Professor Michael Scott
Giving WATE to Dr Michael Scott
Dr Michael Scott won a WATE award in 2016. He says it's helped him, his department, and most importantly, his students.
What did WATE help to fund for Classics?
A replica Greek Kylix
The first thing I want to report back on might seem small, but it's a great addition to our collection: we funded a replica of the famous Exekias ‘Dionysus’ kylix from the fifth century BC.
These drinking cups are used in our first year Greek Culture and Society module, and whenever we recreate a symposium, we ask students to try drinking from one. They bring history to life in such a tangible way; it's no longer just 2D images in textbooks - it helps them to realise how people engage with the images on these vessels.
Digital technology for podcasting
We're enormously keen to develop podcasting as part of teaching and outreach work. We invested some of the funding into technology which will let us create and edit high-quality recordings, both in the classroom and out in the field. These will be used specially for our new widening participation project called '2020 – Advocating Classics Education'.
Ancient Global History Research and Teaching
As I write this, I'm on a Leverhulme Research Fellowship researching the trade of luxury goods in antiquity between the Mediterranean, Asia, India, and China, and the WATE funding has helped to pay for some extra research books for this project. All this work will feed into a new teaching module I've designed for next year called 'Ancient Global History from Confucius to Constantine'.
Oiko.world digital portal
This is one of the most exciting initiatives we're launching because of the WATE award and an earlier Warwick Impact Fund Strategic and Departmental project. Oiko.world is a digital portal for people to find out more about the interconnections between ancient cultures from the Mediterranean to China.
We'll be getting staff and students to contribute to it (my students on next year's new module will be some of the first!) and it'll be integral to our digital resources going forward, and will help us inspire more people to have a real love of the Classics.
"It was an enormous honour winning the WATE award, and it's been incredibly helpful for us and for our undergraduates. It's helped us create a new module and new digital exercises in existing modules, and it's given us the potential to vastly expand our outreach work, inspiring future scholars to enjoy the wonders of ancient history too."