Tidy pages of Greek text are scattered across her bright, northeasterly facing office. The shelves overflow with time-worn books, assorted teas, and tropical-colored cups and trinkets, all observed by old posters of James Dean and young Ronald Reagan plastered to the walls. In the midst of it all sits Associate Professor of Classics Lorna Holmes.
Lorna Holmes is known to many as the woman who regularly dresses in floral or tropical prints and sits in the window of the Classics Department, reading. Not as many know, however, that in 1988 – 25 years ago – Holmes and one other professor, Michael Poliakoff, kick-started the Classics Program at Hillsdale College.
Only a few years later, she was the Classics Department.
Since that time, the department has more than tripled, the national classics honorary, Eta Sigma Phi, has grown to be one of the largest on campus, and Holmes has announced her upcoming retirement.
“She’s been a wonderful colleague. There was a time when this department was only Dr. Holmes and no else,” Associate Professor of Classics Gavin Weaire said. “There would be no department without her, and without her I would not have a job. We are going to miss her very much.”
Come the end of the semester, Holmes plans to follow a few of the pursuits that she has neglected in keeping the rigorous schedule of a college professor: read, write, and enjoy the sunshine — outside of Michigan.
“What I am going to do after I retire is I am going to write. I am going to write children’s fiction — not young children but ‘middle children,’” she said. “I’ve never been able to really do scholarship when I am teaching. I’ve always had to wait until sabbatical, so it may work out somehow. It takes a really extraordinary person to be able to get scholarship done with a full class load.”
She plans to write the sort of works which she believes most develop a person, though she expects Greek and Latin will remain in a constant position of importance throughout her life.
“I think children’s literature is a very important type of literature because it is what we read as children and it has a huge effect on us – bigger than what we read as adults really. We read it over and over again,” Holmes said. “Your attitude is different as a child: when you really like something, you just want to relive it and do it all over again.
Holmes specified “Alice in Wonderland” and “Charlotte’s Web” as two which she read innumerable times, though these are just a couple of the many books she treasured as a child.
Along with children’s books, the Classics will retain their important position in her life, but shall become less of a taskmaster.
Classics has been a central figure in her life since her undergraduate studies, Holmes noted, so she likely will continue to read and study, but beyond finishing her Greek commentary on Galatians, she no scholastic writings in mind.
“When I was an undergraduate at the University of Washington, I decided to take a Latin class because I had always wanted to take Latin, and that’s what got me started, and it just snowballed from there,” Holmes said. “So I went from being a German major to Latin, but when I learned about Greek, that’s when I really discovered that’s where I really belonged.”
Until the end of the year, Holmes will maintain her rigorous schedule of reading and writing in Hillsdale, when she and her husband plan to move to Hawaii.
“My husband has a job in Grand Rapids until the end of the year, and then we plan to move.” she said. “Tropical Print Thursday every day!”
After years of effort, Holmes never quite succeeded in getting her long-time tradition of wearing a tropical print every Thursday. Despite its less than enthusiastic reception, she is as unfazed as ever.
“I don’t honestly know [that Tropical Print Thursday has caught on]. I think Lorna likes to do what she likes to do, and that’s sort of the point,” Weaire said. “I resist Tropical Print Thursdays.”
Likewise, Professor of Classics David Jones has not joined the tradition, saying he’s never been to the tropics and doesn’t do well in the heat.
Even outside of the work environment, Holmes is known for going above and beyond the call of duty, using her house for events such as the Floralia – the annual spring Classics celebration – and giving her time to help students in fields less promoted at Hillsdale, such as linguistics.
“She has done amazing things with the Greek program here,” Weaire said. “We are comparable even at other colleges because it is such a hard language, so their programs are often not as big as ours,” Weaire said. “She’s going to leave a big gap. Also in the number of ways she has been amazing, kind, and gentle, not just to me or in the college, but to my wife, Dr. Clark.”
Similarly, Jones emphasized her dedication to her students, in her time and effort put in to teach such a challenging language as Greek.
“Dr. Holmes has been so dedicated and good to her students, for so many years she has really done well by them,” Jones said. “You’re not going to replace Dr. Holmes.”
