Retirement dinner for Professor Alan Sommerstein

The end-of-year round of exam boards and staff meetings this year was rounded off by an enjoyable send-off to celebrate Alan Sommerstein and his forty years of service to the Department of Classics, on the occasion of his retirement. Colleagues and graduate students gathered for a dinner and speeches, in which Patrick Finglass thanked Alan for his long service as a teacher, administrator and researcher before Alan made a witty and thoughtful response. 

The department will miss AHS’s day-to-day presence, but the knowledge that his retirement in no way marks the end of his stellar research, and the expectation that we will continue to see a great deal of him, meant that the tone of the occasion was celebratory rather than sad.