Living Latin in Rome High School

Course Description

Living Latin in Rome High School offers a holistic immersion experience in the Latin language and in the city of Rome that is specifically designed for high school students. The program brings Latin to life both by reading ancient texts at the historical sites that they describe and through games, skits, informal conversation, and a wide range of activities in Latin. Readings are drawn from the entire history of the Latin language and therefore include medieval and Renaissance Latin, to which students are rarely exposed in typical high school curricula.

The program lasts for two weeks in July. Most days, we spend some time engaging with texts in classrooms, before heading out to visit museums, archaeological sites, and monuments, where students continue learning and exploring through tailored interactive activities and tours delivered by our faculty. We also include several full-day trips in our program to places like Ostia and Sperlonga, where all learning happens on-site.

Prerequisites

Students who have studied Latin for at least one year are encouraged to apply. The program will also be challenging and interesting for students who have studied Latin for many years. Students of all grade levels, from rising 10th graders to graduating seniors, are encouraged to apply. Students without formal Latin training who have completed Paideia’s self-paced online Living Latin course are eligible to apply.

Classrooms and Housing

For the duration of the program, students and teachers live together in Rome. Classes take place in modern, air-conditioned classrooms in or near the housing facility, as well as in situ at archaeological sites, museums, and other monuments and locations of cultural significance. Students eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner together daily, either at the housing facility or at local restaurants.

Teachers

Will Killmer

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LLiRHS Teacher

Will Killmer

Will has a wide array of interests, but a deliberately narrow regimen of teaching, namely all Latin, all the time (except for the occasional Greek class). After earning a B. A. in Classics from the University of Virginia (2009), with a semester at the Centro along the way (Fall 2007), Will earned two M. A.'s at Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (2015), then began to teach Latin in Peabody, MA. While he enjoyed his colleagues and students, Will felt that he was a mediocre teacher at best, and began a journey to improve his craft by examining the tradition of Latin learning and teaching over the past 2000 years, as well as research on how second languages are acquired. Both of these currents beckoned him to the shore of speaking lots of Latin in the classroom and helping students read Latin literature fluidly and feel its force in their bones. He is continually striving to progress in his teaching, and is always excited to read, elucidate, and discuss Latin literature in Latin with others. He has been teaching at the Veritas School in Richmond for the past 9 years, and is currently interested in the science of memory, the history of notebooks, mixing cocktails, and accumulating houseplants.

Kaitlyn Cashdollar

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Classical Tours Coordinator

Kaitlyn Cashdollar

Kaitlyn Cashdollar graduated from Knox College in 2023
with a B.A. in Classical Languages and a minor in
Archaeology. In 2023-2024 she was awarded a fellowship
position at Anatolia College in Thessaloniki, Greece where
she helped plan and organize events and student activities.
Her academic interests include lyric poetry, epigraphy, and
classical reception, with a passion for on-site and hands-on
learning. In her free time, Kaitlyn enjoys engaging her
friends in classics-related hobbies, including an Ancient
Roman themed role-playing game.

Maya Marquardt

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Classical Tours Coordinator

Maya Marquardt

Maya graduated from CUNY Hunter College with her BA in
Art History, double minoring in Classics and Women and
Gender Studies. She has previously attended Living Latin in
Rome, Living Latin in Paris, and volunteered for Living Latin
in NYC 2023 & 2024. Additionally, she worked at the New
York Public Library for five years in the Art and Architecture
collection. Her love for Latin began with a desire to
translate the Classical and Medieval writing she was
studying in her art history classes and evolved into many
years of Latin study. She is particularly interested in the
Medieval Latin found in Late Gothic illuminated
manuscripts. Maya plans on obtaining her MA in library and
archive studies, continuing to work with both translated and
untranslated rare texts.

Laurie Duncan

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LLiRHS Teacher

Laurie Duncan

Laurie Duncan received a book about Pompeii in the fourth grade and became fascinated by the Romans. After her Bachelor's in Classics at the University of Virginia, she has worked for sixteen years as a classroom teacher, private tutor, and consultant. Laurie studied twice with Fr. Reginald Foster and has attended multiple conventicula. Recently she obtained a Master's in Education, focused on language pedagogy. Her interests include conversational Latin use, Roman epitaphs, ancient portraiture, the history of education, and Gregorian chant. 

Sage Watkins

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Student Life Consultant

Sage Watkins

Sage Watkins has a Masters degree in Counseling, is a Nationally Certified Counselor, and you can generally find her in her natural habitat supporting middle school students in Franklin, Massachusetts. Some common activities include studying philosophy, writing, meditating, gardening, and trying to figure out the auspicia ex tripudiis from her pampered chickens. Sage is passionate about trying a wide variety of hobbies and learning new things, as well as encouraging a love of learning in others!

