Background on Edward Phinney
A product of America’s Great Depression, Phinney hailed from a middle-class Texan family that placed a high value on education. He received both his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from the University of Oregon, and after receiving his PhD from the University of California Berkeley (1963), he joined the Classics department at UMass Amherst in 1969. Ed was both a distinguished teacher, winning awards at USC and UMass, and an able administrator, who chaired the Classics Department for twelve years (1981-1992). He was an innovator in Latin and Greek education, revising the Cambridge Latin Course for American students, and creating two additional language courses, LINGO and Salvete!. He lent support to secondary school teachers, as he visited several local classrooms to speak about the classics. He made many contributions to the American Classical League, Eta Sigma Phi, the Massachusetts Foreign Language Association, and the National Greek Exam. Ed also served as President of the Pioneer Valley Classical Association and the Classical Association of Massachusetts, both of which he founded. A popular lecturer who was considered “extraordinarily generous with his time,” Phinney’s Greek mythology course typically drew 500-600 students. This was popularly known as "the Phinney course" and was considered part of the UMass experience. He continued teaching in the Classics Department until his death in 1996.
