The Certificate Program

Brandeis offers students of the Greek Studies in the Schools Programs ("The Examined Life") at the Rabb School of Continuing Education and other practicing professionals in the area the unique opportunity to continue their professional education, gain professional development points (PDPs), and help them advance in their school careers. The program offers rigorous interdisciplinary study leading to a Certificate in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies from the Brandeis Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. Students are exposed to humanistic, artistic, religious, political, social, and scientific perspectives with a focus on the Greeks and Romans, but including a variety of other ancient cultures as possible electives. The Certificate Program provides students with the opportunity to explore our world through the lens of classical antiquity.

The Curriculum

What will your curriculum look like? Work at your own pace. Achieving a Certificate in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies requires a total of five courses (usually taken over a period of two and a half years) from a selection of regularly offered undergraduate courses in the Department of Classical Studies, one of which must be the graduate capstone course, CLAS 250. (N.B.: Special graduate level requirements will be imposed on the Certificate candidates within the regular undergraduate courses.) Students may take more than one course per semester, if desired. There is no foreign language requirement, although courses in Latin and Greek may be taken towards completion of the Certificate.

Course possibilities range from ancient languages (Greek and Latin above level 30), literature (in original languages or in translation), history, mythology, religion, art, and/or archaeology. Faculty in the Department of Classical Studies must teach at least three of the required five courses. A course covering another ancient civilization may be chosen (in consultation with Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, program chair) as one or two of the electives counting toward the five courses required for the Certificate. No thesis is required, but each course requires focused research papers.

Photograph: Local teachers from the "Examined Life: Greek Studies in the Schools" program, in class at Brandeis.

The Capstone Course

This graduate course (CLAS 250), which can be taken any time within the two and a half year cycle, will be offered in alternate years in the spring semester. The capstone course is taught consecutively by department faculty on the methodologies, perspectives, and theories in the field of Classical Studies. Students gain insight, for example, into Homeric scholarship, Vergilian studies, historiography, and new methods and research in such areas as classical archaeology, anthropology, epigraphy, ancient Greek and Roman history, and ancient art. A graduate course in Directed Study (CLAS 251) is also offered to students who complete some approved experiential summer study. These courses are scheduled after 3:00 p.m. to accommodate teachers coming to class after work.

Course-by-Course Opportunities

Enrollment as "special students" is also possible on a course-by-course basis for interested professionals or professionals-in-training who do not wish to complete the Certificate, or who need to take longer to complete the required number of courses. In such cases students can choose from a variety of classes in several departments with no specific requirements.

Photograph: Local teachers present their curriculum projects at the final session of the year's "Examined Life: Greek Studies in the Schools" program: a MonOdyssey gameboard (left) and "How to build a Greek Temple" (right).

Enhance Your Teaching

"My experience with the Brandeis professors during my participation in Greek Studies in the Schools is what first attracted me to the certificate program. I appreciated their willingness to work with educators of all levels (elementary included), and found their passion for and knowledge of their subject matter evident in lectures and discussions. Under their influence, my own teaching was enhanced. So, to have further access to their knowledge, passion, and encouragement was an opportunity I could not pass up. It has been a natural next step to take in my professional development; one that has challenged me, influenced my teaching, and touched my fourth grade students and myself in so many ways. I tell the parents of my students at back-to-school-night that my first passion is teaching, and it has recently collided in a very positive way with my new passion for Greek and Roman Studies. You know it is worthwhile when one of your ten-year-old students goes home and tells mom and dad that they want to be a Classics major when they grow up." -- Lana Holman, a current student in the Graduate Certificate Program.

Admissions Requirements

Students must have earned a B.A. or B.S. in any field of study from a reputable college or university. Applications will be selected by the faculty of the Brandeis Department of Classical Studies. No Graduate Record Examinations (GRE) are required. Complete information about admissions, including the application to download, can be found at http://www.brandeis.edu/gsas/apply/index.html.

Research Opportunities at Home and Abroad

Designed to combine class experience and scholarship with experiential learning, the program allows students to make trips to various museum exhibitions, work in our Classical Artifact Research Center, learn to improve verbal and written skills, understand aesthetic creativity within the ancient world, consider the problems of historical and archaeological preservation, gain insight into archival documentation of antiquity, learn digital technologies, and gain expertise in visual media related to the ancient world (slides, digital databases, internet resources).

As part of the program, students may choose to participate in an archaeological excavation (with approval from our faculty) or to study with Professor Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow for a two-week summer program at Cumae, Italy on the Bay of Naples (through the Vergilian Society).

Photographs: [left] Professor Koloski-Ostrow with geometric pitcher at the Classical Artifact Research Center; and [right] view of the Roman Forum.

Career Options

What kind of career and education options will you have? Courses offered in the Certificate Program investigate the ancient classical world both locally in the domain of one country (such as Greece and Italy) and more regionally (such as the Mediterranean as a whole). We have developed relationships with excavations in Italy and Greece, so that teachers may participate in such fieldwork as part of their work toward the Certificate. The chance to do research in our Classical Artifact Research Center, to study on the Bay of Naples in the summer, and to obtain personal excavation experience await students of the Brandeis Certificate Program in Ancient Greek and Roman Studies. The possibilities are endless: a posse ad esse...

Interested in Learning More?

How can you learn more? Visit the department website at www.brandeis. edu/departments/classics/ or contact program chair, Professor Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, at aoko@brandeis.edu. We welcome your questions and inquiries.

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Top photographs: [left] Bride Arranging Her Hair, detail, Great Frieze of the Dionysiac Mysteries, Augustan period, 2nd style, Villa of the Mysteries, Pompeii, from http://www.utexas.edu/courses/italianarch/; [second from left] Mask of a God, Museo Massimo, Rome (Photographic Credit: Ann Raia, 1999), by courtesy of the VRoma Project: http://www.vroma.org/images/raia_images/godmask.jpg; [second from right] Detail of the 'Delos' Alexander, The Louvre, Paris, courtesy of Livius.org: http://www.livius.org/aj-al/alexander/alexander_pic/alexander_pics.html; [right] Hades abducting Persephone, fragment of terracotta relief, South Italian (Locri), Greek, 470-460 BCE (Photographic Credit: Paula Chabot, 2000), by courtesy of the VRoma Project: http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/paula_chabot/hadespersephone.jpg.

Unless otherwise stated, photographs in text by Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow. Professor Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow positioning Geometric Vase, ca. 9th century B.C.E., the Classical Artifact Research Center, March 2006 (Photographic Credit: Mike Lovett); Roman Forum with Temple of Castor & Pollux (Photographic Credit: Catherine K. Baker '06, 2004); Head of Paris, detail, glass blown in two layers, blue inside white, with outer layer carved like cameo, Roman, 37-27 B.C.E., The British Museum, London (Photographic Credit: Barbara McManus, 1986), by the courtesy of the VRoma Project: http://www.vroma.org/images/mcmanus_images/paris_portland.jpg.

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Department of Classical Studies, 2008.