has also allowed us to award our first MA and PhD scholarships: the first successful MA student has already embarked on her studies and the new PhD student will begin in October. A340 Roman Empire is just one part of the renewal of undergraduate curriculum that is taking place in the Department at the moment. Over the course of the next two years we will be saying goodbye to all our remaining 30-point modules: A297 Reading Classical Latin, A397 Continuing Classical Latin and A251 World Archaeology. The drive in the university has been towards 60-point modules and curriculum rationalization, in the spirit of which our Latin offering is going to be distilled into a single 60-point course, A276 Classical Latin: The Language of Ancient Rome. This module, which is due to be presented for the first time in October 2014, will combine the study of beginner’s Latin with the study of Rome’s culture, history and literature. From 2014 students will therefore have three Classical Studies modules to choose from at Level 2 – A219 (Exploring the Classical World), A275 (Greek) and A276 (Latin) – and from 2015, there will be two Level 3 modules available – A330 (Myth) and A340 (Roman Empire). What will emerge from this period of renewal and restructuring of undergraduate modules is, in my view, an appealing and coherent Classical Studies curriculum which is more than up to the task of attracting a new generation of students (who in England will be locked into the new fees structure, of course). The increased emphasis in the university is to ask students to sign up for a programme of study (e.g. BA English or BA Humanities with Classical Studies) and to suggest ‘pathways’ for students to follow in order to achieve these aims. One benefit of this approach is that, by putting together our own pathways for Classical Studies students, we have been able to demonstrate that there is potential to offer a named degree in Classical Studies at the OU. This is now an idea being actively pursued and we hope to find out this autumn if we have university approval. This is by no means a done deal yet – and it is also unclear at present whether a BA in Classical Studies is something we could offer only to new students or whether existing students would be able to claim the qualification, too – but it is an exciting prospect nonetheless. It is not just at undergraduate level that our
curriculum is changing. It was the last (REF)of The Research Excellence Framework year is presentation of the foundationthe qualityof our the new system for assessing module of
research in UK higher education institutions.
current MA in 2012 and so this present cohort of students will be the last to work its way through the system. The good news is that last October we gained approval for a new MA in Classical studies, which is set to be presented for the first time in October 2014. This qualification will have a two-year structure, comprising a 60-point Postgraduate Foundation Module, studied over nine months (we are currently writing this), followed by a 120-point subject + dissertation module, studied over twelve months (which we will be writing next year). The PGF is looking very exciting so far (lots of new material and a very different approach from the old MA) and while the subject module is still very much a work in progress, we have already decided that it will centre on one of our new research strengths as a department: the ancient body. The turnaround times for producing these new modules is extremely tight – not helped by the fact that we have so much undergraduate curriculum in production, too – but I am impressed to see how well everyone here is pulling together as a team and just how strong and engaging our new teaching materials are looking. The mention of research brings me to the subject of the REF. December 2013 marks the end of the census period for the REF (Research Excellence Framework), the government-sponsored exercise which aim ? ?\??\?? H ]X[] H? H\\?Y[?8?&\? X?X?][??] ? ?\?X\??[??\??Y[?
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