September 13, 2018 – For over sixty years the American Numismatic Society (ANS) has offered an intense eight-week long summer course in numismatics to select graduate students. Always interested in numismatic education, Eric P. Newman’s generous lifetime endowment of the ANS’s Summer Seminar has allowed the ANS to continue to train new generations of numismatists. Following Mr. Newman’s passing in November 2017 at 106 years of age, the ANS received word that per his request the Eric P. Newman Numismatic Education Society was donating an additional $50,000 to the Seminar’s endowment fund to be used to enhance the stipend of the Visiting Scholar, always a renowned numismatic scholar invited to assist in teaching the Seminar.
Ute Wartenberg Kagan, Peter van Alfen and students present the Eric P. Newman medal to Prof. Mariangela Puglisis (center).
To further acknowledge Mr. Newman’s contributions to the ANS’s premiere educational program, the ANS has renamed the Scholar’s title in his honor. The first Eric P. Newman Visiting Scholar is Prof. Mariangela Puglisi of the University of Messina in Sicily, who is also the first recipient of the Newman Visiting Scholar medal. The presentation of the medal to Prof. Puglisi took place during a special ceremony at the ANS on July 27, 2018. Executive Director Ute Wartenberg remarked, “We are so grateful to Eric’s children, Andy Newman and Linda N. Schapiro, for their continued generosity for the Summer Seminar and numismatics in general.”
To find out more about the work of the ANS, please visit the official website.
Numerous interesting numismatic articles written by Prof. Mariangela Puglisi are available online.
Peter van Alfen is the ANS Chief Curator and a lecturer in the ANS’s famed graduate summer seminar program in numismatics. More information about his academic work is available on our website.