Typically, at the start of each academic year, the Classics Department hosts a welcome reception at the Brown Faculty Club to celebrate the start of the school year.  Due to the coronavirus pandemic, this Fall we were unable to hold our usual gathering, but that didn’t stop the Classics@Brown community from celebrating the new academic year!

On Wednesday, September 9^th, the Classics Department held its first ever Virtual Reception via Zoom as a way to welcome some new people and socialize with one another.  Our recently appointed Director of Undergraduate Studies, Prof. Jay Reed, introduced 16 newly concentrated undergrad students and shared short bios for each of them.

Mia Brossoie, Ciaran Cahill, Cal Chen, Charlotte Everett, Lucy Kaufman, David Paine, Sophia Papandonatou, Marijke Perry, Alex Platt, Horace Qiao, David Sacks, Rachel Sklar, Achutha Srinivasan, James Tsatsaros, Amelia Wyckoff, and Auria Zhang, all Class of 2022.

Prof. Jeri DeBrohun, former Department Chair and current Director of Graduate Studies also took a moment to welcome our new graduate student, Clare Kearns.  Clare received her BA in 2020 from the University of Pennsylvania, where she studied Classics and Comparative Literature.  At Brown, Clare will further her study of Greek tragedy and Hellenistic poetry with an eye towards contemporary critical race and gender theory.  Clare’s full bio can be found on the Graduate Student page of our website.

Prof. Amy Russell, the department’s newest faculty member, also had a chance to introduce herself.  She is currently still residing in the UK, due to the pandemic, but expressed enthusiasm for her new Brown family and is looking forward to finally joining us in Providence soon.

During the Virtual Reception, the Classics Department Chair, Prof. Graham Oliver, gave various department announcements and offered reassuring words to help us all embrace the new normal.  He also revealed the winner of the 2020 Classics Button Badge Logo contest, Helen Zhou.  Helen’s beautiful design and inspiration behind it is what captivated the judges.  Helen is not yet a Classics concentrator, but will be declaring in the Spring of 2021. 

Finally, as soon as the University allows, the Classics Department will have fun "swag bags" to hand out to our members of the department, which will include a button with Helen’s design.

It was a short Zoom gathering, but it was a nice way to come together (virtually) and appreciate the department and everyone in the Classics@Brown community.