Curriculum Changed to Add Flexibility, Race and Identity Track

Classics eliminated the requirement for students to take Greek or Latin

“The politics of race underlies so much of U.S. political history.” — Frances Lee, professor of politics

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By Carlett Spike

Published April 22, 2021

2 min read

The Princeton faculty approved curriculum changes in the departments of politics, religion, and classics in April. Politics added a track in race and identity, while religion and classics increased flexibility for concentrators, including eliminating the requirement for classics majors to take Greek or Latin.

Professor Frances Lee, associate chair of the politics department, said the idea for the new undergraduate track in race and identity was part of the larger initiative on campus launched by President Eisgruber ’83 to address systemic racism at Princeton. A committee put together by the chair was asked to look broadly at the department to recommend responses. The new track was created out of courses the department already offered. The goal is to offer this track as a defined pathway for students who are interested in the topic, as well as to set them up for future academic work in this area, Lee said.

“The politics of race underlies so much of U.S. political history,” she said, adding that there is “a wide array of intellectual questions as well as subjects that you need to understand if you want to understand politics at its core.”

Students who choose this track will need to fulfill three main requirements: take the introductory core course “Race and Politics in the United States”; complete three other courses from the 14 focused on race and identity; and incorporate the theme as part of the senior thesis. The track is open to all undergraduate students in the department.

In religion, courses for concentrators are now available in two main “streams.” The first, called traditions, “encompasses different religious traditions, approaches, geographical areas, and time periods,” and the second, called themes, allows students to concentrate on thematic areas, according to a department memo. The department has wanted to do this for some time, said Seth Perry, director of undergraduate studies and associate professor of religion.

“We also wanted to do a better job in articulating what the major does in terms of transportable learning outcomes for our students as they go off into graduate schools or in their careers,” Perry said. For example, students can pursue Islam and religions of Asia, or they can pair religion with media, art, philosophy, or politics.

In classics, two major changes were made. The “classics” track, which required an intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin to enter the concentration, was eliminated, as was the requirement for students to take Greek or Latin. Students still are encouraged to take either language if it is relevant to their interests in the department. The breadth of offerings remains the same, said Josh Billings, director of undergraduate studies and professor of classics. The changes ultimately give students more opportunities to major in classics.

The discussions about these changes predate Eisgruber’s call to address systemic racism at the University, Billings said, but were given new urgency by this and the events around race that occurred last summer. “We think that having new perspectives in the field will make the field better,” he said. “Having people who come in who might not have studied classics in high school and might not have had a previous exposure to Greek and Latin, we think that having those students in the department will make it a more vibrant intellectual community.”

Published in the May 2021 Issue

9 Responses

Norman Ravitch *62

3 Years Ago

Teaching Race in History

During almost 40 years on a history faculty in California I noticed the increasing desire especially of younger, female, and of course faculty of color to rewrite our history in favor of a variety of ideological positions which were relatively new in emphasis, positions like Stalinism, feminism, black racial thought, and the like. Those pushing these initiatives were often not very productive researchers, some were.

Now the concern with critical race theory (CRT), both for and against, has become a political issue. Of course the assumptions about our past were always involved with some greater purpose: usually patriotism or nationalism. Now racial matters are proposed as more important.

I confess I always resisted these tendencies when I was actively a professor. Now in retirement I can only have my doubts but also my disinclination to support any Republican position on the issue which is likely to be close to Fascism. So I stay in the middle where everyone can assault me.

Henry M. Lerner ’71

3 Years Ago

A Brief Brush With Classics

The recent discussion about dropping requirements for Latin and Greek in the classics department brought this memory of mine to mind.

In the spring of 1969, at the end of my sophomore year, I had to choose a major. Knowing I was going into medicine, I wanted to get the broadest possible humanistic education I could before entering medical school. I therefore decided to major in classics.

I went to talk to the head of the department, Professor Frank Bourne ’36 *41. As an older Southern gentleman, Professor Bourne was graciousness itself. After inviting me to sit down he asked me what he could do for me. I told him that I wanted to enter the classics department for my undergraduate major. He perked right up with interest and then said to me, “That’s wonderful, Henry. Now just how much Latin and Greek preparation have you had?”

I blushed and stammered out that, having gone to public school, I had not studied any Latin or Greek but was hoping to do so as a student in his department. Professor Bourne didn’t miss a beat. He smiled broadly at me and replied, “Well, that’s fine, Henry. We will be delighted to take you into the department — as long as you can acquire the equivalent of two to three years of both Latin and Greek over the summer.”

I majored in philosophy instead and never looked back.

Editor’s note: Read more about classics in our feature article.

