1960s: IU School of Liberal Arts hosts a foreign language department, including a professor each of French, German, and Spanish. Classical Studies is not involved, other than Latin being the ancestor language of French and Spanish.
1970s: Each language program gains degree-granting status and becomes its own department. Classical Studies is still not involved, other than providing an analogy with the breakup of the Western Empire into separate independent regions after Constantine divided the Roman Empire into two sections.
1990: The Classical Studies Program is finally established at IUPUI. Along with Japanese Studies, Classical Studies is housed in the Department of German. Presumably this combination was arrived at through administrative convenience, rather than some latent attempt to establish a department around the WWII Axis Powers.
1996: The Department of German somehow has acquired Bahasa Malay and Russian as well. The sheer absurdity of this combination becomes overwhelming, and the department joins the Department of French (which also includes Arabic, because sure, why not) to form the Department of Foreign Languages and Cultures, which later became World Languages and Cultures (WLAC).
1997: The Department of Spanish (which also housed Italian) joins the merged department. The metaphor for the Roman World (give or take some trade routes) is now complete.
2013: Dr. Elizabeth Thill joins Classical Studies as the program’s second ever tenure-line faculty member, following Dr. Bob Sutton. This change of leadership is accomplished without anyone’s head ending up in a basket, and accordingly there is much rejoicing. Dr. Thill will later go on to write a book chapter that includes a study of the role of decapitation in Senatorial politics.
2022: Dr. Andy Findley joins the program as Lecturer in Classical Studies and Art History. If he begins a coup attempt, it has not yet come to fruition, as of the time of writing.
2024: The Classical Studies Program moves under the administrative umbrella of the Department of History. If this is part of a master plan for CLAS to take over the School of Liberal Arts, it has not yet come to fruition, as of the time of writing. But just you wait. Just you wait.
