Video: Saladin wins Hasselmo Prize

Junior Chris Saladin, a history and classics major, has won this year¡¯s $5,000 Nils Hasselmo Prize for Academic Pursuit.

The annual award recognizes the scholarship of a junior in any field who plans on graduate school and a career in academics or research.

For Saladin, that¡¯s ancient history.

He came to Å·ÖÞ±­ÍøͶ_Å·ÖÞ±­ÍâΧapp-Ͷע¹ÙÍø to major in classics, having taken Latin and history in high school, with the idea to pursue law. But after interning at a law firm, he realized it wasn¡¯t the career for him.

Meanwhile, he discovered he was hooked on the fields that led him to consider law in the first place.

¡°Really, I came to greatly appreciate Greek and Roman history partly through my studies of Latin,¡± he said. Over time, Saladin combined his language, history and cultural interests into a focus on ancient history.

After a master¡¯s and Ph.D., he can see becoming a professor. He draws his inspiration from his classics and history professors here, whom he has described as ¡°the best part¡± of his work in his two majors.

From Missouri to Å·ÖÞ±­ÍøͶ_Å·ÖÞ±­ÍâΧapp-Ͷע¹ÙÍø to Tuscany

Saladin came to Å·ÖÞ±­ÍøͶ_Å·ÖÞ±­ÍâΧapp-Ͷע¹ÙÍø from southern Missouri, while visiting liberal arts colleges of a similar size. Then he met the professors here, ¡°who seemed amazing, and it turned out they were amazing.

¡°I visited, and it was just the most impressive, really it was,¡± he said. Another draw was the cross country and track team, and especially legendary Coach Paul Olsen, who also is an English professor here.

¡°Ols was an inspiration and a big draw, but really it came down to which school I thought was better academically,¡± Saladin remembered.

With the $5,000 Hasselmo Prize, he will pursue a professional opportunity to help him on his path to graduate school. That may be an internship at a renowned history museum, or it may be something even more ¡°hands-on¡± ¡ª an archeological excavation.

Last summer Saladin took part in an archeological dig at an Etruscan site in central Tuscany. An opportunity to dig again with the 50-year-old excavation project would be very compelling.

¡°I¡¯ve always had a passion for archaeology... It¡¯s a really cool site,¡± he said. ¡°Most Etruscan sites are tombs, but this was a domestic site where people lived. Every day I found objects, mostly terra-cotta pottery upwards of 2,800 years old.

¡°Just being able to hold pieces of history every day...¡± he paused. ¡°I¡¯m not really sure I¡¯d like to go into archeology as a field itself, but I¡¯d definitely consider doing that again.¡±

Open to any opportunity, Saladin said, ¡°I¡¯d really like to focus on studying the ancient world... focus on that during my academic years, and see where it takes me.¡±