NECTFL: Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

The Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages

2007 James W. Dodge Memorial Foreign Language Advocate Award, given outside the profession in recognition of work on behalf of languages: The Honorable Paul S. Sarbanes

The son of immigrants from Laconia, Greece, Paul Sarbanes is Marylandï¿½s longestserving United States Senator and an esteemed political leader in the Greek American community. Senator Sarbanes recently completed a thirty-year tenure in the Senate, where he served as a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and worked tirelessly on issues surrounding NATO, regional security, the military occupation of Cyprus by Turkey, and the future of the people of Cyprus. As a member of the Senate Banking Committee, he was also instrumental in the creation of one of the most significant corporate reform measures in decades, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. Prior to his service in the Senate, he served six years in the United States House of Representatives and four years in the Maryland House of Delegates.

Senator Sarbanes has long traced his strong sense of civic duty to the public life of ancient Greece and the rich contributions that the classical world made to the development of modern democracy. Recently, he explained that in ancient Athens,ï¿½those who lived only in private life were falling short. They were called idiotes, from which our word idiot is derived today.ï¿½ Indeed, just last year, the International Coordinating Committee ï¿½Justice for Cyprusï¿½ presented Senator Sarbanes with the Livanos Award, given annually to an individual ï¿½who has utilized ancient Hellenic values to realize extraordinary achievement in modern society while contributing to the improvement of our civilization.ï¿½

Senator Sarbanesï¿½ commitment to the classical world does not end there.The accomplishments of his family also testify to this commitment. Senator Sarbanesï¿½ wife, Christine, taught Latin and Classical Greek at the Gilman School in Baltimore, Maryland, for twenty-two years, from 1978 to 2000, and was an instructor of Classics at Goucher College in Baltimore from 1960 to 1973. Recently, Senator Sarbanesï¿½ sister, Zoe Sarbanes Pappas, and her husband Dean, endowed a professorship in Classics at Stockton College in New Jersey.

Senator Sarbanes, you have been guided by the values and ideals of the classical world in transforming the modern world. Your life bridges ancient and modern in a way that embodies our aspirations. Your commitment to the language and culture of the ancient and modern worlds is admirable, and your achievements compelling and inspiring. In recognition of your work, the Northeast Conference on the Teaching of Foreign Languages presents you with the 2007 James W. Dodge Foreign Language Advocate Award.