ClassConn Distinguished Service Award 2021
Susan Craig
Speech given by Paula Chabot at the Annual Meeting
Our recipient was born in the Midwest, was an undergraduate at Beloit, including her sophomore year in Southern France, and a grad student at the University of Wisconsin in French and education. So far she had had only 2 years of HS Latin. From 1978-81 she taught French at the International School in Brussels, the only non-native French teacher. Her husband Peter also taught there. She ended up in CT because her husband was from here. She began teaching French, 1st in New Milford, then Canton Junior High and on to Shepaug Valley Regional HS in Washington, CT. There she was “voluntold” to also teach Latin. So, with a full-time job, 3 children and a 40-minute commute, she got her certification by correspondence in 1 ½ years . . . and then they cut her position to half time. So on to seven years at the Forman School in Litchfield teaching French and Latin, the Woodhall School in Bethlehem, Brookfield HS for four years, all the while teaching French, Latin and ECE French.
In 2000 she succeeded Maureen Shugrue of beloved memory at Torrington HS, teaching French, 4 levels of Latin then a UConn ECE class for Latin. She also spent four grueling summers at the U of Georgia in Athens—actually one was in Rome, under Rick LaFleur—to get her Masters in Latin. She described the choices: eat, sleep, study – choose two.
She “retired” in 2012 and she and Peter moved to a lovely house in Branford. Retired is in quotation marks because in 2013 she put out feelers to other retirees and we have met/Zoomed every couple of months over the last few years. Please see the blurb on the ClassConn website. The more, the merrier.
That wasn’t enough so, upon joining the Branford Senior Center, she offered to teach French and Latin. French worked until the pandemic, but Latin has continued because, as a non-spoken language, it works on Zoom. You may remember her and her seniors, appropriately clad, at CSLD. She now has three classes, two days a week, that can meet in person and on Zoom at the Branford Public Library which has better technology than the senior center. A librarian there praises her for providing an outlet for learning and mental activity that keeps the spirit of Latin alive. She recently got a $500 grant from the Society for Classical Studies to buy materials for her classes.
But is she only into intellectual pursuits? Start with a three-month summer travel-by-motor scooter with her brother in Europe while in high school to a 450-mile canoe trip down the Meuse River with husband and 3- and 5- year-old daughters to their recently completed 373 navigable miles of the Connecticut River by canoe with a cat companion for a while. Intrepid and formidable!
Her academic honors and many experiences make for fascinating reading. Of course one honor was as president of ClassConn in 2002-2003. By now we are all aware that our recipient is:
SUSAN CRAIG
Her bowl is inscribed with this quotation from Seneca:
tamdiu discendum est, quamdiu vivas.
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