American Philological Association NEWSLETTER august 2005 Volume 28, Number 4 TABLE OF CONTENTS LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT Letter from the President. .1 Abbreviated Financial Statements for 2004 and 2003 In last year’s August Newsletter my predecessor Elaine Fiscal Years. .3 Fantham commented on the comparative advantages of Program Committee Report. .3 APA/NEH Fellowship to TLL. .7 APA elections: “old fashioned paper, no complex tech- Pearson Fellowship Announcement. .7 nology, no hanging chads and you don’t even have to Announcement of Seminar at Montreal Meeting. 8 turn out.” To which might be added that your votes will Pandora Announcement. .9 be counted without resort to legal intervention. And so it Call for Corrections to Ramsey’s Sallust. .9 can only be puzzling why the percentage of members News of APh Online. .9 regularly voting is barely higher than that of members Teagle Foundation Discussion of Liberal Education who respond to the Annual Giving and Development calls. Outcomes. .10 Perhaps it is all too easy, yet imagine an APA that did University and College Appointments. 11 not empower its members to select their officers. So it Dissertation Listings. .13 once was. But it is easy to take established institutions Annual Meeting Insert. .Tan Insert for granted, and, as my good friend the Younger Pliny Annual Giving Acknowledgements. White Insert observes (Ep 3.20), customs of suffragium have their Update to Web Site for APA Members. .19 vicissitudes, so I thought it might be instructive espe- Awards to Members. .20 cially for more recent members of the Association, to Announcements. .20 contemplate in historical perspective how Classical Phi- Meetings/Calls for Abstracts. .20 lologists won their rights, while perhaps a few seasoned, Funding Opportunities/Fellowships . 21 long-term members might find their voting energies re- Important Dates for APA Members. Back Cover invigorated by these recollections. MONTREAL,PQ,CANADA Ab Societate Condita (1869) it was more than one hun- dred years before the By-laws of the Association were ANNUAL MEETING configured in such as way as to give members the vote. INFORMATION INSIDE Even within the memory of certain persons not yet in- (SEE T AN INSERT) cluded in the 50 year club, there was a time when the Nominating Committee brought to the Business Meet- The American Philological Association Newsletter (ISSN ing a slate of single names dignae/i honoris to be ap- 0569-6941) is published six times a year (February, April, June, August, October, and December) by the American proved or (beyond imagination) rejected by the as- Philological Association. ($3.00 of the annual dues is allo- sembled tribes. Novice members of the Association took cated to the publication of the Newsletter.) Send materials this procedure for granted until discontentment began to for publication; communications on Placement, member- ship, changes of address; and claims to: Executive Direc- brew among the plebs. At the San Francisco meeting of tor, American Philological Association, 292 Logan Hall, 1969 rumors circulated of an impending Aventine se- University of Pennsylvania, 249 S. 36th Street, Philadel- phia, PA 19104-6304. Third-class postage paid at Phila- cession out from the very midst of the comitia tributa. delphia, PA. It was, after all, the 1960’s. But this event never hap- pened because it was announced by the presiding of- Telephone: (215) 898-4975 Facsimile: (215) 573-7874 ficer of that very comitia that multiple candidates would in the future be proposed for election to the Board of E-mail: [email protected] Website: http://www.apaclassics.org (See PRESIDENT on page 2) 2 APA August 2005 Newsletter Directors, while the terms of Directors, previously un- 21.6). Along with its establishment in 1999 the President specified, would be fixed at three years. Nine Directors for that year announced a reconfiguration of committee and a college of four Presidential Officers at that time structures in order to achieve a better balanced distribu- comprised the Board (Proceedings 1970. xlviii-xlviv; tion of responsibilities across the six Divisions. The Vice- 1971. vi-vii). Presidential roster now comprises the six Aediles who preside over our shows and services in the form of: Pub- The door to change once opened, more followed. lications, Program, Education, Research, Professional Throughout the years until 1973/74 the Association’s Matters and Outreach. At the same time several com- Program Committee comprised the three Presidential mittee memberships, once also determined by appoint- Officers, of whom the First Vice-President acted as ment, have become elective. With additional work for Chair. In that year its membership was expanded to in- the Nominating Committee to perform, the time frame clude the Chair of the Editorial Board and one member for its deliberations has been expanded and all members from each elected class of Directors appointed by the of the APA have available a questionnaire inviting them President “with