What CANE's Endowment Fund Can Do For You


Enjoy Amanda Loud’s report from her trip to Italy this past summer, funded by CANE’s Endowment Fund.


“What airline?”
“Alitalia.”
My excitement had been mounting since February, when I received the letter announcing I had been awarded the CANE endowment for travel. When I told the bus driver my airline, I realized I was really headed to Italy! Italy had not been my first choice; I applied for the CANE grant for travel with the Vergillian Society to Cyprus. When the Society cancelled the Cyprus trip due to low enrollment, the Society offered me the trip to Italy, and CANE graciously agreed to let me use the award for it. I was so disappointed when I received the email in April that Cyprus was cancelled; I had wanted to travel to Cyprus for 10 years, that island being the perfect meld of both my loves: classics and theology. My disappointment lasted but a few hours. Once I read about the Vergilian Society’s trip to Naples, staying at their villa in Cuma, my excitement once again began to mount. And now I was headed to Rome!
Because the endowment was more than I needed for the trip to Naples, I was able to stay in Rome 4 nights. I had been to Rome before- 30 years ago!- so I spent my time exploring some things again and seeing some things for the first time. I toured the Domus Aurea, Nero’s palace, which had not been discovered the last time I was in Rome. And I spent a morning at the Coliseum and on the Palantine, of course! I (finally) made it to the Baths of Diocletian and the Palacio Massimo, taking copious pictures of stele for my students to translate. I took a “selfie” at the Tomb of the Baker to prove to my students it exists and that I had been there. And I managed to get over jet lag enough to meet my tour group that Monday morning and head south to Cuma.
I have only the very best to say about The Vergilian Society and its tours. This was my 3rd Vergilian tour, having traveled with them to Sicily and Etruria many years ago. There were 21 in our group, counting our leaders, Ann Koloski-Ostrow, chair of Classics at Brandeis; and her husband, Steve Ostrow, professor of history at MIT. Our group ranged in age from 19 to about 75, most all of us teachers, specifically Latin teachers, some of us undergraduate and graduate students, and all of us steeped in the Classics. As I was describing my trip to one of my friends, she stopped me and exclaimed, “Amanda, you were with your people!” Yes, I was with my people, and it was wonderful. It was like a 2 week CANE annual meeting- hard to fathom but awesome!
We stayed all but 2 nights at the Villa Vergiliana in Cuma, Italy. This 1912 villa was a gift to the Society specifically for groups studying the Classics. All our meals were included, and the food was fabulous! I even bought a cookbook. From the villa each day we would journey to sites to explore. We spent 9 hours at Pompei, entering baths closed to the public. We went to the top of Mt. Vesuvius and read Pliny the Younger’s account. We went to Misenum and descended into a 49 foot water cistern used for the Roman navy. We toured the Baths at Baiae and wondered, “How private were they?” We ventured into Naples one day, walking through Old Naples, eating dinner, and then attending the opera Aida. We boarded a hydrofoil and went off to Capri for 2 nights, climbing to Tiberius’ palace and understanding the beauty and draw of Capri, not to mention its perils. We took pictures of everything, we laughed at each other’s jokes, we cried at the skeletons in Herculaneum, and we all had the time of our lives.
The 2 weeks passed far too quickly, and we were once again in Rome, saying goodbye. I took a train to Ravenna for my last 2 days, having taught my theology students about the mosaics there for many years. After I entered the first church, I realized I had been crying for about 10 minutes. I have never seen anything so beautiful in all my life. Ravenna was a marvelous, calming 2 days after such a busy study tour, and I readied myself to re-enter my academic world and began to organize both my thoughts and my 984 pictures.
Now that I am back and looking at the calendar, I am thinking of ways to incorporate these marvelous experiences into my classroom. I think there will be the Stele of the Week to translate. One of my Latin classes will start with Pliny the Younger, and when we read his letter about the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius, I can make it come alive as never before. I bought 23 posters at various museums and shops, and those will be my wallpaper. And I think I may just start some classes with a picture on the board- perhaps one of my “selfies.” Latin is so often about case and tense. Now I have more resources to show my students that Latin is about the people who spoke it, about their houses, their baths, their potties, and their jobs. My goal this year is to show the skeletons at Herculaneum and see my students’ eyes fill with tears.

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