American School of Classical Studies at Athens William Sanders Scarborough Fellowship is intended to honor and remember Professor William Sanders Scarborough and to help foster diversity in the fields of Classical and Hellenic Studies and the Humanities more broadly by supporting students and teachers from underrepresented groups in their study and research at the American School of Classical Studies at Athens.

William Sanders Scarborough (1852–1926), the son of an enslaved woman and a freedman, was a pathbreaking African American Classical scholar and public intellectual. Scarborough’s scholarship included philological works on Greek and Roman authors, as well as studies of African languages and African American folklore. His First Lessons in Greek (1881) was the first foreign language textbook by an African American author. He taught at Ohio’s Wilberforce University and Payne Theological Seminary, serving as Wilberforce’s president from 1908–1920. At least twice in his life (1886 and 1896), Scarborough hoped to attend the American School, with the encouragement of the School’s Managing Committee. Lack of funding, coupled with his many professional responsibilities, kept Scarborough from realizing his dream of going to Greece.

The fellowship is open to graduate students, faculty members (K-12 and all levels of post-secondary education), and independent scholars residing in the United States or Canada (regardless of citizenship) whose geographic origin, diverse experiences, and socio-economic background are underrepresented at the School (including persons from the Black, Indigenous, and Persons of Color communities). The fellowship is designed for such applicants whose studies, research, or teaching would benefit from residency at the School. Fellowship recipients need not be specialists in the field of Classical Studies.

The fellowship supports up to three months in residence at the School to carry out proposed research projects, to join the School’s academic programs (field trips and seminars during the academic year, excavations at the Agora or Corinth, ASCSA summer travel programs, scientific field schools, etc.), and/or to develop knowledge, resources, and collegial networks to enhance their teaching.