Abby Stone ‘26
This is a photo of Dr. Harwood’s Advanced Topics in Latin Literature class. From left to right: Jolin Yu ’25, Catherine Zhang ’26, Maribeth Fitzgerald ’26, Dr. Harwood, Lyla Cass ’26, Crystal Hui ’24, and Andrea Xu ’25.
Classics students and faculty are hardworking, creative, and driven. On Thursday, May 16th, they were celebrated like the ancient Greek and Roman gods and goddesses during the annual Classics Banquet. This event commemorates the success of all Classics students and faculty for the 2023-2024 academic year with Italian food, lively class presentations, and translation prize awards.
To kick off the evening, the Classics Department catered from Arturo’s Ristorante with chicken parmesan, pasta, meatballs, Caesar salad, and garlic knots, all of which were delicious. The most sought-after item of the night was the garlic knots; each table pined for more as they laughed and applauded throughout the rest of the night!
During the banquet, Latin and Greek present their projects, ranging from performing Greek rituals, filming plays inspired by the Latin textbook (Suburani), creating reality TV shows and competitions with classical gods and goddesses as the contestants, and so much more. The Greek II class concluded on a strong note by presenting “The Classical Diploma Capstone Project.” The class created a zine, a miniature magazine answering the question, “What is the value of a classical education in a modern world?”The zine is titled “What κλασσικαλ Remains?” (κλασσικαλ meaning classical in Greek letters) and explores three themes: the bridge between the past and the present, art and interpretation, and fragments and ambiguity. This zine demonstrates the cultural experiences these Classics Diploma students have acquired by traveling abroad as well as the knowledge they have learned taking both Greek and Latin. Overall, the projects portion of the Classics Banquet is a fun-spirited and intellectual way to culminate the academic year.
After the projects, Departmental Book prizes for the best sight translation of a passage of Greek or Latin were awarded to Ada Chen ‘27 in Latin I, Bella Ong ‘26 in Latin II, Jamie Li ‘25 in Latin III, Catherine Zhang ‘26 in Advanced Latin, Jamie Li ‘25 in Greek I, Delin Liu ‘24 in Greek II, and Netty Andrews ‘25 in Greek III.
The night ended with a standing ovation for Dr. Harwood, the Classics Department Head, who will be going on sabbatical for the 2024-2025 school year. Dr. Harwood is an integral part of the Classics Department’s success; her devotion to teaching Classics and inspiring her students to understand the profound relevance of this subject is outstanding.
Congratulations to all the award winners, the Classical Diploma Scholars, Dr. Harwood, and everyone else in Classics who worked hard all year!