a view towards enlarging the range of to make their interest in various committee positions Classical Scholarship represented by the other four mem- known. bers.” (Proceedings 104[1974]4). In 1974/75 the Di- rectors acted upon an extensive Committee report on In the first years of contested elections, candidates cer- nominating practices with the effect that at least two tainly did stand, Roman style, on their records of past candidates for the office of Second Vice-President and honores and with the support of their familiares. Short for Financial Trustee should thereafter be proposed (Pro- biographies of the candidates accompanied the mail-in ceedings 105[1975]39-43). ballots. In 1972 the APA Women’s Caucus took shape adopting its familiar WCC name in the following year. A comprehensive restructuring in 1985 changed the defi- The organization became influential in the instigation of nition of presidential offices from a four year schedule electoral procedures; it was they who first devised the of sequential Vice Presidencies to the current three year, questionnaire asking candidates to declare their opin- changing the name of the initial, competitive office to ions on issues facing the Classical field. The first of these, President-Elect. This restructuring also brought into be- formulated by special committee, consisted in multiple ing the four Divisions of Program, Education, Research questions. August 1990 saw the first of the Special Elec- and Publications, each under the leadership of its own tion Supplements to the Newsletter consolidating these Vice-President; these officials now replaced three di- statements with the candidates’ vitae and the ballot; over rector seats on the Board. Thus the headship of the Pro- the years these have been simplified as a limit was im- gram Committee was separated from the Presidential posed upon the number of publications a candidate might triad and its membership eventually expanded to include list and, in 1996, the number of questions reduced to members initially coopted by the committee itself, but in one. In 1974 the special report on nominating proce- 1993 these positions also were opened to competitive dures had encouraged members to contact the Chairs election. Vice-Presidential officers were designated by of Nominating Committees to suggest appropriate can- the Nominating Committee until 1991/92 when the Board didates for election, but in 1992 this encouragement took of Directors voted that the Nominating Committee should the more explicit form of the April Newsletter question- present dual slates for all future Vice-Presidential elec- naire. tions. Throughout the gradual stages of electoral redevelop- At this time also was developed the Committee on Pro- ment, every change and innovation has responded to fessional Matters chaired by a Vice-President and some perceived need. The 1992 shift to universally con- charged with the “development of guidelines for han- tested elections followed upon one problematic election dling matters of professional conduct brought to it (NL that left a large proportion of the membership dissatis- 1992.1). The Association’s newest Division is Outreach, fied. The Division of Professional Matters was formed formed in 1998/1999 and intended “to coordinate all the following upon the adoption of the 1989 Statement on Association’s efforts to reach a broader constituency Professional Ethics, when issues of discrimination and develop new initiative for that purpose.” (NL (1998) seemed particularly conspicuous not only in academic APA August 2005 Newsletter 3 life but also in the selection of future meeting sites. In- PROGRAM COMMITTEE REPORT deed it may well be owing to the readiness of our boards and committees to respond to concerns of the members The elected members of the 2005 Program Committee that so few burning issues have attracted voters in re- were T. Corey Brennan, Harriet Flower, Kathryn Mor- cent years. But, perhaps you may not agree? All the gan, David Sider, and myself. We met twice in Philadel- more, mark your ballots. And, next year, remember also phia to consider submissions for the 2006 Montreal con- the questionnaire for engagement either on the commit- vention. Minna Duchovnay and Adam Blistein expertly tee or the elective level. assisted our deliberations. The incoming Coordinator of Meetings, Programs, and Administration, Heather Hartz So, please, cast your thoughts back to an association in Gasda, attended the second day of the meeting in June. which members did not vote for their officers; in which clouds of unknowing veiled the ideologies of their desig- 1. At our first meeting (April 16) the Committee evalu- nated leaders. It’s not as if our Republic threatened to ated proposals for panels and a charter application from become an empire, or even a principate without your a new Affiliated Group, the Forum for Classics, Librar- votes, however, the ideas of candidates may have a ies, and Scholarly Communication. We are happy to bearing on your own professional fortunes.