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Papal expert Robert Blair Kaiser visits Trinity for timely discussion

Award-winning journalist and author Robert Blair Kaiser was recently on campus to discuss the next papal elections, the Vatican’s role in the current sex abuse crisis, and other issues of religion in the media. Kaiser’s talk, entitled “Papal Politics,” was sponsored by the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life at Trinity College and by the Cesare Barbieri Endowment for Italian Culture at Trinity College.     Just three years shy of his ordination, Kaiser left the Jesuits to pursue a career in journalism. He covered Vatican II and the Vatican Council for Time magazine and, in 1963, won an Overseas Press Club award for the “best magazine reporting of foreign affairs.” Kaiser also worked on the religion beat for The New York Times, and served as journalism chairman at the University of Nevada, Reno. Two of his ten published books deal with Vatican II: Pope, Council and World, and The Politics of Sex and Religion. His most recent offering is titled Clerical Error: A True Story.    Since the fall of 1999, Kaiser has been a contributing editor in Rome for Newsweek magazine. He has also been contracted by CBS Television News to provide commentary for the network’s coverage of the next conclave. .

TEACHING		Sarah Harrell
		Looking at classics, curriculum, and  community learning

“If you can master an ancient language, you can master just about anything after that,” says Sarah Harrell, assistant professor of classics. Since coming to Trinity in the fall of 2000, Harrell has exemplified this statement, not only teaching a load of courses that has included a first-year seminar on ancient Greek sport, first- through third-year Greek, second-year Latin, and courses in Greek tragedy and ancient epic, but also exploring and mastering new areas of her own professional life, establishing a new community learning initiative and joining in the College’s efforts as a member of the Curricular Review Committee to look at how students are taught.

Harrell is a firm believer in classics as a subject that fosters a level of discipline and communication skills that transcend all career fields. She describes her field as “a central part of being educated in the liberal arts.” Harrell’s specialty is Greek poetry. She is writing a book on Ancient Sicily entitled Cultural Geography of East and West: The Representation of Archaic Sicilian Tyranny.

In her book, Harrell will examine literary representations of a series of Fifth-Century rulers who commissioned artwork and poetry to celebrate themselves.

“I’m looking at how they represented themselves and how some of their contemporaries represented them,” says Harrell. “I call it ‘cultural geography’ because I look at how [these rulers] used references to different geographical places throughout the Mediterranean world to associate themselves with different kinds of cultural and political power. I look at the poetry and the literature, but I try to put it in a larger social context.”

Harrell explains that these rulers traveled to Olympia and Delphi to participate in athletic contests. 

“I became interested in this in a scholarly way, and I wanted to try to figure out how, as athletes, they were trying to use this forum to show off their political and social power.” Harrell’s interest in Greek sport and its implications on the culture and politics of the time inspired her to add a unique community learning component to her first-year seminar two years ago.

Incorporating community learning into the classroom

Following a presentation on community learning initiatives to faculty by Professor of Philosophy Dan Lloyd, Harrell suggested that a community-learning component be added to her first-year seminar on ancient Greek sport. With only days left before classes began, she teamed up with Associate Athletic Director Robin Sheppard, who taught a first-year seminar on modern sport in society, and set to work planning an Olympic-style event that would include academic and athletic collaboration between Trinity students and local middle school students. Harrell says the collaboration between her and Sheppard’s students and Hartford middle school students came together at the suggestion of Coordinator for Urban Learning Elinor Jacobson to involve the Hartford Classical Magnet Middle School, where the students already had some familiarity with classics. The end result was a highly successful Olympic-style event that combined athletic events with educational reports presented by Trinity students to students participating in the games.

Martha Risser, professor of classics and chair of the classics department, describes Harrell’s willingness to take on extra projects like this Olympic event as “a part of her personality. She gets ideas and she follows through with them right away. She’s such an enthusiastic teacher and a wonderful addition to the department.” Risser, who attended the Olympic event in the fall of 2000—the first of two consecutive years the event took place—describes it as “wonderful.”

“One of things I think is especially great about it is that first-year students are the youngest students on campus, and, with the Olympics, they become the mentors, which is a great experience for them.”

Harrell, who attended Wellesley College as an undergraduate, and earned her doctorate from Princeton University, says her positive experience attending these smaller academic institutions is one of the factors that made her come to Trinity. Harrell says that, since joining the Trinity faculty, she has been impressed by the breadth of the College’s offerings in classics.

“Even though it’s a small school, there are a lot of people who teach classical subjects,” Harrell says. “So, numbers-wise, you’ve got a wide range of people whom you can study with. For instance, to have a working archaeologist [Risser] at a small liberal arts college is pretty rare.

“The other thing that really impresses me is that, although this is a small liberal arts college, the faculty is really committed to research as well as teaching, so you’re surrounded by people who have really deep interests in different areas and you feel like you’re part of a scholarly community."

A member of the Curricular Review Committee

Harrell was recently selected as a member of the College’s Curricular Review Committee—an experience in which she says she is both “honored and excited” to participate.

Says Harrell, “Right now, the committee is gathering information about what the faculty thinks are the strengths and weaknesses of our current program and ideas that faculty have for making it even stronger. This is an exciting opportunity for the faculty to define and shape Trinity’s academic identity, and I feel extremely fortunate to be able to play a role in this process. Trinity is already doing amazing things, and I believe that this review will result in concrete suggestions for increasing student engagement and fostering greater academic excellence.”

–Michael Bradley