Aldrete honored with Frankenthal Professorship at UW-Green Bay
Prof. Gregory Aldrete
Aldrete received a ceremonial medallion along with the title Frankenthal Professor at the semester-opening gathering of about 500 UW-Green Bay faculty and staff members hosted by Chancellor Tom Harden.
“In Gregory Aldrete, this University is privileged to have an internationally recognized scholar, prolific author and superb teacher,” Harden said in making the presentation. “He is nationally recognized by his peers as one of America’s top teachers of the classics and the ancient world.”
Aldrete, a native of Birmingham, Ala., who joined the UW-Green Bay faculty in 1995, is a professor of Humanistic Studies and History who has earned widespread recognition for his scholarship and teaching.
He has received UW-Green Bay Founders Association Awards for Excellence in the categories of teaching (2003) and scholarship (2006). In 2009 he received a national award of merit from the American Philological Association as one of the nation’s top teachers of classics. His Linothorax project, replicating the lightweight linen armor of the ancient Greeks and demonstrating its tactical advantages, was honored by the Archaeological Institute of America and has been the subject of numerous television documentary segments in the United States and Europe. Aldrete has twice been selected to receive prestigious National Endowment for the Humanities fellowships.
Aldrete’s areas of specialization include the city of Rome, daily life in the Roman world, floods and their effect, military history, Roman rhetoric and oratory, and non-verbal communication. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Michigan, and has published a number of books and articles on his Roman research.
Named professorships are created through private gifts that support the study and research of a faculty member who has an outstanding record of scholarly accomplishment. The annual stipend associated with this particular professorship is for five years, but the recipient retains the title for life. Stipends are typically applied to research expenses or special projects benefitting students or service to the community.
The Frankenthal Professorship was established in October of 1980 in honor of the late Siegfried W. Frankenthal by members of the Frankenthal family of Green Bay. The Frankenthals owned and operated Packerland Packing Company until the business was sold in the 1970s. Mr. Frankenthal and his wife, Karola, were active in their synagogue and community charitable work. Their memorial professorship is open to full professors in any field of study whose work exemplifies the spirit and mission of UW-Green Bay.
Aldrete succeeds Prof. Andrew Kersten as current holder of the professorship, and is the eighth UW-Green Bay faculty member to be awarded the title. The others are Kersten, Cheryl Grosso, Carol Emmons, Joyce Salisbury, Estella Lauter, Frederick Kersten and James Clifton.
UW-Green Bay currently has eight named professorships. Recipients are nominated by their peers and recommended for selection by a committee of senior faculty and academic leadership.
