Dr. Ralph J. Covino, UTC Assistant Professor of the History of the Ancient Mediterranean World, will deliver the fall commencement address to approximately 750 graduates of The University of Tennessee at Chattanooga on Saturday, December 15 at 10 a.m. in McKenzie Arena. For a live broadcast of the ceremony, click here.
Dr. Ralph Covino
Covino teaches primarily in the History Department and for the University Honors Program. He also contributes by teaching classes offered through the Freshman Seminar, Classics, and Women’s Studies programs.
Covino earned an A.B. in Classics and History at the College of the Holy Cross, the oldest Roman Catholic college in New England, and holds his M.Litt. in Classics and Ancient History and the Ph.D. in Ancient History from Scotland’s first university, the University of St Andrews. On his graduation from St Andrews, he was awarded the John Honey Cup, the highest honour of the St Andrews Students’ Association.
After graduation, he returned to the United States to join the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga in 2007. While Greek and Roman history have been offered in one form or another since the foundation of Chattanooga’s university over 125 years ago, Covino is the University’s first dedicated Ancient Historian.
A Cicero scholar and prosopographer with teaching and research interests in classical history, historiography, and Classical Reception, particularly in science fiction, Covino has shared the findings of his research via conferences and invited lectures at universities in seven countries spanning four continents. He recently published a volume he co-edited along with the Director of the British School at Rome entitled Praise and Blame in Roman Republican Rhetoric, and is the author of several articles and encyclopedia entries.
In 2008, he was given a University of Chattanooga Foundation Strategic Initiative Award to pilot an experimental internship program with the Chattanooga History Center. In 2010, he received the College of Arts and Sciences’ Outstanding Advisor Award and in 2011 was named by the UTC Echo as the Funniest Professor on campus. In 2012, he was selected to receive the UT Alumni Association’s Outstanding Teacher Award.
Active in not just teaching and research but also service and faculty governance, Covino is a graduate of Allied Arts of Greater Chattanooga’s Holmberg Arts Leadership Institute and recently completed two years in office as one of the vice-presidents of UTC’s Faculty Senate. He is currently the UTC campus representative to the UT Faculty Council, the faculty advisory body to University of Tennessee System President Joseph DiPietro.
