Introduction to Classics at UF
Classics as taught at the University of Florida is a broad, basic, and interdisciplinary humanities field which offers students the opportunity to study Greek and Roman civilization in all of its exciting aspects. The Department provides instruction in the Greek and Latin languages and literatures, as well as course work in English translation dealing with archaeology, civilization, Egyptology, history, mythology, religion, linguistics, literary genres, medicine, athletics, and the status of women. Over 800 students per year work to fulfill their language requirements in Latin or Greek, while many hundreds more take courses in English translation to meet General Education guidelines. Thus we serve a wide constituency of students ranging from those who wish to specialize in ancient languages to those who desire a general background in the Graeco Roman world as a foundation for a liberal arts education.
With approximately 90 majors and 93 minors according to the latest figures from the Registrar, UF has one of the largest undergraduate classics programs in the nation. For most the major is an end in itself: a basic liberal arts degree from which they proceed to business or teaching careers, professional schools (e.g., law and medicine), while others pursue graduate level study in classics, linguistics, history, religion, or philosophy. The Department's M.A. program has two tracks, leading either to further work at other institutions towards the Ph.D. in classics, or to teaching Latin in the high schools, where there is now a critical shortage of teachers. Institutes each summer for the state's high school Latin teachers help them meet recertification requirements and broaden their knowledge of the field. Some high school teachers earn their M.A. in Classics through summer study.
The Department's eleven full time tenure track faculty, three lecturers, one visiting professor, and two adjuncts have diverse research interests, including archaeology, art history, ancient athletics, linguistics, drama, the ancient novel, oratory and rhetoric, historical writers, women's studies, the poetic genres, and modern Greek literature. As a core humanities department, Classics cooperates with other programs, such as Religion, Philosophy, History, Linguistics, Art History, Women's Studies, Honors, English, and the other literature departments.
The Department is seriously committed to excellence in scholarly research. In the past five years, classics faculty have published 8 books, and 43 articles in major refereed journals. Research is emphasized for the vigor, life, and new information and methodologies it infuses into our teaching, as well as its intrinsic value of extending our knowledge of classical civilization, and thereby, indirectly, the understanding of our own. The Department also views service to the state of Florida as a very serious component of its mission, primarily through training secondary school teachers.
Visit the April 2002 edition of CLASnotes featuring the UF Classics Department
