in our research and in our classrooms. Graduate training and even our own assumptions have not kept pace with that 'all' and we should probably set about making some changes."