The department faculty represents a range of academic disciplines and is committed, where appropriate, to an interdisciplinary approach in teaching and research.

The core purpose of the department is to offer the opportunity for study of the ancient classical languages, as a crucial point of entry into the conceptual worlds of Greece and Rome. Students are also exposed to the various facets of antiquity that made the ancient Mediterranean world the progenitor of the modern West, not least in its mingling of cultures and belief systems.

The different sub-disciplines and methodologies represented in the department involve multiple ways of exploring and understanding antiquity. Our students explore the philological, literary, and philosophical dimensions of ancient texts, and they engage with material and visual culture and city form through archaeology, epigraphy, and art and architectural history. 

A major in classics, or even a minor, may be (as it often has been) profitably combined with programs aimed toward law, medicine, management, diplomatic service, banking, journalism, library science, or politics; religious, philosophic, literary, or historical studies; careers in the fine arts (visual or performing); or museum or archival work.