Alden Smith Named President Of Vergilian Society
Dr. Alden Smith, chair of the classics department and director of the University Scholars program at Baylor University, has been named interim president of the Vergilian Society for 2004. Smith was elected in April to fill the role of interim president and will stand for the presidency on the July ballot.
Founded in 1937, the Vergilian Society promotes the study of Vergil through lectures, conferences, publications and excavation reports that have a bearing upon Vergil's works and celebrates the ties of culture between Italy and America.
"My association with the society will benefit Baylor chiefly by making our name a household word among its many members worldwide," Smith said. "As the leader of this society, I will be associated with many other heads of organizations in classics, such as the largest classical association, the American Philological Association, and the Classical Association of the Middle West and South, which is the second largest one in America. I will also collaborate with philologists and archaeologists in Europe."
Membership is open to any person who is interested in the study of Vergil and consists of a worldwide association of scholars of Vergil. Among the primary features of the Vergilian Society is the Villa Vergiliana in Cumae, Italy, on the northern rim of the Bay of Naples. The Villa is a point of retreat for Vergilian scholars, many of whom go there to work on the poet who spent much of his life in that area and was buried near there.
For more information, contact Smith at 710-3744.