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“I discuss the Odyssey with my family often, but it is even more rewarding to discuss it with people with different perspectives, as is done on the Website,” says Shirley Anuse Satuh ’03 of Navrongo, Ghana. “I have found it extremely helpful indeed. After reading the Odyssey, I have read many other books on ancient civilizations and found immense pleasure in the amassing of knowledge for its own sake.”
Few members of the Class of 2003 will journey as far as Shirley Satuh to join the Lafayette family in August. Her home is in Navrongo, Ghana, more than 5,000 miles from College Hill.
But Satuh has already bridged the distance between the southern coast of West Africa and the forks of the Delaware River. She’s taking advantage of a special Lafayette Website (www.lafayette.edu/~summerbk) to participate with her classmates in a discussion of this summer’s reading assignment for incoming first-year students, Robert Fagles’ translation of the Odyssey.
“I have found the Odyssey very hard to put down,” she says. “I have read it three times over and am on my fourth reading. Each time I read it, I found something new to discuss. My father ordered a copy for himself and we share views about it almost daily.
“I think it is an excellent reading experience as I prepare for college,” she continues. “I have, after reading it, asked myself, ‘What is most important to me, and how much am I prepared to sacrifice for it?’ Odysseus longed for home and for the warmth of family. For these he gave up a chance to become immortal and live forever in bliss with Calypso. I wonder if I would pass on immortality or something as magnificent if it meant losing what I longed for? The Odyssey, to me, is a testament to and a reminder of loyalty to one’s purpose in life.”
Mentoring the special Website’s discussion board is Howard J. Marblestone, a classics specialist in Lafayette’s department of foreign languages and literatures.
“We urge you to use the discussion board to ask questions and to make comments and observations. Lafayette is a community of learners and we invite you to join the community of readers now,” Marblestone says on the site. “You do not have to wait until classes begin at the end of August to be a part of the intellectual enterprise that is at the center of the Lafayette experience. Be an active participant in a virtual classroom composed of the entire Class of 2003.”
Satuh and many others taken his advice and jumped right in.
“I discuss the Odyssey with my family often, but it is even more rewarding to discuss it with people with different perspectives, as is done on the Website,” Satuh says. “I have found it extremely helpful indeed. I was always a biology-chemistry-maths-and-physics person, and my knowledge of the classical myths and the ancient Greeks went no further than Saturday morning cartoons. But after reading the Odyssey, I have read many other books on ancient civilizations and found immense pleasure in the amassing of knowledge for its own sake.”
Another Side of Shirley
“I chose to attend Lafayette because it offered me all the things I needed in the college of my choice,” she says, “a strong liberal arts education in a challenging environment, a wide choice of cocurricular activities, top-grade faculty and facilities, a culturally diverse student population, quality housing, an impressive sports faculty, and best of all, financial assistance.”