a whole new class: environmental anthropology

Before tenure, one should never re-prep an entire class. But, of course, I did. I've taught an environmental anthropology class twice before, but was never happy with it. I tried a couple different textbooks and readers, and nothing worked for me. They didn't cover the topics I wanted to cover with the perspectives I wanted to include.

So, I've totally re-done the class, using journal articles instead of a textbook, and focusing on those topics I find most interesting. Half the class is dedicated to archaeology, mostly landscape impacts of prehistoric human societies. That portion of the class is divided up into "types" of societies (hunter/gatherers, subsistence agriculturalists, states). The second half of the class is human ecology, specifically sections on disease, diet, and reproduction.

I think it will be a lot of fun! If anyone wants to share resources (syllabi, reading lists, etc.), I'm always happy to do so.

writing a statement of purpose for graduate school

It's the most wonderful time of the year...when I write about 3,000 letters of recommendation. Most are for students applying for graduate school. I ask students to give me a copy of their CV and their statement of purpose, to help me focus the letter on their strengths and interests. Over the last few years, I've learned that many students - even very good students! - are horrible at writing a statement of purpose. So, I'd like to present a short guide to writing graduate school statements for anthropology/archaeology students (but applicable to many other fields).*

Your statement of purpose should fulfill three main goals:
1) convince the graduate admissions committee you can write coherently, concisely, and well.
2) give the committee some indication of your personality.
3) tell the committee what topics or approaches you're most interested in pursuing in graduate school, including information about what you've already done in the field.

Most students understand goal #1, and write as well as they can. My students tend to focus their efforts on goal #2, because most of them are traditional students (meaning young and relatively inexperienced), and therefore feel a discussion of their personal background and character traits is easier/safer than a more professional discourse. Although your statement of purpose should indicate that you are collegial and hard-working, a focus on goal #2 is a mistake. Goal #3 is by far the most important, and should be the focus of your statement.

So how do you write about your professional background and interests, when you feel muddled, insecure, or uncertain about your future? Even if you're not sure exactly what you want to study in graduate school, your statement of purpose should be as specific as you can make it. Do not tell the committee you're interested in archaeology (or anthropology, or museumology, or Egyptology, etc.). They already know that. That's why you're applying to the archaeology program. Instead, focus on your particular interests. If you've wanted to be an archaeologist since childhood (as far too many statements of purpose claim), what was it that held your interest all these years? Can you name one region (or even two or three) that you find most interesting? When you say you'd like to study the Maya, what aspects in particular most appeal to you? Tombs and the elite? The hoi polloi? Inscriptions? Pottery and artifacts? Human remains? Do you consider yourself to have more of a scientific or humanistic approach to the subject? When brainstorming your statement of purpose, create a short list of regions, time periods, and methods/approaches that you find most compelling.

Now for the next, critical step: keep in mind that your statement of purpose is being evaluated, not for the excellence of the research topic/project discussed per se, but for how well your interests fit those of the faculty in the department to which you are applying. (I highly recommend you read this post about the graduate admissions process from the perspective of a faculty member.) Usually, a student is admitted because they expresses an interest in a particular geographic region and/or method (say, Paleolithic Europe, or ground-stone analysis), and the faculty member in the department who best fits that research interest agrees to take on that student. Depending on the program, agreeing to take on a graduate student is a big step for a faculty member. It means agreeing to work with that student in the field, or creating research opportunities for that student, or funding them through grants. Therefore, your statement of purpose should be tailored to a relatively specific faculty member, or subset of faculty members.

Once you've narrowed down your interests, talk to your undergraduate mentors, or do some looking on-line, and figure out what programs and faculty members fit those interests. Look at the research the graduate faculty list on their webpages. Read some of their publications. Then tailor your statement to make it clear how your interests intersect with theirs. This requires research, not a vague discussion of your interests. If you come from a big university, you may have had the opportunity to take in-depth classes in the methods or regions of your interest, but my students, who are limited to our small number of archaeology courses, don't have the background from classwork alone to write a truly excellent statement of purpose. It is necessary to research the topic (not exhaustively - that's for grad school!) to the point where you can write two or three knowledgeable paragraphs.

