The Kenneth J. Reckford Graduate Student Fellowship Fund in Classics

Kenneth J. Reckford (b. 1933) received his AB (1954) and PhD (1957).  He joined the faculty of the Department of Classics at UNC-Chapel Hill as an Assistant Professor in 1960 and rose through the ranks to Kenan Professor of Classics (1994).  Professor Reckford’s research interests include Horace, Vergil, Persius, Aristophanes, and Euripides, on all of whom he has published widely.  His books include Aristophanes’ Old-and-New Comedy I: Six Essays in Perspective (1987) and the revised version of his Martin Lectures in Classics at Oberlin College, Recognizing Persius (2009).  During his time at Carolina, Professor Reckford regularly taught Roman comedy and satire on both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as Aristophanes, Plato, Lucretius, Virgil, and Horace’s Odes. In recognition of his outstanding undergraduate teaching, Professor Reckford was appointed to a Bowman and Gordon Gray Distinguished Term Professorship in 1981-84.  On the graduate level, he was frequently sought out as a graduate supervisor and mentor, and directed some twenty-seven MA theses and eighteen PhD dissertations over the course of his years at Carolina.  His interests in Roman comedy extended beyond teaching the texts in the classroom to staging them in the theater.  One four separate occasions, the last time in 1991, he directed a play of Plautus in the original Latin, which were performed by members of the Department in Murphey Hall.  He retired in 2003.  For a more detailed account, see Kenneth J. Reckford’s page.

Professor Reckford established the Reckford Graduate Student Fellowship Fund in 2006 in order to provide tuition and support to an outstanding graduate student for five years.  The fund enables the Department to recruit outstanding graduate students who might otherwise accept offers from other programs.  Please consider making a gift online to the Reckford Graduate Student Fellowship Fund (107930).