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Alumnus Evan Dutmer Receives Statewide Teacher of the Year award from the Indiana Classical Conference

April 8, 2020

dutmer,-evan---mlc---2018-official-portrait-copy.pngAlumnus Evan Dutmer is this year's recipient of statewide Teacher of the Year award from the Indiana Classical Conference. Dutmer is Instructor in Latin, Ancient Mediterranean Cultures, and Ethics at the Culver Academies, a boarding school in Culver, IN.  He was a graduate student in the Department of Philosophy from 2012-2019, being part of both the Ancient Philosophy Program and Graduate Classics Cluster at Northwestern University. He completed his dissertation in September 2019 under the direction of Richard Kraut. 

We applaud Evan on this significant recognition and send him our hearty congratulations. Hurray!  Very proud!

Dutmer answers how the Northwestern Graduate Classics Cluster prepared him for his career as a teacher of classics

"The training I received during my time as a PhD student in Ancient Philosophy (at which time I was an active member of the interdisciplinary Graduate Classics Cluster) was invaluable for me as I made the transition to a teaching career in independent schools.  During the coursework phase of my PhD in Ancient Philosophy, I was given great flexibility to continue to take upper level reading courses in Latin and Greek, eventually receiving Graduate Certificates in both Classical Latin and Ancient Greek, valuable additions to my CV as I entered the independent school job market.  These small, seminar-style classes honed my philological skills and greatly increased my Latin and Greek proficiency while exposing me to vast scholarly literatures on central figures and texts.

In addition, I was part of Northwestern’s vibrant graduate and faculty community of Classics scholars while I was a member of the Classics Cluster, taking part in reading groups in Latin and Greek, graduate seminars, and the Classical Receptions workshop. I also regularly collaborated with members of the Classics Department on my dissertation research. Through these activities, I was introduced to cutting-edge research at the intersection of classics, the humanities, the arts, science, receptions theory, and digital initiatives in each of these areas. World-class classicists visited for departmental functions with regularity, whose work I can now share with my own students, opening my students up to fresh, new dialoguing on the importance and relevance of the classical world to today.

Lastly, my time serving as a teaching assistant in the Department of Classics through my participation in the Classics Cluster was immensely valuable as I sought employment in independent schools. I was given the chance to TA for a number of courses in Classical Humanities while a member of the Classics Cluster, developing crucial teaching and learning skills in those experiences. I was given observational feedback, the chance to facilitate my own discussion sections, and given important practice in tutoring, grading, and assessment.

Together, these experiences made my time in the Graduate Classics Cluster at Northwestern foundational to my career in teaching Latin and Classics in an independent school.  I am so thankful for the opportunities I received; I’m a proud alumnus!"