Four full-time faculty, all with Ph.Ds, teach your classes. Calvin ranks in the top 5% of private colleges whose graduates go on to earn a Ph.D. Classics graduates have received fellowships to such eminent universities as: Berkeley Cambridge Cornell Harvard Michigan Princeton Harvard Toronto Iowa Yale

Study of the ancient world through classical languages and literatures, archaeology and ancient history is interesting for just about anybody, but it should be especially important for Christians. The ancient world was the milieu in which Judaism developed and the early Church took root and flourished. Every page of the Bible bears the marks of the earlier civilizations in which the first Christians lived. The Classical Languages Department at Calvin College has taken on the task of teaching and interpreting the ancient world for Christian students and others who wish to understand the ancient context in which the early development of the faith occurred.

The Classics Department is one of the oldest at Calvin College, tracing its origins to the Literary Department of the divinity school in which Calvin originated in 1876. Since Calvin was established by Dutch immigrants for the training of ministers, the classical languages have always been a part of the Calvin curriculum. Even today, ancient languages play a large role in the training of clergy for our parent denomination, the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

However, seminarians no longer constitute the majority of classics students at Calvin. Many students take Latin to fulfill their foreign language requirement, and more than a few non-seminarians take classical Greek for the pleasure of reading ancient texts (including the New Testament) in the original. Pre-seminarians will often major in Greek; we also maintain a Latin major that is usually selected by students of education who wish to teach that language on a secondary level.

Students who have a more general interest in literature and the liberal arts may be found in our classics-in-translation courses; an increasing number of them choose our Classical Studies major, which involves some study of one of the ancient languages along with an interdisciplinary program that may include courses in classics-in-translation, philosophy, history, religion and theology, archaeology, and another ancient language. Students often combine a Classical Studies major with a more career-oriented program. Finally, the Classics Department offers courses in Calvin's minors in Archaeology and Medieval Studies.

AWARDS & SCHOLARSHIPS: Students who major in classics are eligible to be considered for special awards and scholarships.