Dimitra Toothaker, a lively little woman with bright blue eyes, asks one of the students in her Modern Greek class to read a paragraph out of the textbook. Somehow, he renders meaning from the alien script, slowly translating sentence after sentence.
“Neh,” Toothaker says, which is “yes” in Greek. “Very good!”
Dimitra Toothaker, a native of Athens, Greece, says she has been teaching the class for two semesters, and that the class was offered for one semester before she joined. She is a Speech Pathologist at Midcoast Hospital in Brunswick, Maine.
“UNH is the closest school [offering Modern Greek] that I know of,” said Mary Snell, Arts Promotion Director with the Music Department. Snell is also Vice President of Paideia, a cultural advocacy group that is paying Toothaker’s salary in the Modern Greek class.
“It’s a pretty good deal for the university,” Snell said. “They get the tuition and we [Paideia] pay for the teacher.”
Justin Jones, a jazz performance junior, is glad that Paideia’s support has made the class possible.
“When I saw that only three other students had signed up last summer, I thought they were going to cancel the class,” He said. “I’m glad [Paideia] stepped in and saved it. It’s a great class.”
That is how the Paideia does its business, according to Snell. The group was founded in 1977 at the University of Connecticut at Stores, and came to USM in 2001. The non-profit group’s purpose is to promote Greek culture and language in the academic world. The Group partners with state universities and helps build programs in Hellenistic, or Greek, Studies.
“In some universities, we’ve gone so far as help establish whole departments of Hellenistic Studies,” Snell said.
Underwriting the Modern Greek class is only one way that Paideia is promoting Hellenistic Culture at USM. Every other summer, USM’s Summer Session offers a course called “Cultural Landscape of Greece,” which brings students to Greece, where they visit ancient and modern Greek sites. Snell, who has a summer home on the island of Lesvos, where the class is taught, is the professor of this class.
“We start at the ancient agora, or marketplace, in Athens, which is where most peoples’ understanding of Greece stops,” Snell says. She then takes them to the modern marketplace in Mytilene, Lesvos’ capital city. “By seeing what has stayed the same and what has changed, you begin to get a deeper understanding of the culture,” Snell said.
USM has been sending students to Lesvos every summer since 1993 in a geology course led by Irwin Novak, associate professor of geology. It is a 100-level course that fulfills the University’s core Natural Sciences, or “K” requirement.
“Instead of a lab indoors, we have daily field trips,” Novak said. He said his class has a cultural component unique to the core science classes.
“We consider the human/geology relationship, how it [the land] is affected by our presence,” he said. The geological and cultural classes alternate by the year, with Novak’s section going on odd-numbered years.
Snell said the course description for the 2004 trip will be available on the summer session website soon, and that interested students should sign up as soon as it is available. According to Snell, 2002’s Cultural Landscapes class filled up quickly, with 15 students enrolled.
Mytilene, the city where Snell’s students stay for most of their visit, is set to become Portland’s sister city later this month. On Oct. 17, Mytilene’s mayor will inaugurate the relationship, and on Oct. 20th, Portland’s City Council will officially vote on the resolution to effect the liaison.
This month will also see the visit of Mytilene-born artist Sophia Tata in Portland. Tata is a tapestry weaver who is famous for her use of traditional, natural dyes from her country’s environment. Most modern weavers have switched to artificial dyes. Tata will be giving two free lectures on her trade at USM: One on Oct. 21 from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in Robie Hall’s Burnham Lounge in Gorham; and on Oct. 24 from 7 to 8 p.m. in the Luther Bonney Auditorium in Portland. She will also lead tapestry weaving workshops, which require an RSVP and cost $5 on Oct. 21 and 22 at several locations throughout Portland. For more information on Tata’s visit or other Greece-related events, contact Mary Snell at 780-5256.
John Bronson can be contacted at [email protected]