Friends since graduate school, Augustana’s classicists, Emil Kramer and Mischa Hooker are glad to be reunited in Old Main. The professors and others in the department, Kirsten Day and Nicholas Dobson, said the classics department is excelling through new curriculum and the amiability among  the faculty.
The classics department was displaced and separated during the Old Main renovations last year. Now, though, everyone in the department is sharing the same space. Kramer said the new offices on the first floor have allowed for more collaboration between the professors and students.
“This is our first time all in one space, and all back together,” Kramer said. “The collaboration is really beneficial. We are kind of like a family.”
While everyone in the classics department comes from different backgrounds, Kramer said they have found a balance between the full-time staff. He said both Day, associate professor in Classics, and Hooker, lecturer in Classics, brought their own unique specialties.
“I met Kirsten in San Diego,” Kramer said. “We really needed another person, and she came here despite a lack of good coffee shops, at the time, and the weather. We completely revised the curriculum when she came in…and our program has really grown.”
Day started teaching in the department in the Fall of 2007. Kramer said her background and interests in women’s studies and pop culture added something new to classics.
Day introduced a new Women and Integrity class, as well as others studying the role of women in Greek and Roman history.
“Women in antiquity have always held a poor position, especially in the field of classics,” Day said.
She also has introduced a course comparing Western films to classics, an interest of Day’s which was sparked after watching “The Searchers,” a John Wayne film paralleling Homer’s “The Odyssey.”
Day has also studied pornography and sexuality within the ancient Greek and Roman world.
“These are the new classics,” Day said. “This isn’t your stuffy grandfather’s classics.”
After her first year at Augustana, Day took pregnancy leave. During that time, Kramer ran into Hooker, who was teaching at Loyola University in Chicago.
“We had known each other in graduate school and we were friends,” Kramer said. “But, we hadn’t seen each other in years, about 10 years. I needed to hire someone else, but hadn’t advertised the position widely. And, then I said, I wonder what Dr. Hooker is doing.”
Hooker was finishing his one-year position at Loyola, and decided to join Kramer at Augustana.
“It was destiny,” Day said.
Hooker also offered his own specialties to the department. His focus within classics has been more religion-based, implementing classes about Greek, Roman and Christian religions.
“Ever since I was a kid, I was fascinated by ancient languages, objects and architecture,” said Hooker, who contends that classics combines nearly all fields of study.
All of the classics professors agreed that the study includes many other practices, such as math, science and linguistics.
“Studying ancient languages is the same mental process as math,” Day said. “Studying classics will improve your math skills. It’s a great pairing with science and math, all have Greek or Latin roots.”
“The concept of Liberal Arts comes from the classics,” Kramer said. “Many don’t realize the sciences are part of it. You know you’re in a good department if you have a Greek name.”
Day said studying classics helps students to develop transferable skills.
“The humanities show to get jobs,” Day said. “It’s such a broad subject, including language and grammar, that you can get a job with almost anything. You don’t have to be a teacher.”
Kramer said some students avoid the field of study because it is challenging. That is, though, what attracted Kramer, Day and Hooker to the classics department.
“It is a lifetime undertaking,” Kramer said. Day added, “It’s so broad. You can’t know it all.”
The classics department will offer a study abroad opportunity for students interested in the field, as well as anthropology.
Students will be able to take a 2 week tour of Greece in 2016.