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NEWS |
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BY CHRIS CHAN, STAFF WRITER
Lawrence’s Hiram A. Jones Professor of Classics
Daniel J. Taylor recently received the Fulbright Distinguished
Chair of Linguistics at Italy’s University of Trieste. The
distinguished J. William Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board
appointed this award. Taylor joins Lawrence professors Lawrence
Longley and Marcia Bjornerud as recent Fulbright award winners.
Recipients of a Fulbright award participate in an exchange
program, traveling to a foreign country where they are asked to
serve as intellectual ambassadors of goodwill.
Taylor, an alumnus of Lawrence as well as University of Washington graduate school, started teaching at Lawrence in 1974. He has written four books on classical studies and was once named Foreign Language Educator of the Year by the Wisconsin Association of Foreign Language Teachers. He has also received the Lawrence University Excellence in Teaching Award.
Taylor is no stranger to Italy; in fact, he considers it his "second home" after spending a total of over three years in Florence. Taylor is an expert on the work of Marcus Terentius Varro, a Roman scholar from the first and second centuries B.C.
Taylor believes that if someone wants to study the work of Varro, the Hiram A. Jones Library in Main Hall is "one of the best places in the world to come." This is in contrast with the University of Illinois, where he taught before coming to Lawrence. Even though the University of Illinois has the fifth-largest library in the Midwest, "it still didn’t have enough on Varro," remarked Taylor.
It is difficult to receive a Fulbright award for work in the field of classics. The Fulbright Foreign Scholarship Board had originally described the ideal job candidate as a general linguist. Taylor asked if the Board would consider him as an historian of linguistics. When the Board expressed interest, Taylor recalls thinking, "I’m going to try for this."
First, Taylor had to submit his résumé to a council in the United States. The council selected three or four names, including Taylor’s, and sent the list of prospective candidates to Rome. A committee in Rome made the final decision. Taylor received a very short e-mail confirming his appointment. "The e-mail only said, ‘You’ve got it. Do you want it?’" commented Taylor. A more formal letter arrived later.
The Italian school system is rather different from the American system. Italian students have five very rigorous years of high school, followed by another five years at a university. Most university classes are lectures, and many students attend classes without the intention of receiving credit. When Taylor goes to teach at the University of Trieste, the course he will offer will be three months long and will probably meet three times a week for two or three hours.
Because the course he will teach in Trieste will most likely be in lecture format, it may be very different from the Lawrence classes he is used to. Taylor prefers seminar-style classes to lecture courses because seminar classes allow him to facilitate discussion with his students. Teaching a lecture-style class may have one advantage, according to Taylor—should he decide to write a book on the subjects he teaches in Trieste, his lecture notes will be a perfect outline for the book.
The course will be taught in English, and this will be Taylor’s first time teaching non-American students. He is in the process of selecting texts to use in class, as well as a packet of photocopied sources. Plato and Aristotle are two potential authors he is considering including.
Taylor credits Lawrence University for furthering his enjoyment in scholarly activities. He is looking forward to his work in Trieste, saying, "My wife and I are treating it as an adventure." Indeed, he concluded his application project statement by saying that "I offer my expertise in and enthusiasm for the history of linguistics, my award-winning abilities as a teacher, and my abiding affection for things Italian to this project, which I personally find fascinating and exciting."
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