The State of the Society

IF 0.7 1区 历史学 0 CLASSICS Transactions of the American Philological Association Pub Date : 2024-08-16 DOI:10.1353/apa.2024.a935039
Matthew Roller
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I vividly remember, as a young assistant professor, hearing my own mentors and teachers Robert Kaster and Susan Treggiari employ their presidential addresses to speak about, respectively, the “Shame of the Romans” (1996) and “Cicero between ‘Public’ and ‘Private’” (1997). As recently as a decade <strong>[End Page 351]</strong> ago, presidents Denis Feeney and Kathryn Gutzwiller spoke, respectively, on “First Similes in Epic” (2014) and “Fantasy and Metaphor in Meleager” (2015).</p> <p>But times are changing. Scholarly organizations like the SCS, which originated and have long histories as learned societies, are evolving—incrementally and over an extended period—into what might better be described as “professional associations.” The SCS continues to provide fora for scholarly exchange, to be sure. However, its efforts and resources are increasingly devoted to supporting the professional development and careers of its members. Even though the Society no longer organizes and hosts a full-scale placement service at the annual meeting—at one time a very substantial and burdensome commitment—it has continued to post advertisements for academic (and sometimes para- or even nonacademic) positions. Increasingly, the events that the SCS organizes and hosts, both at the annual meeting and outside of it, focus on networking, mentoring, and relationship building. The Society has a very busy Professional Ethics committee, whose job is to field ethics complaints and grievances raised by members regarding the behavior of other members or organizations. The Classics Advisory Service offers advice and interventions when programs that support teaching and research in our field are in danger of elimination. 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Abstract

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:

  • The State of the Society
  • Matthew Roller
keywords

learned society, professional association, annual meeting, Annual Meeting Task Force, executive director, executive director search, public statements, SCS Policy on Public Statements, board of directors

The following text is an edited transcript of the presidential address delivered on January 6, 2024, in the Society for Classical Studies Plenary Session of the 2024 Annual Meeting. The address speaks to “the state of the Society” at that moment. Significant developments that have occurred in the five months between the annual meeting and the finalizing of this text (mid-June 2024) are noted as updates and provided in the footnotes.

it is the singular honor and privilege of serving as president of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS) to be granted the time and the audience to deliver this address. The question of how to use this opportunity and, more broadly, how to use most appropriately and effectively the platform that the presidency provides, has weighed on me throughout this year, and I will say more about that weight in what follows. Specifically regarding the presidential address, however, it was not long ago that the distinguished scholars whose shoes I now try to fill used this occasion to present their current scholarly work. I vividly remember, as a young assistant professor, hearing my own mentors and teachers Robert Kaster and Susan Treggiari employ their presidential addresses to speak about, respectively, the “Shame of the Romans” (1996) and “Cicero between ‘Public’ and ‘Private’” (1997). As recently as a decade [End Page 351] ago, presidents Denis Feeney and Kathryn Gutzwiller spoke, respectively, on “First Similes in Epic” (2014) and “Fantasy and Metaphor in Meleager” (2015).

But times are changing. Scholarly organizations like the SCS, which originated and have long histories as learned societies, are evolving—incrementally and over an extended period—into what might better be described as “professional associations.” The SCS continues to provide fora for scholarly exchange, to be sure. However, its efforts and resources are increasingly devoted to supporting the professional development and careers of its members. Even though the Society no longer organizes and hosts a full-scale placement service at the annual meeting—at one time a very substantial and burdensome commitment—it has continued to post advertisements for academic (and sometimes para- or even nonacademic) positions. Increasingly, the events that the SCS organizes and hosts, both at the annual meeting and outside of it, focus on networking, mentoring, and relationship building. The Society has a very busy Professional Ethics committee, whose job is to field ethics complaints and grievances raised by members regarding the behavior of other members or organizations. The Classics Advisory Service offers advice and interventions when programs that support teaching and research in our field are in danger of elimination. Some of the Society’s liveliest committees and affiliated groups are those that convene members who share a particular professional status, such as contingent faculty or graduate students or K–12 educators; or that provide fora for members who face professional challenges related to their race, socioeconomic status, gender or sexual identity, disability status, or other factors. The Society provides various types and levels of organizational and budgetary support to such committees and groups, which for their part often organize social events, professional development sessions, and/or scholarly paper sessions at the annual meeting, thereby leaving a significant imprint upon the program. Further, the SCS devotes ever more resources, via small grants, awards, and programming, to supporting the professional development of members employed in positions that do not provide such resources adequately. The COVID pandemic has accelerated this process of turning the Society’s collective attention to matters of professional development, as its members have confronted fundamentally altered landscapes of research, teaching, resource availability, and the timing of career advancement. In short, the SCS has for some time been evolving in ways that reflect profound changes in the world of scholarship and teaching and in the landscape of higher education generally. To be a classicist in 2024 is simply not the same thing as it was a decade or two ago—let alone in 1994, the year in which I first took up a professional position. [End Page...

