What does the delayed advanced Greek class mean?

Students who wanted to take Advanced Greek as an independent study this semester were out of luck. The LANG-410 Independent Study course was delayed until spring due to budgets, low student enrollment and class type. 

Initially, the independent study was set to run this fall with three students. Professor of Foreign Languages Anthony Hollingsworth explained in the past, independent studies with fewer students never had issues, but because of budgetary problems that changed. 

“In an ideal world, these students would have had two upper level Greek courses preparing them for graduate school. But in the current climate, especially in the budgetary climate, we need to settle for just one,” Hollingsworth said.

Students must fill out and submit a petition from the Registrar Forms section of the university’s website in order to take an independent study course. The courses have to be approved by the appropriate dean before the end of the second week of the semester that the course will be taken in.

If the students needed the independent study course to graduate, the university would have chosen to run it. Cynthia Scheinberg, the dean of the school of humanities, arts and education, emphasized this.

Scheinberg said she encourages all students to speak with her, faculty or advisers if they feel stressed during registration. She ensures students can complete their degrees on time. Her office works with many students to make that happen.

Hollingsworth said if a session of an upper level language course is scheduled to run, it can be cut if there are less than 10 students enrolled.

“…those are a little more painful because you expected those to be taught,” Hollingsworth said.

Hollingsworth explained the delay as a bit of a wrinkle, considering classic majors need as many Greek courses as they can get if they wish to go to graduate school. 

Andrew Manusky, senior classics major and vice president of the Classics Club, shared his concerns. He said it is always a challenge to see what is going to run. 

“It’s really stressful. It really weighs on you that it’s sort of up to the registration office whether you’re going to graduate on time and have a bureaucratic body decide on my career. My future is horrifying,” Manusky said. 

Junior anthropology major Molly Ortiz said she was not a classics major, but she wanted to declare a core concentration in Greek. Hollingsworth and Ortiz’s advisor, Professor of Anthropology Jessica Skolnikoff, agreed they could create this. However, the registrar told her they did not have a Greek concentration and she must declare something else. 

Evan Clark, a junior double majoring in classics and biology, summed up his thoughts about studying Greek at the university.

 
“Everything should be done to make sure that these independent studies can be run, if possible,” Clark said. “The point of an independent study, at least in my view, is it’s a way for students to really hone in on their interests that they might not otherwise get to learn about through a standard class.”