Ronald S. Stroud Fellowship Fund

The family and friends of the late Ronald S. Stroud invite contributions toward a new endowed fellowship at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (ASCSA) to honor his memory. The Ronald S. Stroud Fellowship will fund academic-year Regular Memberships for graduate students, with a preference for epigraphy.

ABOUT RONALD S. STROUD

Ron Stroud was a distinguished scholar whose long association with the School spanned more than six decades. The accolades Ron received in his long career as a leading scholar of Greek history and epigraphy give some indication of his stature in Classical Studies. He was Klio Distinguished Professor of Classical Languages and Literature Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley; co-editor for many years of the Supplementum Epigraphicum Graecum; Whitehead Professor at the ASCSA in 1993–1994; Mellon Professor at the ASCSA from 1996 to 1999; and recipient of the Berkeley Citation (2006), the ASCSA Alumni/ae Association's Aristeia Award (2013), and the ASCSA's Athens Prize (2018). He was also honored with a Festschrift, ΑΞΩΝ: Studies in Honor of Ronald S. Stroud, in 2015.

At his core, Ron was not only a devoted scholar but also a passionate philhellene. From the moment he boarded the Queen Frederiki bound for Greece in 1959, his future was set. His love of the people of Greece began in his cabin while talking with his fellow passengers, five much older Greek men. Over decades of walking through the Greek countryside, Ron gained an unparalleled understanding of ancient topography while observing modern Greek life as it evolved from the post-war period. As a result, Ron came to know the land and its people to a degree well beyond the greatest hopes of the School's founders 140 years ago.

They envisioned a School that would encourage students to combine book knowledge with experience. Ron exemplified that ideal. He led the excavation of the Sanctuary of Demeter and Kore at Corinth and directed the team of scholars who published it, contributing two volumes of his own. He was in so many ways the firm, yet encouraging, guiding hand for the modern international field of Greek epigraphy. He returned to the School as often as he could, surrounding himself with books in the Blegen Library reading room. More often than not, however, he was actually reading a student's thesis chapter or a colleague's manuscript. At Corinth, his own research was often distracted by the fascinating discoveries and insights of his colleagues, and they were never in doubt that Ron was genuinely interested in what they had found. Back in his office, the seminar rooms, and the lecture halls of Berkeley, he was no less firm and no less encouraging. He expected great effort from his students, but he deeply appreciated each student's talents and accomplishments.

ABOUT THE STROUD FELLOWSHIP

Ron's family and friends have spearheaded an effort to raise $500,000 to endow a fellowship at the School in his name. The Ronald S. Stroud Fellowship will fund academic-year Regular Memberships for graduate students, with a preference for epigraphy. The aim of the Stroud Fellowship is to give successive generations the opportunity to develop the qualities Ron exemplified: devotion to rigorous scholarship, a spirit of respectful collegiality, and an abiding love of Greece itself, from the smallest kafeneion to the most windswept ruins.