Monmouth College Classics Department

06/01/2026

The winner of the 2026 Bernice Fox Classics Writing Contest, sponsored by Monmouth Classics, is Alex Greuloch of the John Burroughs School in St. Louis! The Latin teacher with whom Alex worked to assemble his submission is Sorsha Maness. His story was titled "Myth," and it worked on the theme "Classical Adaptations, Retained Essences." Stay tuned for the prompt for next year's Fox Contest!

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04/29/2026

On a big day at Monmouth College (Scholars Day), Classics was well-represented, with lots of recognitions at Honors Convocation and lots of posters in the afternoon session. Bonus: Sydney Burge (who majors in Classics and Political Science) learned that she had been elected president of Student Senate for next year! Congratulations to Sydney, and to all of the students whose excellence was on display yesterday.

04/15/2026

At last night's Monmouth College Highlander Leadership Awards, Classics and Political Science major Sydney Burge '28 won the Emerging Leader Award! To those who know her work in school (both in classes and in cocurricular activities), in Pi Beta Phi, as a Scots Ambassador, in Student Senate, and at her other campus jobs, this is no surprise. Classics is grateful to benefit from the energy, courage, and commitment to excellence that she has in abundance. Well done, Sydney!

04/15/2026

Prof. Bob Holschuh Simmons is grateful for the opportunity to have delivered the 2026 “Classics in the New Millennium” lecture on Monday night at Augustana College - Illinois, with a talk titled “Demagogues and Masses in Athens and the Athenian Theatre: Class Anxiety and Apprehensions about Insurgencies in Euripides’ Tragedies.” He enjoyed talking further about the topic as well on Tuesday morning with Augustana’s Dr. Kirsten Day’s intermediate/advanced Latin students He especially thanks Dr. Day for inviting him to Augustana for this engagement. It is a pleasure to have the chance to share one’s research with other thoughtful people. Monmouth College

04/07/2026

Logan Serpette '27 and Prof. Bob Holschuh Simmons display their certificates for winning a faculty-undergraduate collaborative research award from the Classical Assn of the Middle West and South (CAMWS), worth $1000. The project for which they won this award is Logan's capstone, on creating all aspects of a semester-long class on hands-on ancient technology. He will present on a part of it at next year's CAMWS meeting in Cleveland. Monmouth College Classics has won this same award in each of the past two years as well; Prof. Simmons won it in 2025 with Jenn Ruscitti '26 for her capstone research (presented at CAMWS in Mobile, AL, this spring), and in 2024 with Jeff Schnetzler '25 for his (presented at CAMWS in Urbana-Champaign). Thanks for CAMWS for honoring excellence in this way, and thanks to Monmouth's Classics students, who keep finding ways to branch off of Prof. Simmons' research to make these collaborations meaningful.