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社会状况
以下是内容的简要摘录,以代替摘要: 学会状况 马修-罗勒 关键词 学会、专业协会、年会、年会特别工作组、执行主任、执行主任人选、公开声明、SCS 公开声明政策、董事会 以下是 2024 年 1 月 6 日在古典研究学会 2024 年年会全体会议上发表的主席讲话的编辑记录。讲话谈到了当时的 "学会状况"。从年会到本文定稿(2024 年 6 月中)的 5 个月中发生的重大进展作为更新内容在脚注中注明。如何利用这个机会,更广泛地说,如何最恰当、最有效地利用主席职务所提供的平台,这个问题在这一年中一直困扰着我,我将在下文中详细阐述这个问题。不过,具体到主席致辞,不久前,我现在试图接替的那些杰出学者还曾利用这一机会介绍他们当前的学术工作。我清楚地记得,作为一名年轻的助理教授,我听到自己的导师和老师罗伯特-卡斯特(Robert Kaster)和苏珊-特雷吉亚里(Susan Treggiari)分别用他们的主席致辞讲述了 "罗马人的耻辱"(1996 年)和 "西塞罗在'公共'与'私人'之间"(1997 年)。就在十年 [尾页 351]前,丹尼斯-费尼(Denis Feeney)主席和凯瑟琳-古茨维勒(Kathryn Gutzwiller)主席还分别就 "史诗中的第一个比喻"(2014 年)和"《梅勒格尔》中的幻想与隐喻"(2015 年)发表过演讲。但时代正在发生变化。像SCS这样起源于学术团体并拥有悠久历史的学术组织,正在逐步、长期地演变为 "专业协会"。当然,SCS 仍在继续为学术交流提供论坛。然而,它的努力和资源越来越多地用于支持其成员的专业发展和职业生涯。尽管学会不再在年会上组织和主办全面的职位安排服务--这曾一度是一项非常重大和繁重的任务--但它仍在继续发布学术(有时是准学术,甚至是非学术)职位的招聘广告。在年会期间和年会之外,学会组织和主办的活动越来越多地侧重于建立网络、指导和关系。学会有一个非常繁忙的职业道德委员会,其工作是处理会员就其他会员或组织的行为提出的道德投诉和申诉。当支持本领域教学和研究的项目面临被取消的危险时,古典学咨询服务会提供建议和干预。学会最活跃的一些委员会和附属团体是那些召集具有特殊职业身份的会员的委员会和附属团体,如特遣队教师、研究生或 K-12 教育工作者;或者是那些为面临与种族、社会经济地位、性别或性身份、残疾状况或其他因素有关的职业挑战的会员提供论坛的委员会和附属团体。学会为这些委员会和团体提供各种类型和级别的组织和预算支持,而这些委员会和团体则经常在年会上组织社交活动、专业发展会议和/或学术论文会议,从而在年会上留下重要的印记。此外,科学委员会还通过小额赠款、奖励和计划等方式投入越来越多的资源,支持那些在没有充分资源的岗位上工作的成员的专业发展。COVID 大流行加速了学会集体关注专业发展问题的进程,因为其成员面临着研究、教学、资源可用性和职业发展时机等方面的根本性变化。总之,一段时间以来,古典学会的发展方式反映了学术界和教学界以及整个高等教育领域的深刻变化。2024 年的古典学家与十年或二十年前的古典学家已不可同日而语--更不用说我第一次担任专业职务的 1994 年了。 [End Page...
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期刊介绍: Transactions of the APA (TAPA) is the official research publication of the American Philological Association. TAPA reflects the wide range and high quality of research currently undertaken by classicists. Highlights of every issue include: The Presidential Address from the previous year"s conference and Paragraphoi a reflection on the material and response to issues raised in the issue.
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