The Outreach Prize of the Society for Classical Studies (SCS), a prize of $300, recognizes outstanding projects or events by an SCS member or members that make an aspect of classical antiquity available and attractive to an audience other than classics scholars or students in their courses. The project or event may be of any kind and in any medium, including but not limited to film, performance, public event, website, video, podcasts, visual arts, and print. Projects and events promoting any area of classics are eligible for the prize, as long as they are grounded in sound scholarship and currently reach a public that extends beyond the academy. The project or event to be considered must have been developed entirely or in part within ten years of the nomination deadline. Candidates for the prize must currently be SCS members. Curricular initiatives in the nominee's own institution do not qualify for this prize.
Previous Prize recipients include Herbert Golder, Boston University, Editor-in-Chief of Arion and Ann Olga Koloski-Ostrow, Brandeis University, for a program entitled “The Examined Life: Greek Studies in the Schools” (2003); Roger T. Macfarlane, Brigham Young University, Television Documentary, "Out of the Ashes: Recovering the Lost Library of Herculaneum" (2004); Marianne McDonald, University of California at San Diego (2005), Mary-Kay Gamel, University of California at Santa Cruz (2009), and Peter Meineck, Aquila Theatre Company (2010) for their efforts to bring classical drama to general, non-professional audiences; the Steering Committee for the University of California Multi-Campus Research Group in the History and Culture of Late Antiquity for the creation of teaching materials for middle school social studies classes; Michele V. Ronnick, Wayne State University for her work describing the experiences of Black Classicists in the post Civil War period (2006); Brett Rogers and Ben Stevens (2016) for their initiative on classics and science fiction and Robert Stewart (2017) for her work over a number of years in organizing and leading reading groups on the Homeric epics with US veterans.
Nominations (which may be self-nominations) should consist of a letter of nomination and three copies of a detailed description of the project or event to be considered, including three copies of any material product that may have resulted (such as program, book or DVD). Evidence of the impact of the nominee's work on diverse audiences will greatly strengthen nominations (e.g., published reviews, testimonia from participants or beneficiaries, etc.). Send all nomination materials to the Executive Director of the SCS (xd@classicalstudies.org) by September 14, 2018. Nominations will remain in contention for a three-year period and will be judged by the three members of the Outreach Prize Committee.
