Community News (Winter 2019)

This article appeared in ISAW Newsletter 23, Winter 2019.

Three men and one woman pose standing for a photograph. The man third from left holds a large, framed document in front of his body. L to R:Todd Hickey (ASP President), Jennifer Sheridan Moss (Past President), Roger Bagnall, William Johnson (Secretary-Treasurer) On Friday, January 4th, 2019 the American Society of Papyrologists (ASP) called an “exceptional business meeting” at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Classical Studies in order to award Professor Emeritus Roger Bagnall, the first Leon Levy Director of the Institute for the Study of the Ancient World, the title of Honorary President.

As Prof. James Keenan recounted at the ceremony, Prof. Bagnall played an integral role in the life of the Society from its early days as an undergraduate at Yale in the late 1960s through its subsequent development over the last fifty years, repeatedly serving as an officer, an editor of its scholarly publications, and a trustee. In his remarks Prof. Keenan noted not only Prof. Bagnall’s tireless service to the organization and his contributions to its journal (Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists) and monograph series, but also his pioneering scholarship, his instrumental role in organizing, implementing, and now endowing papyri.info, which has become the indispensable online tool in papyrology, and his commitment to training the next generation of papyrologists through the resurrection and endowment of the ASP Summer Institutes.

The ASP has bestowed the title of Honorary President for Life only once before in 1973, on Herbert Chayyim Youtie of the University of Michigan, one of the Society’s original 25 members.