Princeton's Hellenic Studies Center gets new Athens home

Dimitri Gondicas speaks passionately but modestly when discussing the new branch of Princeton University's Seeger Center for Hellenic Studies in Athens.

Gondicas has been at Princeton since the 1970s, first as a student of physics and then as a lecturer in Modern Greek, going on to become the director of the Seeger Center of Hellenic Studies in 2010.

"The first foreign students to attend Princeton on a scholarship were Greeks. They were brought from Cephalonia in 1825 and presented to the university as descendants of Pericles and Plato," says Gondicas.

"I have been very fortunate to have the honor of serving in the field of Greek letters at a leading university that cultivates the humanities, in an excellent academic environment where Hellenic studies have a solid foundation. I have had the opportunity to work with distinguished colleagues - such as...