Despite her later calling to work in mental health, Sage’s undergraduate degree was in Classical Languages (with an emphasis in Ancient Greek) with a certificate in Archaeological Sciences–and her love of Classics never went away. Within the field of Classics, she's particularly interested in Ancient Greek and Roman religion, mystery cults, magic, funerary traditions, and music (she built and plays a reconstructed Ancient Greek lyre!). Favorite authors include Plutarch (particularly for his Moralia) and Pliny the Elder.

Nicholas Uram

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Assistant Fellowship Manager

Nicholas Uram

Nicholas attended Living Latin in Rome with the Paideia Institute
the summer of 2019, and participated in Latin immersion program
Conventiculum Dickinsoniense the year before. He
graduated from Hillsdale College in 2020 where he received a B.A.
in Latin, and has since been teaching Latin at the middle and high
school levels at Highlands Latin School in Louisville, Kentucky.
Nicholas’ primary area of interest in classics include the poetry of
Homer, Vergil, and Ovid, as well as prose and verse composition.

Joseph Watkins

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LLiRHS Teacher

Joseph Watkins

Joe Watkins is a PhD Candidate at Boston University, currently working on his dissertation which examines ethnographic representations of Celtic peoples in both Ancient Greek and Latin. He earned his BA at the University of Georgia (2014) and attended a year of Post-Baccalaureate Studies at the University of Pennsylvania (2014-15) before teaching high school Latin in Tucker, GA for three years where he developed a strong interest in language pedagogy. He completed a Masters in Classics at the University of Kentucky (2020), earning a certificate in Latin (Language) studies there at the Institutum Studiis Latinis Provehendis. He is particularly interested in historiography, both Greek and Latin, but enjoys reading widely, both in terms of genre and time period.

AnnMarie Patterson

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Living Latin in Rome High School Head Teacher

AnnMarie Patterson

AnnMarie Patterson is a Ph.D student in Classics the University of Southern California focusing on epic poetry and Roman art. She has taught for the institute’s Telepaideia and Living Latin Online HS programs, as well as other Latin classes. An alum of Paideia’s Living Latin in Rome and Living Greek in Greece programs, she loves spoken Latin, the architecture of Rome, and a good cappuccino.

Brendan McGlone

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LLiRHS Director of Student Life

Brendan McGlone

Brendan McGlone was born and raised in Boonton, NJ. He studied the humanities with a focus on Latin and medieval studies at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, and spent two summers living and studying in Rome with the Paideia Institute. After writing an honors thesis on a late medieval manuscript collection of Latin sermons, he moved to Rome as a fellow for Paideia, studying Italian, Latin, and the history of the city before leading tours and teaching Latin courses to American high school students. After his year in Rome, he moved back to New Jersey to teach English and Latin and coaching the swim team at the Catholic high school he attended, Seton Hall Prep. Brendan is now back in Rome pursuing a degree in ancient and medieval church history and culture at the Pontifical Gregorian University. In addition to teaching, he enjoys playing music and ultimate frisbee with his family and friends.

 

Laurie Hutcheson

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Living Latin in Rome High School Head Teacher

Laurie Hutcheson

Laurie Glenn Hutcheson made her first visit to Rome when she was in high school, and she has been going back ever since. She discovered the magic of reading (and singing) Latin in Rome with Reginald Foster in the summers of 2004 and 2006. After teaching Latin and Greek at Boston University Academy for 8 years, she began teaching in LLiRHS in 2014. She particularly enjoys creating art with students, charades, and finding new texts to bring into the program. She loves good stories and playing games with language. 

 

During the academic year, she teaches at Boston University, where she coordinates the Greek and Latin language program for the department of Classical Studies. Her research focuses primarily on Homer. 

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Tuition and Fees

The cost of Living Latin in Rome High School is $5500. This amount includes tuition, housing, meals, site visits, course materials, and transportation to and from Rome's Fiumicino airport. Airfare is not included, and must be booked by students individually.

Day to Day

The program’s daily schedule includes classes, small group activities, site visits, and group meal times. Each day features a theme from Latin literature, with class readings and site visits related to the theme. There are also two group projects that the students work on throughout the program: memorizing selections from Horace’s Odes, and a prose composition project for performance based on Ovid’s Metamorphoses. These projects allow us to put the students into smaller groups so they can collaborate and work towards a performance for the wider cohort with their growing spoken Latin skills.

Living Latin in Rome High School is a rigorous program, with most hours of the day accounted for. Over our years of running this program, we have found that this pace makes for the most rewarding experience for our students. It can be challenging to read and speak Latin while exploring Rome on foot; we have seen year after year that by pushing our students to rise to that challenge, they leave the program transformed. We leave plenty of room, too, for play, joy, and song.

