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Anne Smith, Middle School Latin Teacher, Receives CAAS Honor

Shipley Middle School Latin teacher Anne Smith has been recognized by the Classical Association of the Atlantic States (CAAS) for her more than 30 years of service to the discipline of Latin.

According to the CAAS website, each year at its annual meeting the Association presents ovationes to members who have been selected by the Awards Committee for their significant service to the discipline and the organization. The ovatio is read in Latin by a colleague close to the honoree at the banquet. The ovationes recognize long and distinguished service to CAAS and/or to the classics community by those in the CAAS region.
She will be formally recognized at the 2018 CAAS Annual Meeting occurring October 4-6 at The Inn at Penn in Philadelphia. Dr. Henry V. Bender, a lifelong mentor of Smith’s, will be reading her ovatio.

"I am deeply humbled to be selected for this honor and recognition by the CAAS Awards Committee and Program Committee members, by nomination, among all the many educators promoting excellence through the Classical Studies in these states. It is truly an incredible, wonderful honor to be named a recipient of an ovatio at the upcoming October 2018 CAAS meeting in Philadelphia.”

This year marks Anne’s 25th year of teaching Latin at Shipley, with seven additional years of teaching experience at another independent school. Anne’s teaching career encompasses 6th-12th grade students Latin language courses, some Greek and plays, Classical Art and mythology, interdisciplinary archaeology of the Ancient Classical World, and she leads Shipley’s Italy Trip programs.

Congratulations, Anne! 

Ovatio: Anne Reidell Smith

Duae almae matres huius eximiae praeceptricis fovent profitenturque verba sapientissima. Universitas ubi gradum Baccalaureae Artis est adepta declarat pietate et doctrina tutam esse libertatem;1 universitas quae contulit gradum Magistrae Artium laudibus effert veritatem, unitatem, caritatem.2 Munificissime et pietatem et doctrinam haec femina ostendit, et liberalissime praebuit potestatem veritatis unitatisque caritatisque. Apud academiam quae hortatur ut omnes agamus fortiter in re, leniter in modo3 non solum erudivit res singulas linguae Latinae, partita fructus studiorum suorum Athenis et Romae et in umbris Montis Vesuvii. Multos annos est comitata et discipulas suas et parentes suarum discipularum et discipulorum per res mirabiles urbis Romae Siciliaeque insulae, suadens, modo Sibyllae vatis, ut carperent viam.4 Plaudamus igitur Anne Reidell Smith.

Dickinson College, from which this exceptional teacher received her BA degree, proclaims, in its motto, that freedom stays safe through devotion and learning; Villanova University, which bestowed her MA, nurtures truth, unity and charity. This woman has displayed both devotion and learning most generously, and most unstintingly established the power of truth, unity and charity. At the Shipley School, which extols “Courage for the Deed; Grace for the Doing”, she has taught the ins and outs of the Latin language, and shared the bounty of her studies at the Center for Intercollegiate Studies, the American School of Classical Studies, and the Villa Vergiliana summer programs. For many years she has accompanied her students and their parents through the great sites of Rome and Sicily, urging them, like the Cumaean Sibyl, to make the most of their journey. Let us thus applaud Anne Reidell Smith.
—Henry Bender, St. Joseph’s University, and Judith P. Hallett, University of Maryland, College Park

1 Pietate et doctrina tuta libertas: motto of Dickinson College.
2 Veritas, Unitas, Caritas: motto of Villanova University
3 Fortiter in re; Leniter in modo: motto of The Shipley School
4 Aeneid 6. 629-30, describing the Cumaean Sibyl: Sed iam age, carpe viam et susceptum perfice munus;/ accerelemus. Cf. also Ovid, Metamorphoses 8.208 (Daedalus to Icarus): me duce carpe viam.
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The Shipley School is a private, coeducational day school for pre-kindergarten through 12th grade students, located in Bryn Mawr, PA. Through our commitment to educational excellence, we develop within each student a love of learning and a desire for compassionate participation in the world.