My Experience with the Virginia Governor’s Latin Academy

By Bridget Webb ‘25

Week One:

My first week at the Governor’s Latin Academy (or GLA) was one to remember. This three-week long (phoneless!!) intensive summer program consisted of 45 students from across the state, many from the Northern Virginia area. In this program, we studied the Latin language and Roman and Greek culture, which are all things I am interested in. Our six classes were introduced this week: Ancient Epistolary Practices, Voices of Ancient Women, Ancient Satire and Comedy, Ancient Greek, Ancient Art, and An Introduction to Pre-Roman Civilizations in Europe. We would take three classes a day, 50 minutes each, taught across the many classrooms at Randolph Macon College (the classrooms were freezing!).

Upon looking at my new schedule, I found that we had a couple of new guest speakers a week. In our first week, we had a numismatist come and teach us about Roman coins. Fascinating! We also had a Roman auxiliary group come and showcase real and remodeled ancient military weapons, battle gear, and tools. Students could try on Roman helmets and armor while playing with swords and slingshots. Everyone enjoyed the experience.

We also had movie night every week, where we watched movies tied to our ancient studies. On our first week, we watched Iphigenia, a dramatic retelling of the myth of Agamemnon painfully sacrificing his daughter to the gods. Each film had a passionate discussion afterward, with many students eager to express their emotions about the movie and their feelings about audience reactions during and after the film. But because we are at the Latin Governor’s school, it is imperative that we are immersed in the Latin language. Each week, we had immersion activities, where, for a few hours, we were restricted to speaking only in Latin. For our first week, our immersion activity was a mock food market, where we all gathered to buy and sell authentic Roman snacks. While our Latin was not the sharpest, the opportunity of being able to speak a language that we had only learned to read and write in was a deeply enriching experience for us all.

To finalize our week, because we are in Richmond, we had to stop by the Virginia state capitol. And while this trip was less for learning and more for recreation, it was an immensely enjoyable experience that gave me the opportunity to bond with my classmates and learn about a city I knew so little about. Week one, completed!

Week Two:

Week two was a slower (and rainier) week that helped us transition from our previous chaotic week into one of rhythm and familiarity. We woke up each morning, went to breakfast, and attended one of our three morning classes. We would then attend lunch and participate in some form of activity for the afternoon. This structured schedule helped ease us into the flow of the academy while also letting us adjust to a reality with no phones or devices. This week, another speaker joined us: a William and Mary professor lecturing about ancient archeology. How do we find ancient ruins and artifacts today? How can we analyze these pieces to better understand the classical world? Questions like these have helped us shape our view of ancient society, and it was fascinating learning about how so much of what we study has been recovered.

Along with this lecture, we also had another professor, one from Randolph Macon, come in and teach us about ancient chemistry. This was by far one of my favorite lectures because a practice perceived to be so modern has actually been practiced loosely so many centuries before. Ancient paints, molds, and medicines all relate to chemistry, and learning about how they were created really fueled my intellectual curiosity.

In addition to learning from guest speakers, we also participated in another immersion activity, one that lasted almost six hours (and it was on my birthday...). In this event, we partook in a heated Roman-inspired battle board game, similar to war, where teams fought with one another to acquire materials and conquer land to grow their providence. The activity was a great representation of how colonization can work and the devastating effects it has on indigenous people and their land. It was an educationally enriching experience.

Recreationally, week two was full of exciting and hands-on activities that helped us bond with one another as a group. July Fourth was a scattered but lively day filled with outdoor activities and events. We spent our morning playing games like Capture the Flag and water balloon war, basking in the sun, and bonding with our group. We had a fully catered breakfast, lunch, and dinner, which was drastically different than our limited “Estes food” from the infamous dining hall. We all enjoyed and cherished our one-time treat of Panera sandwiches and Domino’s pizza. We finished the evening watching a cozy Studio Ghibli film called Whisper of the Heart, bringing our blankets and pillows and piling into one of Randolph Macon’s lecture halls. Week two was an amazing week to strengthen friendships and adjust to the rhythm of GLA.

Week Three:

Week three was our final week, a week full of reminiscing. We as a group had grown rather close, our bonds were strong, and we were all unhappy about the idea of parting ways at the end of the week. Our week was jam-packed with trips and activities to close out our three weeks on a cheerful note. We had two trips this week, one being a trip to a theatre outside of Richmond where we saw the Christopher Marlowe play Dr Faustus, a 16th-century adaptation of a mischievous German doctor. The other trip was to the Virginia Museum of the Fine Arts, a beautiful gallery in Richmond that displayed an impressive classical art section. Both trips were incredibly fascinating and enlightening.

We also concluded our week with one final guest speaker visiting us from UVA, to give us a lecture on the Romans interpretation of Mercury, the messenger of the gods. His lecture was fascinating, and it gave many of us a deep-dive understanding of a god we were already very familiar with.

Just like we had a final speaker and a final trip, we also had a final immersion activity. This one, however, was not six hours long, but only one hour, where we bought and sold goods we made with our groups in a Latin-style market. This activity was a fan favorite, mainly for its low intensity and fun atmosphere. We all enjoyed buying and selling our goods, such as clay sculptures and “amber” jewelry. It gave many of us an interesting perspective on Roman commerce and ancient economics. And as we finished our activities, we also finished our classes by presenting our mini projects and asking our last-minute questions to our teachers.

Many of us had gotten surprisingly good at Ancient Greek, as some of us had spent afternoons reciting our alphabets and our grammar charts. It was truly fascinating to take some of my classes, such as ancient Greek and ancient epistolary practices, and I believe they really helped strengthen my view on the classical world holistically.

We also ended our week by performing our end-of-program play, one written mostly by us, in Latin! We had worked on it diligently throughout the past few weeks, and we were all excited to perform it for our families at the end of the week. Some of us were actors, some of us worked behind the scenes, but regardless, our teamwork created a riveting production. By the end of our final week, we had all grown tremendously, not only as Latin learners, but also as people. We had gone three weeks without any contact with the outside world, thus forming real and genuine connections with each other, and becoming stronger and more well-rounded individuals from it. I am truly grateful for my experience, and I highly recommend the Virginia Governor’s Academy for anyone interested in an intensive and rewarding program in any of the disciplines offered. Governor’s school, completed!

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