Curriculum Vitae
Catherine R. Freis
Millsaps College
freiscr@millsaps.edu
Jackson, Mississippi
39210

DEGREES

Ph.D. 1980 University of California at Berkeley: Classics, Thesis title: Goodness and Justice in Sophocles. Thesis Advisor: T. G. Rosenmeyer.

M.A. 1966 University of California at Berkeley: Classics.

B.A. 1963 Brooklyn College, City University of New York: Classics, cum laude.

 

CURRENT POSITION

1975- Millsaps College, Professor and Chair of the Department of Classical Studies.

TEACHING AWARDS

2000 Mississippi Humanities Council Humanities Teaching Award

1985 Millsaps College Distinguished Professor Award.

1981 American Philological Association National Award for Excellence in the Teaching of Classics.

 

POST-GRADUATE SEMINAR

2002 National Endowment for the Humanities Seminar at the American Academy in Rome, ARoman Religions in Their Cultural Contexts@.

 

TEACHING EXPERIENCE

1975-2005 Courses Taught at Millsaps College:

Greek: Introductory Greek, Aeschylus, Euripides, Homer, Gospel Narratives, Herodotus, John, Lyric Poetry, Paul, Plato, Sophocles, Thucydides.

Latin: Introductory Latin, Caesar, Catullus, Cicero, Horace, Love Elegy, Livy, Medieval Poetry, Ovid, Petronius, Plautus, Sallust, Tacitus, Terence, Virgil.


Classical Civilization:
Classical Epic, Greek and Roman Art and Archeology, Greek Legacy: Culture and Civilization, Greek Legacy Field Studies, Greek Drama, History of Greece and Rome, Junior Classics Seminar, Patterns of Myth, Senior Classics Seminar, Survey of the Classical World.

Core Curriculum:
Introduction to Liberal Studies (a freshman thinking-writing course); Adult Degree Program Introduction to Liberal Studies (an adult entry writing and thinking seminar); Ancient World: Classical Greek and Sanskrit Drama (a freshman interdisciplinary course); Opening Nights: the American Musical Theater (a sophomore interdisciplinary course).

Graduate Level:
Leadership Seminar in the Humanities: Greek Drama and the Community. Leadership Seminar in the Humanities: Classical Epic and Modern Film, MBA Seminar, Renaissance Readings: Leadership in Greek Tragedy.

1994-1998 Millsaps College New Faculty Workshop. This workshop introduced new faculty to the teaching of writing, to the cognitive development of students, and to the pedagogy of active learning. Monthly sessions continued during the acedemic year for all new faculty members.

1990-96 Millsaps College Liberal Studies Workshop for Faculty. These workshops helped develop and revise the course that all Millsaps students, traditional, transfer and adult, take during their first semester at Millsaps College.

1987-1988 Millsaps College Writing Workshop for Faculty. This course on the process model of writing re-trained faculty members to teach writing intensive courses in all disciplines.

1972-1975 Instructor in Humanities, Division of Interdisciplinary and General Studies, University of California at Berkeley, as a teacher of junior-level humanities courses and as senior-level thesis advisor.

1972-1974 Director (Assistant Professor), Berkeley Summer Latin Workshop, University of California at Berkeley. This intensive course allows students to learn two years of college Latin in a ten-week summer session. As director, I lectured daily, trained and supervised a staff of five teaching assistants and administered the course.


1971 Director (Instructor), Greek Workshop for Undergraduate Students, Division of Interdisciplinary and General Studies, University of California at Berkeley. This was the first Greek intensive course (12 credits of Greek in a single quarter) to be offered at Berkeley. The course was designed to complement the second year of a two-year lower division general humanities course.

1970-1971 Teaching Assistant, Division of Inter-disciplinary and General Studies, University of California at Berkeley, during the first year of a new two-year interdisciplinary humanities course for freshmen and sophomores which fulfilled English composition as well as humanities core curriculum requirements.

1967-1970 Teaching Assistant, University of California Classics Department, as a teacher of Greek, Latin, and Classical Civilization.

 

ADMINISTRATIVE EXPERIENCE

1980-present Chair, Classics Department
The Chairmanship involves the ordinary duties of overseeing the health and growth of the Classics department. During my term as Chair, the major, which had been dropped in 1972, was reintroduced and a classics minor was initiated. The Classics department courses are frequently co-listed with Philosophy, Art, Literature, Women's Studies and Religion courses. There are at present three tenure-track or tenured members of the Classics department. The department offers courses in Greek, Latin, Classical Civilization, as well as Hebrew and Sanskrit.

1991- l998 Director of the Core Curriculum. This wide-ranging administrative position consisted of implementing an innovative, interdisciplinary core curriculum which involved recruiting, training, mentoring and overseeing a staff of approximately forty people drawn from all areas of the college.