A day dedicated to Roman Leisure and Entertainment might follow this itinerary: 

 8:00am        Breakfast at the hotel
 9:00am        Class sessions: Martial’s On the Spectacles, Cassius Dio’s Roman History, Seneca’s Epistulae, 
                       and Augustine’s Confessions
12:00pm       Group lunch at a cafeteria
  1:00pm       Ovid skit practice
  3:00pm       Walk to the Baths of Caracalla; site visit 
  5:15pm       Walk to Colosseum; site visit
  7:15pm       Group dinner at a restaurant
  9:30pm       Walk back to hotel; Horace reading groups
10:30am        Free time
11:00am        Lights out

Online Option for 2026

The Paideia Institute will also be running an online intensive summer Latin program for high school students called Living Latin Online High School. This is a separate program from the in-person program in Rome and follows a different curriculum. Details of the online summer program will be announced in January 2027.

Scholarships

The Paideia Institute is able to offer a number of full and partial scholarships to participants with demonstrated financial need. Please visit our scholarships page to learn more. Scholarship applications must be received by the priority application deadline for the program (March 1, 2027).

Request an Application

Please submit your completed application, which includes a submitted teacher recommendation form (ideally, your Latin teacher) by March 1, 2027. Applications received after March 1 will be considered on a rolling basis while space is available.

Request an Application

What People Are Saying

“This program takes a preexisting love of Latin and deepens it through feeling and speaking the Latin hands on. This program is for all the kids who want to struggle through an all latin lunch room conversation with your best friends without fear of being judged. Here, kids go from chanting Latin in a corner of the Lateran church to running through the fountains out front. One may even be able to teach a kind shopkeeper a few Latin words during free time. And, of course, students will sing the wall song in Ostia. I highly recommend this program for all Latin enthusiasts.” --Helen Dollacker ‘26

“This program has really had me become best friends with people all across the country over something that I used to feel like no one appreciated.” --Gabriel Broadus ‘26

“I not only learned about all aspects of history and culture of Ancient Rome, but also greatly improved my skills in spoken Latin. We visited all the amazing sites in person, including various museums, colosseum, beaches, sculptures, and Pantheon, which we had learned about in textbooks. During the trip, I met lots of smart friends who share the same interests with me. I’m deeply grateful for this opportunity and I give great thanks to all teachers who supported us throughout the journey.” --Cindy Han ‘25

“I came to Paideia to improve my Latin and quench my existing curiosity about various aspects of classical antiquity. Though it certainly succeeded in both these respects, the greatest academic contribution of my Paideia experience was learning just how many other aspects of the ancient world there are to be curious about and marvel at, just how many other fascinating questions can be asked, whether that be about the development of Western visual art, poetry, public spectacles, or politics, to name a few examples. Fourteen days in Rome have also opened up my eyes to the beauty of ancient Greek and Roman art and the works it inspired. On a social level, I can honestly say that I've never made closer friends in two weeks than I have during LLiRHS, and the morning runs and evening meals out are such fond memories. In this way, a fortnite with the Paideia Institute enriched my mind, body, and soul far more than I ever anticipated, exceeding even my lofty expectations.” --Paul Mackay ‘24

“Looking back, I think most students—myself included—were convinced that this was one) an intensive Latin class where they also taught you to pronounce words or two) a vacation in Rome. But LLiRHS is somehow the best combination of both. Whether it’s bonding between students, or late night gelato runs, or field trips in the afternoon heat to sites that you learn about each morning, Paideia has some of the best memories in my life. And there is so much Latin all around you—from fluent conversations that even students can have by the end of the program to early century dig sites beneath a random restaurant with mind blowing carbonara. LLiRHS truly helped me expand my vocabulary, comprehension, and confidence in Latin while immersed in a setting and culture so deeply rooted in ancient history. It’s so great to meet new friends with shared passions and Paideia is an experience like no other!!” --Sharon Lin ‘23

“The program is phenomenal - you are immersed in Latin while visiting major historically significant sites directly relating to the curriculum. The program is fast paced and well organized and the teachers are engaging - anyone who has a passion for Latin must experience this program.” --Karolina E. Fic ‘23

“If you are worried about acceptance of diversity here, don't be! It's very safe! This has been one of the best trips of my life. Every teacher here is so kind and wants to help you discover more about the culture, language and history of the Italian peninsula.” -Phoebe Tausig ‘23

“The Paideia Institute has helped me see Rome/Italy through a historical critical lens while also helping enrich all of my future Latin endeavors with new knowledge. The program was able to encompass everything I enjoy about learning Latin (the myths, the lore, the ingenious grammar) along with the highlight of a theatrical aspect. The people I have met here have charged me with a new a passion for classics but are also the once in a lifetime friends I will cherish forever. Thank you Paideia.” -Kathlynn Yao ‘23