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Spring 2026 Class Schedule

Registration opens November 7th
Spring semester begins January 12th and runs through May 8th

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Latin Fundamentals
Greek Fundamentals
Upper Level Latin

Introductory Level Spring Courses - Latin

2 Credits

Course Description

This and each of the subsequent Latin 100-level courses will cover the entirety of Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana textbook, according to the Spoken Latin Teaching Pedagogy that is unique to VSI. Students will begin to speak and understand Latin with the same efficacy as in other modern languages. Each of these courses carries 2 credits, and will meet online twice a week for 50 minutes each.

Latin 101 specifically will focus on chapters 1 through 8 depending on the pace of the students.

Course Materials

  • Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • None

2 Credits

Course Description

This and each of the subsequent Latin 100-level courses will cover the entirety of Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana textbook, according to the Spoken Latin Teaching Pedagogy that is unique to VSI. Students will begin to speak and understand Latin with the same efficacy as in other modern languages. Each of these courses carries 2 credits, and will meet online twice a week for 50 minutes each.

Latin 102 specifically will focus roughly on chapters 9 through 18 depending on the pace of the students.

Course Materials

  • Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • LAT101

2 Credits

Course Description

This and each of the subsequent Latin 100-level courses will cover the entirety of Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana textbook, according to the Spoken Latin Teaching Pedagogy that is unique to VSI. Students will begin to speak and understand Latin with the same efficacy as in other modern languages. Each of these courses carries 2 credits, and will meet online twice a week for 50 minutes each.

Latin 102 specifically will focus roughly on chapters 9 through 18 depending on the pace of the students.

Course Materials

  • Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • LAT101

2 Credits

Course Description

This and each of the subsequent Latin 100-level courses will cover the entirety of Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana textbook, according to the Spoken Latin Teaching Pedagogy that is unique to VSI. Students will begin to speak and understand Latin with the same efficacy as in other modern languages. Each of these courses carries 2 credits, and will meet online twice a week for 50 minutes each.

Latin 103 specifically will focus roughly on chapters 19 through 27 depending on the pace of the students.

Course Materials

  • Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana

Instructor(s)

  • VSI Faculty - T/TH 7:00 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT101
  • LAT102

2 Credits

Course Description

This is the last course of the Latin 100-level courses which will complete the Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana textbook, according to the Spoken Latin Teaching Pedagogy that is unique to VSI. Students will begin to speak and understand Latin with the same efficacy as in other modern languages. Each of these courses carries 2 credits, and will meet online twice a week for 50 minutes each.

Course Materials

  • Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • LAT101
  • LAT102
  • LAT103

2 Credits

Course Description

This is the last course of the Latin 100-level courses which will complete the Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana textbook, according to the Spoken Latin Teaching Pedagogy that is unique to VSI. Students will begin to speak and understand Latin with the same efficacy as in other modern languages. Each of these courses carries 2 credits, and will meet online twice a week for 50 minutes each.

Course Materials

  • Hans Ørberg’s Familia Romana

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • LAT101
  • LAT102
  • LAT103

Introductory Level Spring Courses - Greek

2 Credits

Course Description

This course will consist primarily of guided reading and guided practice in speaking and listening centered around Logos: Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata (10–17 and possibly further). These sessions will prepare you, the student, to complete the exercises presented in the same book and on Canvas, reinforcing what you have learned in this semester and the last. At the end of this experience, you will have advanced in reading adapted Greek and writing simple sentences, about the content of the textbook or about similar topics using the same vocabulary and structures.

Course Materials

  • Logos: Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • GRK101. A student must have completed chapter 8 of the Logos textbook in order to be successful in this class.

2 Credits

Course Description

This course will consist primarily of guided reading and guided practice in speaking and listening centered around Logos: Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata (Chap. 24 through the book’s end). These sessions will prepare you, the student, to complete the exercises presented in the same book and on Canvas, reinforcing what you have learned in this semester and the last. At the end of this experience, you will have advanced in reading adapted Greek and write simple sentences, about the content of the textbook or about similar topics using the same vocabulary and structures.

Course Materials

  • Logos: Lingua Graeca Per Se Illustrata

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • GRK101-103. A student must have completed up to chapter 24 of the Logos textbook in order to be successful in this course.

Upper Level Spring Courses

2 Credits

Course Description

Writing is a uniquely powerful tool for fixing knowledge in memory. This course will take you through a series of guided practice sessions in writing Latin. You will quickly review noun and verb forms, then produce Latin of your own, featuring the most important syntactic features of the language. Active exercises will help you internalize the mechanics of indirect discourse, purpose and result clauses, etc. This course is introductory, suitable for students who have studied Latin grammar but never taken a Latin prose composition class before.

Course Materials

  • Provided by the instructor.

