Dr. Cynthia White Wins American Philology Association Pedagogy Award

April 22, 2013

Dr. Cynthia White has won the AMERICAN PHILOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION’S 2013 PEDAGOGY AWARD. As a result of its recent capital campaign, Gatekeeper to Gateway: The Campaign for Classics in the Twenty-first Century, the American Philological Association has established an award to support the pedagogy of classics teachers at any level. Dr. White was selected as an inaugural winner of the award by a subcommittee of the Joint Committee on the Classics in American Education, whose membership is selected from both the APA and the American Classical League (ACL).

Her winning project will allow Dr. White to attend Pedagogy Rusticatio this summer, a Latin immersion program sponsored by the Septentrionale Americanum Latinitatis Vivae Institutum (SALVI), or the North American Institute for Living Latin Studies. Pedagogy Rusticatiois a four-day program designed for Latin instructors who wish to introduce spoken Latin methodologies into a more traditional Latin curriculum. The course will highlight an innovative teaching strategy of modern spoken languages, “Teaching Proficiency through Reading and Storytelling” (TPRS), which has already been implemented in some K-16 schools. Dr. Nancy Llewelyn, Associate Professor of Latin at Wyoming Catholic College and founder of SALVI, is widely known for her dynamic spoken Latin instruction, and has directed several Rusticationes in Rome and in various locations in the United States. The 2013 program will take place at the Claymont Mansion in Charles Town, West Virginia.


Claymont Mansion, Charles Town (WV)

Dr. White plans to build upon her experience in Pedagogy Rusticatio to train Classics M.A. students in this exciting new micro-pedagogy within classical language instruction. Spoken Latin training and TPRS in particular are growing movements within the discipline of Classics, and Dr. White’s formal introduction of them into the UA curriculum will help ensure that the Department of Classics’ extremely successful Latin teacher-training program remains competitive nationally.