Award-Winning UC Classics Professor Always Focused on Discovery

Whether she’s coaching graduate students in Classics to share true stories of gladiators with local teens or excavating archeological history in Troy, Kathleen Lynch serves the University of Cincinnati College of Arts and Sciences with distinction.

This year, she received the Dean’s Award for Faculty Excellence, funded by UC's Office of the Provost and the Office of Research. It was the latest in a career-long series of recognition for her the associate professor's work in the field, in the classroom and as an administrator.

Lynch's awards for teaching, research, writing and leading her department in a variety of capacities illustrate her dedication not just to her discipline, but to UC in general and Classics in particular. “People come from around the world to this department to study with us, to use our library,” she said. “The resources are amazing. The students are amazing.”

When Lynch herself was a student, though, she wasn’t immediately sold on the subject that has become the passion of her academic pursuits. She studied biology as a pre-med undergraduate. “Like all liberal arts majors, I had to take electives, and my electives were in archeology,” she said. “I absolutely loved it.”

The class experience challenged her intellect in new and exciting ways. “There are so many questions that we don’t know the answers to,” she said. 

She wanted to know more about how people lived in ancient times—regular people, not just major leaders and public figures. “We call it the study of non-elites,” she said.

She focused on pottery, which led to discoveries about the lifestyles of ancient Greeks, who, it turns out, spent more time drinking together than eating together. She wrote an award-winning book, “The Symposium in Context,” that explored how the Symposium (which means “drinking together”) shaped Greek life and celebrations as well as influenced future civilizations.

This semester, she’s teaching a graduate course on the topic. “Although I’ve written a whole book about it, the students are helping me see new angles,” she said. “There is still more to learn.”

That constant quest for learning inspires Lynch’s multi-faceted career. She has worked as the top-ranked Classics Department’s undergraduate director, graduate director and was acting chair for a year—making her the first woman in nearly 100 years to fill that leadership role. 

But perhaps one of her most valued experiences remains teaching graduate students and helping them develop their own areas of research expertise and their own distinctive voices. “They are the next generation,” she said.

She adds outreach to that next generation, and to the general public, to her ongoing work. She founded Classics Outreach, which sends graduate students into schools around the community to talk about topics like gladiators. 

But her impact reaches beyond campus as well. She worked with the Cincinnati Art Museum on a complete re-do of their ancient art galleries and is currently assisting with the second phase of a major project to update the museum’s Near Eastern galleries. “That will really be an opportunity to showcase the history of archeology and exploration through Cincinnati.”