Walls Students Reflect on Ancient Roman Classicist’s Visit

On Wednesday, April 9, Ancient Roman classicist and professor Dame Winifred Mary Beard, visited Walls for a Q and A session. After school, around forty Walls students, alumni, and visitors crowded into the library to ask her questions, ranging from her personal journey as a woman in classics to the perspectives of Ancient Romans. Afterwards, people had the opportunity to talk to her one-on-one and take pictures.

To Gwen Morris (‘25), one leader of the Latin club, the fact that Beard was the only woman teaching at the University of Cambridge stood out to her the most. “She made so much progress as a woman in the field, when that was sort of a rare thing,” Morris explained. She recalled that Beard had described her experience with sexism as “silly,” saying that you just had to “laugh at it.” Morris reflected upon Beard’s choice to laugh at sexism as “changing up the status quo [which] I thought was super powerful.”

Sabrina Rawlings (‘27), who attended the visit because of her love for history, also left inspired by Beard. Her main takeaway was that “our view, specifically [on] the Romans, can change as our society continues to change.” Violet Kent (‘28) agreed with Rawlings, adding that she “appreciated how thorough [Beard] was” with her answers.

After the talk, Beard herself reflected on the visit. To her, coming to Walls to talk with highschoolers seemed “absolutely essential… a no brainer… [because] you’re the people we have to inspire.” For anyone interested in learning more about classics, Latin club meets every Wednesday at 3:30 in room 324.