The classical studies department crowned three seniors with the Corona Classica, an award which honors an outstanding senior who is continuing in the classics or a related field. Joshua Benjamins, LaRae Ferguson, and Andrew Koperski received the award at the Honors Assembly in February.
Associate Professor of Classical Studies Joseph Garnjobst said because they had three very strong candidates, it was necessary to give the award to three seniors.
“They’ve gone to national conferences and presented some of their scholarship, at least two apiece,” Garnjobst said. “That is a feather in everyone’s cap.”
All three of the awardees have quite different stories about how they came to the classics.
Benjamins, a history and Latin major, said he took only five months of Latin before coming to Hillsdale. He enjoyed it so much that he decided to major.
“The department was fantastic and the classes were tremendous, and so I was hooked straightaway,” he said.
Benjamins, who said his passion is for late antiquity and early Christian theology, especially Augustine, has presented papers at a number of conferences, including Eta Sigma Phi conferences. He has won prizes in various national translation conferences in both Latin and Greek, and is currently co-translating a 16th-century Latin text which is set to be published next year. Garnjobst called Benjamins Hillsdale’s “most decorated champion.”
Ferguson is both a Greek and Latin major. She began Greek freshman year, and picked up Latin afterwards. She said the department is strong in classical Greek, but her interest is in Koine Greek also.
“They just have this really infectious enthusiasm that is really great and is probably one of the biggest factors in my decision to go with the classics department,” she said. “It took me a long time, as Dr. Garnjobst will testify, to actually decide to be a Greek and Latin major.”
Ferguson is also a two-time national champion in Greek translation.
“My favorite thing to do is to compare language apostle Paul uses with language of classical Greek authors, especially in regards to moral questions,” she said.
Koperski is a Latin and history major who took Latin from an early age. By the end of high school, he had taken a lot of Latin and Greek, and so his competency and interest in the languages prompted him to continue at Hillsdale.
Koperski said that he particularly enjoys studying Virgil.
“He’s a very good poet in that he likes to ask very tough questions, questions that I think every society needs to ask itself,” he said. According to Koperski, there is also overlap between these and the important questions that Hillsdale naturally asks.
Koperski has also presented papers at conferences and has published a book review in the Eta Sigma Phi publication.
He said that he is honored to be mentioned alongside Benjamins and Ferguson for the award.
“To be mentioned in the same sentence with two people that I have taken a lot of classes with meant a lot to me, more as a symbolic finish to the career than anything else,” he said.
All three are deciding on graduate schools after graduation.
Garnjobst, who crowns the victors with ivy garlands at graduation, said he used to scrounge around the houses of friends and colleagues for ivy before he began growing it.
“I took the name corona, crown, seriously, and now it’s become a thing,” he said. “I didn’t know there is a large street value for crowns, but apparently there is.”
The three awardees all expressed their excitement to receive the homemade crowns. Garnjobst, who in the past has only needed to weave one crown, now worries that the winter will hinder ivy growth.
“Now I have to come up with a substantial amount of ivy,” he said.
