MONMOUTH, Ill. — Whether editing an encyclopedia on the ancient world or appearing as a guest on radio talk shows, Monmouth College professor Tom Sienkewicz is a tireless promoter of the Classics.

Sienkewicz’ latest endeavor is to call attention to the national shortage of K-12 Latin teachers. Last year, he helped create National Latin Teacher Recruitment Week (NLTRW), which he and his co-founders hope will address the shortage and encourage students to consider a career as a Latin teacher. NLTRW is observed in schools and colleges throughout the United States during the first week of March every year.

For this year’s celebration, Sienkewicz, Monmouth’s Capron Professor of Classics and a member of the faculty since 1984, asked Jeff Rankin, director of MC’s communications office, to design a Latin teacher recruitment poster modeled on the famous "Uncle Sam Wants You" Army recruitment poster. These posters are already appearing around campus and elsewhere.

In addition, the following NLTRW activities are planned at Monmouth:

• Students in Sienkewicz’ advanced Latin classes will gather for a pizza party on Feb. 29 and will take Latin sight translation tests for Eta Sigma Phi, the National Classics Honorary Society.
   
• Dawn McRoberts, a 2003 MC graduate who teaches Latin and Spanish at Wilkins Junior High School in Justice, Ill., will visit Sienkewicz’ Elementary Latin 102 class on March 1 to talk about her experiences teaching Latin in middle school.
   
• Also on March 1, the MC Classics department will sponsor the 19th Annual Bernice L. Fox Classics Lecture at 7:30 p.m. in the Whiteman-McMillan Highlander Room in the college’s Stockdale Center. This year’s speaker is Anne Browning Nelson from Assumption College in Worcester, Mass. The title of her presentation will be "Education in Fourth-Century Alexandria: Didymus the Blind’s Commentaries on the Psalms." The goal of this series is to illustrate the continuing importance of Classical studies in the modern world and the intersection of the Classics with other disciplines in the liberal arts.
   
• On March 2, students in Sienkewicz’ Elementary Latin class will join more than 100,000 Latin students in the United States and Canada in taking the National Latin Exam, sponsored by the American Classical League.