Amelia R. Brown ’99 (Hellenic studies postdoc in 2009)

3 Years Ago

Classics Includes Many Areas of Study

I applaud the Classics Department at Princeton for expanding their major. I graduated in 1999, with a major in history, and certificates in Hellenic studies and visual arts. I was especially glad to be able to continue my high school study of Latin and Ancient Greek in the Classics Department with the advanced introductory one-semester Ancient Greek class taught by Professor Andrew Ford, and then continue with fantastic classics courses in Ancient Greek language taught by Professors John Keaney (Plato’s Apology), Froma Zeitlin (Euripides’ Medea) and Ruth Webb (Homer’s Iliad). I also loved my non-ancient-language-requiring Freshman Seminar, “Martyrdom and Persecution in the Early Church,” with Professor Brent Shaw. I chose to major in history, and especially Hellenic studies, because that major also accepted my (Ancient and Medieval) history classes with Professors Peter Brown, Josiah Ober, Anthony Grafton, and Suzanne Marchand, as well as cognate or cross-listed courses I took in religion, Near Eastern studies, art and archaeology and especially Hellenic studies.

I now teach and research, with tenure (“continuing appointment'), in a Classics and Ancient History “Discipline” (once Department) in the School of Historical and Philosophical Inquiry at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. We are a large public university, and the only university in the state to offer degrees at the B.A., B.A. Honours, M.Phil. and Ph.D. levels in Classics or Ancient History. It has been the practice of my department for many decades now to offer two majors, one in Classics (Classical Languages, Greek and/or Latin) and one in Ancient History (where only one semester of ancient language study is required). This is a wonderful program of study, and I am proud to teach in it, both in Advanced Ancient Greek language classes of five, and in introductory Ancient Greek History classes of 200-plus.

As a proud alumna of Princeton, however, and a classical scholar, historian and archaeologist, I consider myself in a position to write this letter, and to offer two pieces of advice to anyone at Princeton who would like to read it. First, any institution offering a bachelor of arts degree should have a strong classics program which spans the expertise of the staff — ancient languages, literature, art, archaeology, history, religions and many more areas of interest in the ancient Mediterranean world, and its reception in the medieval and modern ages of the West, East, and South, the Americas, Australasia, and globally. The courses, and major(s), of such a program should always be evolving with scholarship, but they must also continue to graduate students who know something more about the ancient world than they did before they started their classical studies. This means that the study of ancient languages, and especially Greek and Latin, must come into their studies at some point in the curriculum, if only late in the B.A., or in postgraduate study. Only these languages can offer access into epigraphy or numismatics, ancient poetry from Spain to Syria, the Septuagint or the editing of newly-discovered papyri.

Second, as an alumna of Princeton, and a proud feminist, I was disappointed during my time as a student at Princeton that three of my best professors, including the advisers of my history junior paper (Ruth Webb) and my senior thesis (Tia Kolbaba), were all female scholars of great expertise and wisdom and wonderful mentors, and all were denied tenure and thus forced to leave Princeton. They are all still fantastic scholars at other universities today, but they could have remained great scholars, teachers, and contributors to Princeton classics, history, and other programs of study.

I’m frankly shocked when I read the statistics about female faculty numbers, and about the small and falling numbers of students both male and female in history, religion, classics, art and archaeology, or other humanities majors.

I hope that students in the nation’s service, and the service of all nations, will be encouraged by Princeton and their own passions to learn together from an unparalleled faculty about history, archaeology, and classics. It is at least as important to know what human beings are capable of, for better and worse, as it is to know about our own cells, or the stars overhead.

Thanks for listening, and a wonderful education, which I hope can be expanded for future generations.

Jim Abbot ’83

3 Years Ago

Classics and Empowerment

I am sympathetic to the classics department’s rationale for eliminating the requirement that students have some proficiency in Latin or Greek (On the Campus, May issue). Yet I believe that the University has made a mistake. The department seeks to promote equity and develop a more vibrant intellectual community. I fear the change may make it harder to achieve these worthy goals.

I am a proud alumnus of the department. I arrived at Princeton from a rural high school that offered no Latin. To the credit of the faculty, I read all of Virgil in Latin — Eclogues, Georgics, and Aeneid — as an undergraduate. I went on to graduate school and taught classics for almost 30 years.

It seems to me that to redress inequities and amplify diverse voices, we must take up questions of power. The beauty of classics is that questions of power lie at the heart of the discipline, in two distinct senses. First is the centrality of empire and hegemony to the Greco-Roman experience. Second is power as it is shared (or not) in the classroom. It is a peculiarity of classics that a 20-year-old who can read Latin or Greek may arrive at a brilliant, original interpretation of an ode by Horace or Sappho. Better, perhaps, than her professor’s. That is the beauty of classics. I can say from my own experience that this feature of the discipline is truly empowering. Equity? Vibrancy? Let’s empower our students in every way possible to ensure that we achieve both of these important aims.