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • LAT101
  • LAT102
  • LAT103
  • LAT104

2 Credits

Course Description

This class will serve as an introduction to the Latinity of the Vulgate Bible, with a special focus on texts which figure prominently in the Church’s liturgical prayer, both in the Mass and the Liturgy of the Hours, including passages from the Psalms and Gospels, and some of the most important stories from the Old Testament. The students will also become familiar with these texts by preparing brief presentations on specific aspects of them, and their role in the Church’s liturgical, theological, and artistic tradition. The list of subjects for these presentations come from passages under the following major biblical events:


Major Events of the Old Testament
Part I: Creation
Part II: The First Covenant
Part III: The Exodus
Part IV: The Resettlement
Part V: The Age Of Kings
Part VI: Exile and Return


Major Events of the New Testament

Part VII: Jesus
Part VIII: The Church

Course Materials

  • Provided by the instructor.

Instructor(s)

  • VSI Faculty - T/TH 6:00 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT101-104; LAT201

2 Credits

Course Description

This course constitutes an initiation into the long tradition of Latin prose writing through familiarity with: classical authors (e.g. Cicero and Pliny); the Fathers (e.g. St. Augustine, St. Boethius); St. Thomas Aquinas; even down to Erasmus of Rotterdam in the Renaissance. After the perennial manner of Latinists throughout this history, the class, including discussions, will be conducted in Latin. By the end of the course, the students will have experienced Latin as it always has been, whether in the schools of Rome, in the Medieval University, or at the Academies of the Humanists.

Course Materials

  • TBA

Instructor(s)

  • Zachary Thomas - W/F 2:30 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT201

1.5 Credits

Course Description

This course introduces the canonical classical Latin poets (Virgil, Ovid, Lucretius . . .), with particular attention to prosody (the more common Latin meters: hexameter, elegiac couplet).

Course Materials

  • TBA

Instructor(s)

  • Dr. David White - T/TH 3:30-5:00 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT 101-104; 201, & 202. A student must have completed all of the Familia Romana textbook, and be proficient in the Latin Language, in order to be successful in this course.

Dates

  • Jan 12th - March 6th (8-week course)

1.5 Credits

Course Description

This course will introduce students to further authors (Catullus, Horace, Juvenal, or Martial) and meters (hendecasyllables, various stanzas) following Poetry I.

Course Materials

  • TBA

Instructor(s)

  • Dr. David White - T/TH 3:30-5:00 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT 101-104; 201, & 202. A student must have completed all of the Familia Romana textbook, and be proficient in the Latin Language, in order to be successful in this course.

Dates

  • March 9th - May 8th (8-week course)

3 Credits

Course Description

This course will expose the student to various methodologies utilized in a Living Latin pedagogy, including Rassias Method, “Where are your Keys”, TPRS, and other methodologies focused on language acquisition.

Course Materials

  • Provided by the Instructor

Instructor(s)

Prerequisite

  • LAT101-104
  • LAT201
  • LAT202

1.5 Credits

Course Description

This course will focus firstly on the Councils of the Early Church.

Course Materials

  • Provided by the Instructor

Instructor(s)

  • VSI Faculty - T/TH 7:00 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT 101-104; 201, & 202. A student must have completed all of the Familia Romana textbook, and be proficient in the Latin Language, in order to be successful in this course.

Dates

  • January 12th - March 6th (8-week course)

1.5 Credits

Course Description

This course continues from Magisterium I into the Documents of Vatican II.

Course Materials

  • Provided by the Instructor

Instructor(s)

  • VSI Faculty - T/TH 7:00 p.m. ET

Prerequisite

  • LAT 101-104; 201, & 202. A student must have completed all of the Familia Romana textbook, and be proficient in the Latin Language, in order to be successful in this course.

Dates

  • March 9th - May 8th (8-week course)

Magister Gregory DiPippo

Director of Academic Development, Assistant to the Dean, Magister - Introductory Latin

Magister Gregorius was born and raised in Providence, Rhode Island, where he attended a high school which offered an excellent Latin program. He attended McGill University in Montreal, where he studied Classical Languages and Literature, and the Augustinian Patristic Institute in Rome, where he studied the Fathers of the Church. For 23 years, he worked as a tour guide in Rome, and for the last 15 years, he has been a regular contributor (and for 10 years editor) to the New Liturgical Movement website.

Magister Marcus Porto

Magister - Introductory Latin

Magister Marcus holds a B.A. in Liberal Arts from Thomas Aquinas College and a Latin Fluency Certificate from Academia Vivarium Novum, where he learned to speak Latin under Luigi Miraglia. He is currently a graduate student at Kentucky University, studying Latin under Terence Tunberg and Milena Minkova, and works as a classical languages’ instructor, Liberal Arts teacher, and editor at Instituto Hugo de São Vitor, Brazil.

