The educational institution now known as the University of California, Davis (henceforth UCD) started out in 1906-07 as the agricultural branch of UC Berkeley. For many decades The Farm School, as it was then known, retained both its designation and mission as an agricultural training ground, although a few humanities subjects with practical application, such as English (1910-) and German (1933-), were taught from a relatively early date.  But it was only in the 1950s, with the creation of the College of Letters and Sciences (1951) and the formal granting of the status of a general campus that Davis truly became a university.

Classics, at least in plan, was to be one of the first additions to the academic curriculum. Already in 1952-53, we find that the Davis General Catalog listed courses in Greek and Latin. However, the same catalog failed to name the Assistant Professor of Classics or list the instructor(s) for classics courses  for nearly a decade, and it is unclear whether any instruction in Greek or Latin actually took place during these years. It is not until the catalog of 1959-60 that we find a Kate M. Thursby, A.B., designated as Associate in Latin, teaching Elementary Latin 1 and 2 (UCD, like all UC campuses, operated on the semester system at that time).

In 1960, the UCD Classics Program finally took off to a promising start with the appointment of Dr. Richard Grimm as Assistant Professor. In the following few years, under Dr Grimm’s energetic direction, the Program expanded dramatically both in terms of personnel and course offerings. Dr. Wesley E. Thompson joined him in 1963, and the Program continued to attract new faculty through the 1960s. The coming of Dr. Frederick H. van Doorninck, an archeologist, in 1968 perhaps represented the culmination of this period of rapid growth. From the late ‘60s to the early ‘70s, the Classics Program at UCD offered not only a full complement of traditional language and literature courses in Greek and Latin, but also classes in Sanskrit (Phelps Gates) and classical archeology. By this time, the Program was large enough to provide majors and minors in Greek, Latin, and Teaching, as well as a graduate M.A. degree.

In the 1970s and 80s, the UCD Classics Program slowly consolidated its offerings around traditional, core areas of the discipline. Phelps Gates left in 1970, and was replaced by Dr. David Traill.  Around 1977-78, Dr. van Doorninck left to pursue nautical archeology at Texas A&M University. He was replaced by another classical archeologist, Dr. Lynn Roller.

The decade of the 1990s opened with the addition of Charlayne Allan to the Classics Program, who taught most of the first-year Latin classes as well as courses in mythology and women in antiquity. She was a very successful and much-loved teacher and was awarded the Academic Federation Award for Excellence in Teaching in 1999. Dr. Patricia Bulman of the Comparative Literature Program also began to teach some Greek courses for Classics. But these years brought a major budget crisis to the state of California and UCD. Its effect was felt severely on campus. In fact the very survival of the Classics Program came under threat. Dr. Grimm and Dr. Thompson, the two faculty members who had together nurtured and directed Classics at UCD since the 1960s, were among senior faculty who retired under the favorable terms of the VERIP program. At a time when the state was drastically reducing its funding, this program was designed to save the university money by moving senior faculty from the payroll to the well-funded pension plan. This meant that the UCD Classics Program was now left with only two ladder faculty, Dr. Traill and Dr. Roller, and one lecturer, Charlayne Allan. Course offerings in Classics were nearly halved. Some members of the university administration seemed to have set their sights on Classics as a target for elimination, even though the subject was still popular with the undergraduates and the Program at that time had a couple of dozen majors.

Classics--September 2009

Standing (l. to r.) John Rundin, Akihiko Watanabe, David Traill, Carey Seal, Rex Stem.
Seated (l. to r.): Patricia Bulman, Katherine Good (Hindi-Urdu), Shayma Hassouna (Arabic), Emily Albu.
Absent: Alon Raab (Hebrew).

Fortunately, before the trigger was pulled, members of the UCD community – students, lecturers, concerned members of the administration, as well as faculty members both in the Program and in affiliated fields – and classicists from other campuses persuaded the administration to save Classics. Professors Schein (Comparative Literature), Schaeffer (German) and Abbott (English) pitched in to assist in the teaching of the Program's courses.  Although the Classics MA degree fell casualty to the turmoil of this period and has not since been reactivated, the Program began to recover and grow again with the addition of Dr. Emily Albu in 1995 and Dr. Bulman’s move (in 1996) from Comparative Literature to teach full-time in Classics.

In 2005 Charlayne Allan retired and was replaced by Dr. John Rundin. Since then, the Classics Program at UCD has continued to grow and  broaden its range of expertise with the addition of Dr Rex Stem (2006), Dr. Akihiko Watanabe (2008), and Dr. Carey Seal (2009). The Program continues to make a substantial contribution to undergraduate education both through specialized philological training and with its very popular courses in translation. It maintains a robust number of majors. UCD Classics faculty also run a Post-Baccalaureate program, which attracts students who have graduated from college but wish to receive more training in Greek and Latin before they enter graduate school. Faculty members have recently revised the Designated Emphasis in Classics and the Classical Tradition, renaming it Classics and Classical Receptions. This program, begun in 2000, enables Ph.D. students in related fields (such as History, Philosophy and English)  to learn how to utilize classical resources and integrate them into their own disciplines.

July 2009 opened a new chapter in the history of Classics at UCD, when it was made responsible for Arabic, Hebrew, and Hindi/Urdu. The Program welcomes its new colleagues and looks forward to the challenges and opportunities that this expansion presents.

The Classics Program at UCD has always been characterized by the diversity of faculty interests. The members of the Program, consonant with the overall mission of the school as a research university, continue to research and publish widely both on classical Greece and Rome proper and on the reception of the Greco-Roman heritage in the Middle Ages and beyond. As we progress into the new millennium, we are confident that the Classics program will continue to make its presence felt and appreciated at UCD.

References

UC Davis General Catalog, 1946- (online at http://registrar.ucdavis.edu/UCDwebCatalog/pdf.html)

Hays, P., R. Scari, and D.A. Traill 2000 ‘Richard Grimm, Spanish and Classics: Davis’, in University of California: in Memoriam 2000 (online at http://content.cdlib.org/xtf/view?docId=hb1r29n709&doc.view=frames&chunk.id=div00020&toc.depth=1&toc.id=&brand=calisphere)

Scheuring, Ann F. 2001 Abundant Harvest: The History of the University of California, Davis. UC Davis History Project.

Traill, D.A. 1992 'Classics Dept. in Jeopardy', in The California Aggie 12 Nov.  1992.