Linda Gillison's Page

Collegae cari,

Our lives have been filled with varied emotions and communications since we all received notification of the changes which the Board of Trustees of the College Board has in mind for AP Latin. We haven’t heard from anyone who is pleased about this—well, there is one colleague who found the silver lining by noting that he can now teach Horace without the satire!—and the disgruntlement has numerous foundations. People are concerned about the continuation of their programs, about the limited scope of the “new” course and exam, about the syllabus audit, about the investment of time and energy in preparation of syllabi for courses which will be taught possibly only one more time. Some of us are lamenting the loss of Cicero—the only prose author in the entire AP Latin program. It has been, in any case, very exciting to hear from so many members of the Latin community from all over the country!

Because we on the Development Committee work with AP teachers a lot (and some of us are AP teachers) and know of many of your concerns, this decision was particularly hard for us to hear. We have always tried to craft excellent exams with rich input from DC members who are high school teachers as well as many of you who have offered comments in one forum or another. We know that this decision feels like a kick in the stomach and not much thanks for all of your work and dedication to your students.

Nonetheless, the reality is that this decision has been made by a board which has the right to decide, and they have reported to us various concerns which they hope to address by making this change. Clearly, many of us do not agree with their approach, but, in the end, they are the decision-makers on this one.

The Board’s first concern is for teacher support. Probably many of you can remember how daunting was the challenge of preparing to teach an AP Latin course for the first time, particularly since it needed to fit into a very busy and hard-working schedule of other class preps. Certainly, some teachers decide against teaching AP Latin because they just feel it is too hard, and they don’t know where to start. We hear requests quite commonly for more support materials and professional development opportunities from those of you who currently teach AP Latin, and we certainly do not want to forget about teachers who are coming newly into the teaching ranks within the next few years and will need all of the help we can give them. According to reports to the Board, 39% of AP teachers will be retiring within the next five years. CB proposes to increase the AP Latin budget by 50% and to dedicate a considerable amount of the new funds to teacher support—on-line and otherwise. We think this will be a very good thing.

As we mentioned in our recent posting, the DC has not made any decisions about the “new” exam. You can be sure that we will be working on this and will be asking for your input. Meanwhile, we hope that we can start to move forward. Work with a large concern like College Board can be a challenge, as working with diverse interests often is. Can we try to consider the concerns of the CB and keep foremost in our minds the long-term welfare of the program and our students? This can be a chance for re-evaluation and improvement. When the decision has been made—as it has—our response to it and the way we present any decisions to our students can make a world of difference in the way they receive the news and in the benefits they continue to draw from AP Latin.

Again, there is no way that we can construe this as “good news.” To quote Pete Howard, who was quoting, well, whom?—forsan et haec. We look forward to further work with you in the challenging days ahead. Curate ut valeatis.

Linda W. Gillison
Chairperson, AP Latin Development Committee

Mary Pendergraft
Chief Reader, AP Latin