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Victoria Pagán-Wolpert, professor of classics, received the Ovatio, an honorary citation written in Latin, from the Classical Association of the Middle West and South (CAMWS).

As a Life Member to CAMWS since 1999, Pagán-Wolpert has served the organization and the field of classics through a series of leadership roles. She was the association’s chair of the Committee on Diversity in the Profession from 2016 to 2019 and the equity advisor from 2020 to 2023.

Pagán-Wolpert is also the current editor of the Tacitus Encyclopedia, a source of information on the history of the Roman Empire for students and academics in the fields of art, history, classics, and Roman and European studies.

She first heard the news of her achievement as she was waiting outside her daughter’s dormitory, when an email from Jennifer A. Rea, the department chair, appeared.

“I first read an email in which she said congratulations, but I was like ‘for what?’ and I thought maybe she emailed the wrong person,” Pagán-Wolpert said. “I was gobsmacked! My first thought was of Dr. Herbert Benario.” Bernario, a professor of classics at Emory University, who used to deliver the “ovationes” in Latin before he passed away this past February.

Stunned by the news, Pagán-Wolpert felt honored to be recognized alongside the lineage of esteemed recipients dating back to the 1950s. “Some of the recipients wrote textbooks that I used as an undergraduate or graduate student; some were professors of my professors; some were my professors; many are close friends, and all are esteemed colleagues,” she said.

Pagán-Wolpert is also a founding member of the Mountaintop Coalition and an associate editor of the American Journal of Philology. She was recently elected to the steering committee of the Women’s Classical Caucus.