Mark Golden Scholarship

The Department of Classics at The University of Winnipeg is pleased to announce a new and important initiative on which they’ve embarked. They are beginning a fundraising drive to establish the Mark Golden Scholarship in Classics in honour of their dearly-missed colleague, one of Canada’s leading scholars of Classical Antiquity, and an icon of The University of Winnipeg.

Across his over 30 years of service to the University, Mark was well known as a generous colleague, distinguished scholar, and inspiring teacher. Mark’s scholarship helped to redefine our knowledge of the past, and he was a ground-breaking researcher with an international and interdisciplinary reputation in the areas of childhood and sport in Ancient Greece and Rome. Mark’s first monograph, Children and Childhood in Classical Athens (Johns Hopkins 1990; revised second edition, 2015), was a landmark in social history that was lauded on its initial release. Reviewers noted its depth and breadth, its incisive consideration of historical detail and methodological questions and, a key strength of Mark’s, its engaging, engrossing, and captivating prose.

Six other monographs and edited volumes round out Mark’s book-length contributions, including critical contributions like Sport and Society in Ancient Greece (Cambridge UP 1998), perhaps one of the most readable, enjoyable, and thought-provoking and suggestive introductions to the study of Mark’s other major field, ancient sports history. Beyond books, however, Mark was a prolific researcher, and his list of publications demonstrates the broad range of topics he worked in by virtue of the broad range of journals and collections in which his work appears: many of the usual, top journals in Classics, but also Arete: The Journal of Sport Literature, Cloelia, and The Palgrave Handbook of Olympic Studies. Mark’s talent, beyond his encyclopedic knowledge of his field and its scholars, was for making the ancient world accessible and comprehensible without sacrificing rigorous attention to historical detail and argumentation; it’s a rare gift.

Amid a slew of awards and fellowships throughout his career, from fellowships at the National Humanities Center to the University of New England (Armadale, NSW), to Cambridge, he was, to the end of his life, the Honorary President of the Classical Association of Canada from 2018-2020.

Mark’s contributions went far beyond scholarship and Classics, and his focus was always on others, especially students, many of whom remember him with fondness and delight decades later. The Department recently began a series re-connecting with alumni called Catching up with Classicists. It’s telling that so many students brought up Mark: Joseph Gerbasi, Maureen Babb, and Jesse Hill credit Mark with nurturing their nascent interest in Classics and Ancient History. As Pauline Ripat put it in her moving obituary for Mark in the Canadian Classical Bulletin, “Mark had, or made, time for everyone.” 

The goal is a scholarship that fits with Mark’s stature in the University community and in the international community of Classical scholars, archaeologists, and ancient historians. The campaign aims to raise $100,000 to be invested in a Fossil-Free Fund in order to annually offer one student a scholarship that covers their entire tuition for that year. The Mark Golden Scholarship in Classics, once fully funded, will be offered to an outstanding student who shows academic promise, scholarly potential, and community engagement, who is entering the second year of the Honours or 4-year Major in Classics. The Department hopes that by offering this generous and substantial award to a student near the beginning of their Classics degree, it will encourage and nurture them to continue in Classics.

All gifts made will be eligible for a tax receipt and can be made by making a gift here: https://netcommunity.uwinnipeg.ca/foundation/donation/2021/mark-golden-scholarship.

If you need assistance in making a gift or prefer not to give online you can contact Individual Giving Manager, Cindy Doyle at the UWFoundation, at (204) 988 – 7509 or c.doyle@uwinnipeg.ca and she’ll be pleased to assist you. Student awards are directed to students attending the university—helping to assist with tuition costs, textbooks, and other school-related expenses. The University of Winnipeg is grateful to all who give back to our campus and our Classics’ majors through this meaningful scholarship. You are making a real difference in the lives of students. The University of Winnipeg is partnered with the Jarislowsky Fraser Fossil Fuel Free Fund, an environmentally friendly fund option for donors to invest.

The Department of Classics hopes you’ll consider contributing to this scholarship in Mark’s name that will only act as a fitting tribute to a scholar, colleague, and friend whose contributions to the collective life at the University of Winnipeg and in Classics in Canada and beyond are hard to reckon.

Please contact Peter Miller (pj.miller@uwinnipeg.ca) to discuss this endeavour by email, phone, or videoconference at your convenience.

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