1991-1996 Director, Introduction to Liberal Studies. This freshman thinking and writing course is taken by all freshmen students. As director, I provided the leadership for the faculty to determine the curriculum of the course and its implementation. I coordinated the publishing of a text book, an art packet, a teacher's resource manual, as well as providing the ongoing leadership of a course staffed by approximately twenty faculty members.

1992-1998 Chair, Core Council. Since the core is not rooted in a departmental structure, the Core Council functions as the custodian of core standards and curriculum. They set policy as well as review all core syllabi, core instruction, and core assessments.

1990 Chair, Curriculum Revision Committee

This committee sponsored a total revision of the core curriculum and oversaw its passage through the faculty.

1986-1990 Chair, Division of Humanities
As Chair of the Division, I served on the Academic Council, a seven-person board which oversaw the academic administration of the College. I also handled the administration and policy making of the division. One important facet of this position is the evaluation of the members of the philosophy, history, religion and classics departments. This includes classroom visitation, personal mentoring, course and syllabi review.

1985-1990 Director, Ford Fellowship Program
The Ford Foundation, in anticipation of a shortage of college faculty in the 1990's, invited Millsaps to set up a program to attract top-flight students into a college teaching career. It does so by pairing students with faculty mentors in apprenticeships in teaching and scholarship. As founding director of the program, which is still flourishing, I recruited students and faculty into the program, helped them to fashion an effective partnership, and supervised that partnership.

1972-1974 Director, Berkeley Summer Latin Workshop
(See Teaching Experience)

1971 Director, Division of Interdisciplinary and General Science, Intensive Greek Workshop
(See Teaching Experience)


PRESENTATIONS

2005 Friday Forum, "The Gospel of Colonus"

2003 Classical Association of the Eastern States, AThe Story of an Italian Classicist@.

2002 Friday Forum of Millsaps College, Mythological Geography, the Cross and the Christmas Tree.

2002 Workshop for teachers in the Advanced Placement and Performing Arts Complex of the Jackson Public Schools, The Classical Legacy of Myth.

2001 St. Richard=s Timely Topics, Mythical Geography, the Cross, and the Christmas Tree.

2001 Heritage Program of Millsaps College Greek Art; Hellenistic and Roman Art (repeated annually).

2000 Classical Association of the Mid-West and South: Stephen Sondheim's Sweeney Todd and Classical Literature

2000 Mississippi Humanities Council: Death and Dying in the Western World

1999 St. Richard=s Timely Topics: The History of Hell

1998 Associated Colleges of the South Women=s Conference: The Blood Revenge of Draupadi and Clytemnestra.

1996 American Philological Association: Kathakali and Greek Drama.

1996 Monastery of the Sacred Heart: Dance as Worship in Greece, India, and Italy.

1990-1996 Numerous presentations on the liberal arts curriculum and interactive teaching before professional and lay audiences.

1989 Mississippi Museum of Art: Matisse and Pasiphae

1988 Classical Association of the Midwest and Southern States:
Creon's Character in the Theban Plays of Sophocles.

1986 Classical Association of the Midwest and Southern States:
Fragment 206D: Sophocles or Euripides?

1983 Mississippi Foreign Language Association: Intensive Language Courses: The Berkeley Model.

1981 Mississippi Foreign Language Association: Foreign Language Study and Future Shock.

1980 Classical Association of the Midwest and Southern States: The Ironical Agathos in Sophocles.

1974 American Philological Association: Participant in a panel on innovative and intensive methods of teaching elementary Latin and Greek.

1969-1974 Numerous talks on the teaching of Classics, especially on intensive language courses and interdisciplinary courses, before San Francisco Bay Area classical and modern language associations.

 

PUBLICATIONS

2004 Review: Ancient Greek: Intensive Review & Reference by Carl Ruck, Classical Bulletin.


2003 AVoices of Women in the Arts - the Sphere of Musical Composition@, The Journal of the international alliance for women in music.

2002 Review: AGreek Drama: From Ritual to Theatre@, video from Films for the Humanities, Classical Outlook.

2002 Review: AAllen and Greenough=s New Latin Grammar@, edited by Anne Mahoney, Classical Outlook.

1999 Co-author, Ancient Greek Alive, by Paula Sapphire and Catherine Freis, University of North Carolina Press.

1998 AKathakali and Greek Drama@ in Didaskalia, Ancient Theatre Today.

1997 Editor, Introduction to Liberal Studies Reader, Copley Press.

1995 Editor, Introduction to Liberal Studies Reader, Copley Press.

1993 Review: AAncient Greek Alive" by Paula Reiner, Classical Outlook.

1993 Review: "Agammemnon", a performance by The Aquila Company, Classical Outlook.

1992 Review: "The Frogs", a performance by The London Small Theatre, Classical Outlook.

1989 Review: "The Roman Cookery of Apicius", Classical World.

1987 "The Ancient City", Arts Alliance.

1981 "Intensive Latin and Greek Courses as Adjuncts to the Humanities Core Curriculum", a chapter in a monograph entitled Intensive and Innovative Methods of Teaching Latin and Greek.