Skidmore College Department of Classics

April 2001 ...

As you may have heard, departments at the college have been moving towards a reconfigured curriculum. In a nutshell what this means is that professors will teach on average 5 courses per year instead of 6 and students will take on average 4 courses per semester instead of 5. Classics' reconfiguration proposal has been approved and will be implemented beginning this fall. I want to outline for you what this means in practical terms as you meet with us to plan your fall schedules.

You will not notice much difference in non-language courses except that rubrics, the two letters before the course number, will change. All non-language courses will now be CC, for civilization, instead of CL. CG stands for Greek language courses and CL for Latin language courses. All civ courses will remain at 3 credits. We do have a number of 1-credit options to add to those courses. Some you already know of or may have taken, for example, the Honors Forum add-ons to CC220: Classical Mythology or CC200: Classical World. Two new 1-credit add-ons are CC290: Research in Classics and CC291: Writing in Classics. Each of these can be added to any civ course and will focus on research or writing in the discipline of Classics. Prof. Arnush will teach Roman History in the fall with the research add-on.

For language courses there are major differences. The new Greek language sequence will include CG110: Elementary Greek, CG210: Intermediate Greek, CG310: Seminar in Greek Poetry, and CG311: Seminar in Greek Prose. The new Latin language sequence will include CL110: Elementary Latin, CL210: Intermediate Latin, CL310: Seminar in Latin Poetry, and CL311: Seminar in Latin Prose. We will only teach prose at the 200-level and will reserve poetry for the 300-level courses. If you have already taken a 300-level course or have completed the 200-level sequence, sign up for CG311 or CL310 in the fall. For those of you who have completed first year Greek, sign up for CG311 since we no longer offer 200-level language courses in the fall. Since we will no longer be offering CL202 those of you in CL 201 should sign up for CL310. For those of you who will be taking a 300-level course for the first time, particularly the students currently in CL104, we will be modifying the courses to account for the changes in the curriculum.

In addition to the changes in language courses we have modified both the major and the minor. Those of you in the classes of '03 and '04 will follow the new major outlined below. Class of '02 will follow the old major/minor. Do note that the major is now counted in terms of credits not numbers of courses. Since Classics courses are a mix of 3 and 4 credits most of you will take 9-10 courses to complete the major. You still need to take CC200:Classical World, two 300-level language courses, and CC365/HI361F. What has changed is that now you must take one course from each of the clusters a, b, and c as well as CC290: Research in Classics. If this presents problems for you because you are trying to do a double-major or want to go abroad, please come to see me so that we can find a solution.

Prof. Leslie Mechem, Chair