The University of Vermont supports the study of Latin as a continuum in the curriculum of Vermont students from the middle-school through the college years. By continuum we mean that the study of Latin, and Greek, begun in the school years should be expanded, not repeated, in the college years. Cooperation among the teachers in Vermont schools and UVM's Department of Classics is extensive, reflected in the work of the Vermont Classical Language Association and the Annual Vermont Latin Day.

Begun in 1976, the Ludi Vermontenses were celebrated for the 30th time this past April 7 as part of the Annual Vermont Week, proclaimed in Latin and English under the seal and hand of the Governor of Vermont. Students from Vermont schools (there were 11 this year) produce skits around a given theme, prepare for the Probatio (a written quiz on grammar, syntax, composition, myth, and history), and display works of art and projects illustrating the language, literature, history, and culture of the Romans and Greeks. This year the principal theme was "Metamorphosing the Verb," reflected in skits based on the verbs in Ovid's Metamorphoses.

There were over 600 students present for the event in UVM's Patrick Gymnasium, welcomed graciously in Latin by Eleanor Miller, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. In context of song and revel the discipuli discipulaeque Viridis Montis always display solid accomplishment in language. At the turn of the millennium, for example, their voices, 800 strong, were heard on Vermont Public Radio singing in Latin Horace's Carmen Saeculare, for which Philip Ambrose, Chair of the Classics Department, composed special music.

See http://www.uvm.edu/~classics/latindays/latinday2000/carmen.html.