House Professors: Lauren Curtis and Rob Cioffi
Having a home on campus provided Curtis and Cioffi with a sense of community and connection that they loved from the very beginning of their time at Bard. They're excited to get more involved with life on campus by joining the Bard Houses program and welcoming students to McWilliams House.
Having a home on campus provided Curtis and Cioffi with a sense of community and connection that they loved from the very beginning of their time at Bard. They're excited to get more involved with life on campus by joining the Bard Houses program and welcoming students to McWilliams House.
ABOUT MCWILLIAMS HOUSE
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Lauren Curtisis associate professor of classics.
Originally from the north of England, Curtis studied classics at University College, Oxford, where she found in the close-knit residential community the support she needed as a first-generation student away from home for the first time. “It helped me find my niche,” she says. “Everyone knew your name—there were so many opportunities for a welcoming chat and a cup of tea. It made a big difference.” She teaches Latin and Greek at all levels, as well as courses in translation on topics such as gender and sexuality in the ancient world and introductory Roman history and culture, and courses on Greek and Roman poetry and drama. Curtis’s research focuses on ancient Greek and Roman poetry, music, and dance, and she is affiliated with the Gender and Sexuality Studies and Literature programs. She is always interested to meet with students who want to discover more about the Greek and Roman worlds.
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Rob Cioffiis assistant professor of classics.
Rob grew up in a small town in New Hampshire—where one of his earliest memories is of a goat pinning him down and eating his hair. When he moved to Harvard as an undergraduate, he was amazed and a little overwhelmed by the possibilities. “When I came to my first advising session, I had three pages of classes I wanted to take,” he remembers. Eventually, he found a home in the classics department. He was drawn to classics not only because of the subject matter but because it was a place where students and faculty had meaningful conversations in and outside of class. With his students, he loves to talk about ancient Greek novels, ghosts, and narratives of travel and ethnography, from Homer’s Odyssey to Heliodorus’s An Ethiopian Story (third or fourth century CE). He is particularly interested in the intersection of ancient empires and literary expression, and in the interactions between the literatures of ancient Greece and Egypt.
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Marie McWilliamsMcWilliams House is named for Marie McWilliams, sister of Bard alumnus Francis X. McWilliams ’44.
Marie McWilliams (1925–2014) was one of the first women to serve as a corporate vice president at the American Broadcasting Company in New York City, a post she held for 27 years. McWilliams is remembered for her professional ambition, love of nature, and commitment to her community. She fell in love with Bard during the many visits she made to see her brother Francis when he was a student at the College in the 1940s. Both she and her brother remained loyal to Bard, and their legacy lives on with the establishment in 2017 of the Marie McWilliams and Francis X. McWilliams ’44 Scholarship, awarded to an undergraduate who studies at the Annandale campus and demonstrates financial need. -
McWilliams HouseLauren Curtis and Rob Cioffi have lived on campus since they arrived at Bard, in 2013. At home, Curtis and Cioffi enjoy cooking, baking, watching far too much TV, and spending time with their dog, Vinnie, a small Welsh terrier who is very social and loves all her Bard friends. Students in McWilliams House can expect regular homemade meals, book clubs, and TV nights, as well as outdoor events exploring the Bard campus and the beautiful Hudson Valley.