Many of my students reject this advice because they don't know exactly what they want to study in graduate school, and they don't want to commit themselves to only one topic. I have two comments on this: 1) if you can't come up with any specific research topics that hold your interests through a one-page statement of purpose, you shouldn't go to graduate school. That is the sign of someone who is just continuing their education because they don't know what else to do with their lives; and 2) Writing the statement of purpose does not stick you with a particular adviser or topic forever. Many students enter graduate school with an expressed interest in studying, say, faunal analysis of the Great Plains, but they take an inspiring class their first year, or are offered an unexpected research opportunity, and end up writing their master's thesis on the lithic analysis of a Neolithic site in the Middle East. Your statement of purpose is a statement of your current interests. It shows you are capable of articulating a research interest and that you have the background to do so well. But it's not a legally binding document. You can always find another faculty mentor and change to a different topic. If you are very undecided about your interests, I personally recommend that you pick one and focus on that for your statement of purpose. Writing about all of them, or too generally, will hamper your admission to graduate school. However, when choosing which program you want to attend, give consideration to the largest program with the greatest diversity of faculty interests, since that will give you more options for changing your mind.

Some common problems in statements of purpose:

Mentioning your childhood. Students love to start statements of purpose with "Since I was a child, I've wanted to be an archaeologist." This is followed by descriptions of formative trips to a museum, or excavations of the backyard sandbox. Imagine a committee member reading a hundred statements of purpose, all of which begin "Since I was a child...". Personally, I think you should leave your childhood out of it. Many of my students, being relatively young and inexperienced, think their childhood is all they can talk about. But your childhood stories do not make you sound older or more experienced. In fact, the opposite is true. If you want to share personal anecdotes to liven up your narrative, share something from your lab or field experience, even if that is quite minimal. This blog has some good advice about adding personality to your statement of purpose, without sounding stupid or cliched. The advice is meant for English majors, but the general guidelines are useful.

Fear of repetition. Some students fear to repeat information from their CV or other application materials in their statement of purpose. Don't be. If you have done anything pertinent (a research project, a graduate class, a publication), make sure to mention it in the statement, and not assume the committee will pull it out of your CV and transcript. Faculty members read a lot of paper every day. We read scholarly articles, memos, job applications, class assignments, etc.. Nobody is going to comb over your application and note, with horror, that you've repeated pieces of information. Instead, faculty members will be happy to see the most pertinent parts of your CV and transcript repeated, for their convenience, in narrative form.

Modesty. Don't sell yourself too hard - you'll come across as unfoundedly arrogant - but don't sell yourself short, either. Most of my students err on the side of modesty. As I said in the last paragraph, don't be afraid to repeat your accomplishments. At the same time, don't feel a need to apologize for any minor or common problems. If there is something glaringly unusual in your record, you should address it (for example, if you failed all of your Freshmen classes, or you had to take medical leave from school and there are two missing years on your transcript). Even better, ask one of your letter writers to address the topic for you, since they can do so from an outsider's perspective, and their words are likely to have more weight with the committee. Do not feel a need to apologize for every B, or your lack of research experience, however. You're only calling attention to the problems, and you're not alone in being inexperienced or having the occasional imperfect grade.

Don't sell yourself short on your research experience and classroom work. Especially if you're a traditional student (relatively young and inexperienced), you should fill in the details of your background, not leave them bare. I'm not suggesting you pad your CV, or exaggerate your research experience. I'm saying, don't leave your one and only field experience as a single line on your CV: "Student, Archaeological Fieldschool. July 2010". Instead, expand and explain: "Student, Archaeological Fieldschool (Anthro 330), Dr. I. Jones, July 2010. Excavation of medieval church site in St. Kildeen, Ireland, and pedestrian survey of medieval landscape in surrounding countryside." Don't be afraid to discuss exactly what you learned, and its impact on your academic development, in your statement of purpose. You're not going to sound arrogant or inexperienced (any more than you are!), and you're providing the kind of information the committee wants to know. Similarly, you can include more information about the specific classes you took that were relevant to your field, including foreign language courses or courses in other fields that the committee would not necessarily think relevant, but were.

Writing a statement of purpose is nerve-wracking, and many students find it hard to write the best possible statement because they are uncertain of protocols, the role of the statement in graduate admissions, and what they're allowed or expected to say. I hope this guide will help. Good luck with your applications!

_____
*Warning: I've never served on a graduate admissions committee, and every department/faculty member has different ideas about what constitutes an "ideal" statement of purpose, so take this advice with a grain of salt.

are e-textbooks a publisher bait-and-switch?

Never change textbooks. Changing books hardly ever significantly improves your class, so pre-tenure, it just doesn't make sense to invest that level of time in something that won't pay off.

That said, last year I switched textbooks in Intro to Biological Anthropology. I had inherited the previous textbook, and I had never liked it. It was full of facts, but poor on interpretation. The book did little to help frame the class within an evolutionary paradigm, or to explain why all of the facts they threw at the students were relevant.

