Undergraduate News

New BA’s Joel Busi and Sovandara Chhin enjoy May graduation.

Colorado Classics continues to attract outstanding undergraduates in large numbers. This year witnessed the usual flurry of activities. In the fall we had a welcome back party for all our returning undergraduates and prospective majors. In December two students graduated with minors, Jamie Wagener and Sean Eret. In early February we made our annual pilgrimage to Snow Mountain Ranch where we witnessed more students reading Virgil’s Latin in one cozy cabin than ever before seen in the Rocky Mountain region!

Finally this spring we graduated a bumper crop of majors and minors. The majors included Theodore “Ted” Broberg, Joel Busi, Sovandara Chhin, Jody Flaten, Elise Handley, Mario Huipe, Eric Jusino, Aaron Kessler, Megan Lillie, Tobias “Toby” Myers, Richard Payne, and Lisa Rowan. Our minors were Elizabeth “Beth” Grogan, Mary “Katie” McKee, Melissa Spannuth, and Sarah Wheeler. This contingent also included a record number of Honors graduators: Ted Broberg graduated cum laude with a thesis on prose rhythm, Joel Busi cum laude with a thesis on Augustan symbolism, Eric Jusino magna cum laude with a thesis on Catullus and Hellenistic poetry, Megan Lillie magna cum laude with a thesis on the Republican navy, and Richard Payne summa cum laude with a thesis on seventh-century hagiography. Our first combined BA/MA student, Tiernan Doyle, also finished (after just three years at CU!) a summa cum laude thesis on Sappho, excellent preparation for the master’s degree work she will undertake this fall. Tiernan will travel to Turkey this summer to participate in the American School of Classical Studies in Athens summer program (displaced to Istanbul because of the Olympics).

Other Classics travelers include Megan Lillie, who spent last fall in Rome on an Ann Nichols award, Tessa Christensen, who will enroll in the College Year in Athens Program next fall, Molly House who will study in Budapest, and Peter Luskin who will study in Strasbourg. Among our graduators, several are already planning further studies: Both Ted Broberg and Aaron Kessler will begin law school in the fall, and Richard Payne received a Dumbarton Oaks Bliss Prize for graduate study in Byzantine History. With this award he will travel this fall to Princeton with his wife and two children to begin work toward a PhD.