Albert Aboody ’70

3 Years Ago

Appreciating Civilizations Through Language

I am appalled at the faculty decision to eliminate intermediate language proficiency for classics majors, leaving aside a requirement for any knowledge of Greek or Latin at all. There is unlimited space to expand a curriculum without diminishing standards in other departments. If eliminating these requirements is indeed for “having new perspectives in the field that will make the field better,” this anachronistic approach is more likely both to worsen it and the broader social purpose of this “reform.” The first, by diminishing an appreciation of the civilizations of those ages within the framework of both their language and indigenous perspectives, the second by diminishing the broadening of our understanding of cultures and identities this reform is intended to promote.

Larry B. Miller ’75 *84

3 Years Ago

Devaluing Degrees in Classics

What does the elimination of the requirement to have proficiency in either Greek or Latin have to do with fighting systemic racism on campus? How does it make classics more open to people who did not have the opportunity to study Greek or Latin in high school? I had no knowledge of Greek or Latin when I matriculated in 1971. Despite that deficiency (which I do not believe was the result of systemic racism), I was taking 300-level courses in Greek and Latin by the end of my sophomore year, including skipping from Latin 101 to a 300 level course in Lucretius. Opening up this track does nothing for the Classics Department but harms its past, current, and future majors who have taken the trouble to learn either Latin or Greek, and who will be subject, inter alia, to ridicule in graduate and job interviews by questioners wondering about their proficiency in Greek and Latin. What next?Eliminating the German requirement in the German Department and offering an alternative German in Translation track?

Mark Davies ’65 *71

3 Years Ago

Changes in Classics

This week I received a report on the classics department, and the latest PAW describing the response of the department to President Eisgruber ’83’s call to address systemic racism at Princeton (May issue).

No intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin will be now be required to enter the concentration, and students will not be required to take either Greek or Latin, though this will be encouraged if it is “relevant.” The Director of Undergraduate Studies is convinced these changes will bring new perspectives and make the field better, and make the department “a more vibrant intellectual community.”

“Classics lite” would be a good description of this major, but perhaps “classical civilization” would do, in order to distinguish the “classics” majors who are literate in both Greek and Latin. How elitist! Pardon my cynicism, but a classics faculty about three times as large as the one I knew clearly aims to increase enrollments for its own benefit. The paucity of minorities in traditional classics is a matter of economics, not racism.

J. David Garmon ’79

3 Years Ago

Proficiency in Greek or Latin

It was with disappointment that I read Josh Billings, director of undergraduate studies and professor of classics, announce intermediate proficiency in Greek or Latin has been eliminated for classics majors (On the Campus, May issue). Professor Billings explains, “… we think having those students [without a proficiency in Greek or Latin] in the department will make it a more vibrant intellectual community.”

Undoubtedly, the humanities have faced increasing challenges over the years attracting students; and the rigors of even intermediate proficiency in Latin or Greek are well known to anyone who has attempted it. However, for the classics department to abandon the foundation of its discipline is like an engineering department abandoning mathematics and physics — two notoriously rigorous areas of study — in hopes of creating a “more vibrant intellectual community.”

A truly vibrant and intellectually honest community must always demand rigor and integrity in its self-examination, which in this case would require acknowledging, however heartbreaking it might be, that the classics department is no longer able to attract the intellectual horsepower it once did and that it is dumbing down its curriculum in keeping with the current tastes of undergraduates. Evading a clear statement of this difficult reality is a departure from the values of integrity and honesty that are the bedrock of any intellectual endeavor and is a disservice to the community of scholars who dedicate their lives to the pursuit of truth.

Stephen William Foster *77

3 Years Ago

Classics No More

I was dismayed to read in the PAW (May 2021) that the classics major will no longer require the study of Greek or Latin. It is difficult indeed to understand how that change would “provide new perspectives” or “make the field better.” Apart from keeping these languages as our collective cultural heritage, attracting students who have not had Greek or Latin in high school is no argument for the change; many high schools have not offered those languages in decades, while this change would make that even less likely due to fewer people being able to teach it.

Eliminating the requirement of language proficiency means that the classics would devolve largely to being read in translation, whereas reading in the original language is necessary for full, nuanced understandings. Proficiency should be achieved in the first two years if no previous experience exists, leaving time to explore the literature in the original.

Eliminating the language requirement is a deterioration of rigor rather than an improvement. It undermines Princeton’s mission as a standard-bearer of excellence in scholarly endeavor. Shame on the faculty for its shortsightedness.