CHS at Harvard Worldwide Week 2017

As part of the Harvard Worldwide Week, a new initiative by the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs to showcase the remarkable breadth of Harvard’s global engagement, the Center for Hellenic Studies hosted the “Role of an international Center in supporting the University’s global presence,” a panel discussion on its programs and collaborations in Greece. The event took place on Tuesday, October 24, at William James Hall.
Faculty, students, and other colleagues from the Harvard community shared perspectives on their experiences working with different aspects of the University’s international presence in cooperation with the CHS, illustrating how an international Center can support the global presence of the University through the development of new educational and collaborative templates. Preparation for the event involved coordination with the Office of the Vice Provost for International Affairs in order to bring together the many guest panelists. Four staff members from CHS in Greece and one from CHS DC traveled to Cambridge to join the event.

Gregory Nagy, Professor of Classical Greek Literature and Comparative Literature at Harvard and Director of the CHS, made opening remarks, during which he shared the vision that led him to establish the Center in Greece. Linked to the Center’s mission to support Hellenic studies and to demonstrate the humanistic values of the Hellenes, Nagy envisioned a Center that would offer educational opportunities to the Hellenic community and the global community more broadly. Seventeen years later, the Center in Greece has transformed from a CHS branch office to an institution parallel to its twin Center in Washington, DC; its mission has evolved from classics-oriented academic support to interdisciplinary nexus for Harvard University abroad. Nagy went on to talk about the Center’s most recent and upcoming activities and initiatives, which have public service at their core.

Among the distinguished speakers were professors Dimiter Angelov (Harvard History), David Elmer (Harvard Classics) and Nicole Newendorp (Harvard Social Studies), and colleagues from the Harvard Alumni Association and Harvard Library. Elmer focused on the CorHaLi conference, and the ways in which he was able, with the help of the CHS, to overcome organizational challenges in order to ensure its success. Trearty Bartley (HAA Travel Program Director) talked about how the collaboration with Professor Nagy during HAA travel programs evolved into an ongoing partnership between the HAA and the CHS, leading to the successful co-organization of the HAA-CHS travel study programs in Greece. All guests demonstrated with their presentations that, through the shared interest and common mission of supporting education worldwide, the University’s international presence would continue to thrive.

Many alumni of CHS programs and other students interested in CHS opportunities also attended the event, joining both the panels and the reception that followed. Huntington Lambert, Dean of the Harvard Division of Continuing Education (DCE), Susanne Ebbinghaus, George M.A. Hanfmann Curator of Ancient Art and Head of the Division of Asian and Mediterranean Art at the Harvard Art Museums, Stratos Efthymiou, the Consul General of Greece in Boston, and many colleagues from Social Studies, Classics, and other departments joined the reception as well. Moreover, colleagues from other Centers of the University with offices abroad—especially those that have been newly established—joined the event, in addition to a reporter from The Harvard Crimson.
The Center for Hellenic Studies would like to thank all attendees of the event. Organized this year for the first time, the Worldwide Week at Harvard coincides with the 10-year anniversary of the Center’s presence in Greece, which adds a symbolic value to the CHS’s participation and makes for a unique opportunity to celebrate the Center’s evolution and expansion.

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