Magister Tod Post, MA

Magister

Mr. Post holds a B.A. in philosophy from St. John’s Seminary College in Camarillo, CA and an M.A. in Medieval Studies from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. His areas of study and interest include codicology and palaeography and creating medieval and classical inks and writing materials. He particularly enjoys working in his garden surrounded by plants from the classical world such as papyrus, acanthus, figs, olives and grapes which also gives him an opportunity to practice his botanical Latin. He is a lifelong resident of southern California where he has been teaching and promoting Latin since 2004 and where he resides with his wife and six children.

Matthew Ratcliff

Coordinator for Marketing and Course Development

Matthew Ratcliff is a graduate from Belmont Abbey College, where he fell in love with Latin while studying under Nancy Llewellyn and Gregory DiPippo, and where he encountered the natural method for the first time. He has previously taught for Aquinas Learning Center in Charlotte for the 2023-2024 academic year. Matthew firmly believes that everyone can learn Latin well. He loves incorporating physical movement in the classroom and is excited to share the joy of the language with every class!

Dr. Nancy Llewellyn

Co-Founder, Veterum Sapientia Institute
Magistra - Introductory Latin

Magistra Annula is Associate Professor of Latin at Belmont Abbey College, coming to North Carolina after a decade at Wyoming Catholic College. She teaches Latin at the Charlotte Diocese’s new St. Joseph College Seminary in addition to her work at Belmont. Earlier in her career she studied with Fr. Reginald Foster and at the Pontifical Salesian University in Rome. Returning to her native California, Nancy founded SALVI in 1997 and served on its board until 2019, directing SALVI workshops (Rusticationes) around the country and abroad. She holds her PhD (2006) from UCLA.

Fr. Joseph Matlak

Magister


Fr. Joseph Matlak is a priest of the Eparchy of Saint Josaphat in Parma (Ukrainian Greek-Catholic). Born in Dunstable, Bedfordshire, England, he studied Ancient History at King’s College London, and completed seminary studies and a Licentiate in Sacred Theology at the Catholic University of America, Washington DC. He is currently finishing a doctorate at the Institute for Orthodox Christian Studies in Cambridge, England. He serves as administrator of Saint Basil the Great Parish in Charlotte, North Carolina, and is an instructor within the Honors College of Belmont Abbey College. He has previously worked in parishes and missions, schools, youth and young adult ministry, liturgical music, and Catholic media, among other roles.

Dr. Samuel Stahl

Magister

Samuel Stahl earned a PhD in Classics at the State University of New York at Buffalo. His dissertation is an annotated verse translation from Claudian’s carmina minora; his passions, both personal and professional, include Christian poetry and ecumenism. In addition to his work with VSI, he teaches ELA at a Catholic grammar school in Western New York, where he lives with his wife and two cats.

Fr. Dylan Schrader, PhD

Magister - Scholastic Theology

Pater Pelagius is a priest of the Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, ordained in 2010. He holds a PhD in systematic theology from the Catholic University of America and is the translator of several Scholastic works, including On the Motive of the Incarnation, the first volume in CUA’s Early Modern Catholic Sources series, and Book 2 of Thomas Aquinas’s Commentary on the Sentences, edited by the Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine. Fr. Schrader is the author of The Shortcut to Scholastic Latin, published by the Paideia Institute Press. He has attended every Veterum Sapientia conference since its inception.

Mr. Christopher Owens, STM

Chief Executive Officer

Christopher Owens completed licentiate studies at the Pontifical University of St. Thomas Aquinas (“the Angelicum”) with a concentration in Thomism, and is a doctoral candidate at the same university. His research investigates the question of predestination in the writings of the early Thomists. More generally, Christopher’s research interests in both philosophy and theology are focused on the preambles of faith, ontology, meta-ethics, and action theory as found principally in the Thomistic tradition, as well as in the medieval dialectic of the University of Paris. Additionally, Christopher serves on the editorial board for Philosophical News, the official journal of the European Society for Moral Philosophy, and is vice-president of the Albertus Magnus Center for Scholastic Studies, based in Norcia, Italy.

Kit Adderley

Magister

Kit Adderley became interested in Ancient Rome at a young age, and following a particularly interesting and formative Roman History class in high school, decided to study Classics at Franciscan University of Steubenville. While studying and in subsequent years, Kit was blessed to attend many spoken Latin programs both in the United States and in Rome. Kit has taught Latin for 10 years at the high school and middle school level in Texas and Minnesota, most recently designing and implementing a spoken Latin program for high school that enjoyed tremendous success. Kit currently works in the finance industry but continues to love Latin and the classical world and is excited to work with Veterum Sapientia in bringing that knowledge to others.

Andrea Allen

Title

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