Department of Classics

The mission of the Classics Program is to develop proficient readers and translators of Latin and/or Greek. Learners will also demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the history, culture, and literature of the ancient world and their contribution to our world today.

“To be entirely ignorant of the Latin language is like being in a fine country on a misty day. The horizon is extremely limited. Nothing can be seen clearly except that which is quite close; a few steps beyond, everything is buried in obscurity. But the Latinist has a wide view, embracing modern times, the Middle Age and Antiquity; and his mental horizon is still further enlarged if he studies Greek or even Sanscrit.”

– Arthur Schopenhauer, “On the Study of Latin,” (1851)

The classics major, after graduation, will be among the best of his or her time and place at thinking and communicating. We aspire to produce great educators, lawyers, physicians, accountants, computer scientists, and theologians, in addition to great classical philologists. We are confident in these outcomes because, through classical languages and literature, we help our students to spend time with the great teachers of all time. Schopenhauer ended his essay thus:

There is no better recreation for the mind than the study of the ancient classics. Take any one of them into your hand, be it only for half an hour, and you will feel yourself refreshed, relieved, purified, ennobled, strengthened; just as if you had quenched your thirst at some pure spring.

Is this the effect of the old language and its perfect expression, or is it the greatness of the minds whose works remain unharmed and unweakened by the lapse of a thousand years? Perhaps both together. But this I know. If the threatened calamity should ever come, and the ancient languages cease to be taught, a new literature shall arise, of such barbarous, shallow and worthless stuff as never was seen before.

Department Faculty

Edward Mulholland

Dr. Edward Mulholland

Professor and Chair, Classics

Edward Mulholland, Ph.D. is the Sheridan Chair of Classics and directs the program: Great Books: The True, the Good and the Beautiful at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. He holds a doctorate in philosophy from Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, and a Master’s degree in classics from the University of London. He has been involved in Catholic education via seminary, college and high school teaching for 35 years. He has taught in Italy, Spain, Mexico and the United States. He is currently preparing for publication the first ever English translation of Renaissance humanist Marko Marulić’s lost and re-found epic, the Davidiad. He and his wife, Valerie, have six children and two grandchildren.

Lionel Yaceczko

Dr. Lionel Yaceczko

Assistant Professor, Classics

Lionel Yaceczko holds a BA from the University of Dallas, where he wrote a thesis on Propertius, and a MA and Ph.D. from The Catholic University of America. His dissertation on education in the Roman Empire led to the publication of his book Ausonius Grammaticus (Gorgias Press, 2021). He is also the author of an introductory Latin textbook, Jerome’s Introduction to Latin (KDP, 2021), and many articles for popular audiences on topics relating to classical education. Contact Dr. Yaceczko