Despite these drawbacks, I wouldn't have changed textbooks (after all, I provide the framework in my lectures), if I hadn't wanted to save my students a lot of money. The new book came in a $35 e-text version. All of the other textbooks are at least $100.

So, last year I put the work into converting my class to the next text. This year, when it came time to order my textbook, I found that the publisher had a new edition out, and this edition does not (yet?) have an e-version. The price tag for the new edition? $130!

I don't know if this is a deliberate bait-and-switch on the publisher's part. Perhaps they will create an e-version for this textbook next year, to which my students will have access until they update again. (And gee, nothing ever happens in Bio Anth to make them want to update, right?!) Perhaps it does take more time to get an e-version on-line than to get the physical book to press, but I doubt it. The e-version was little more than PDFs of the physical book, and surely the publisher has those!

I don't have time to make any changes for next semester, especially since I'm teaching a new prep in the Spring, and re-doing the third class significantly, but after this, I'm switching to Open Source resources.

Does anyone have any suggestions where I can find good Open Source readings for Intro to Bio Anth?

painful truths about grad school

This post about grad school in history has been making the rounds. It basically says the same thing most of us have been saying: there are no academic jobs, current academic lottery winners won't tell you the truth, the opportunity costs are too high, etc. Still, it's a nice re-statement of the problem.

Although I believe everything stated in this blog post, I'll admit I find it hard to quash the dewy-eyed dreamers that come to my office, seeking advice about graduate school. It's hard to tell them "no", without it coming out as either "you're not good enough" (no matter how often I say that's not the case), or "it's only anthropology that's this f#@ked up" (especially since students who are given a pessimistic view of the future by me often find a more optimistic faculty member in another field, and assume that they're better off in history or sociology).

How much reality do you inflict on undergrads?

is there a niche for anthropology as the "interesting science"?

This article from the New York Times got a lot of circulation this week: "Why Science Majors Change their Minds (It's Just so Darn Hard)"

The article is poorly titled. Yes, there is some indication that science majors switch to the social sciences and humanities because the grading is easier in those fields. But the article suggests that the real problem is that the natural sciences, math, and engineering just aren't that interesting. Or, more accurately, that the way they are taught at most universities, as huge lecture classes involving no real-world applications, is not nearly as interesting to students as the more discussion-based courses in more applied fields.

An illustrating anecdote from the article:

MATTHEW MONIZ bailed out of engineering at Notre Dame in the fall of his sophomore year. He had been the kind of recruit most engineering departments dream about. He had scored an 800 in math on the SAT and in the 700s in both reading and writing. He also had taken Calculus BC and five other Advanced Placement courses at a prep school in Washington, D.C., and had long planned to major in engineering.

But as Mr. Moniz sat in his mechanics class in 2009, he realized he had already had enough. “I was trying to memorize equations, and engineering’s all about the application, which they really didn’t teach too well,” he says. “It was just like, ‘Do these practice problems, then you’re on your own.’ ” And as he looked ahead at the curriculum, he did not see much relief on the horizon.

So Mr. Moniz, a 21-year-old who likes poetry and had enjoyed introductory psychology, switched to a double major in psychology and English, where the classes are “a lot more discussion based.” He will graduate in May and plans to be a clinical psychologist. Of his four freshman buddies at Notre Dame, one switched to business, another to music. One of the two who is still in engineering plans to work in finance after graduation.

Mr. Moniz’s experience illustrates how some of the best-prepared students find engineering education too narrow and lacking the passion of other fields.

This article reminds me of an article I read a few years ago (which of course I can't find a link to now! Can anyone help?) that suggested many women leave science careers because they don't find them very interesting. Women with top SAT math scores are more likely than men with top SAT scores to also have top scores on the verbal component of the exam. In other words, women with highly developed math skills are more likely (for whatever nature/nurture reason) to also be excellent students in other fields. There are fewer men for whom this is true. Therefore, women who started in math, science, and engineering fields often found they were more interested in the social sciences or humanities, and they also had the skill-based to thrive in those fields. So they switched. Men were less likely to switch, as they were more likely to lack the skills needed.

Anecdotally, I had many undergraduate friends who started out in math, science or engineering (my then-boyfriend was a computer engineer). Those who also had strong analytical and verbal skills (a group that did not include said then-boyfriend), did indeed switch to the humanities/social sciences or double-major. Most of these friends were male, not female. Dr. Mr. Palimpsest also fits this pattern, starting out as a physics major and deciding that anthropology was just more interesting.

Anthropology seems an ideal destination for smart, motivated, but dissatisfied science students. We straddle the divide between the natural and social sciences. A student with highly developed math and science skills can put them to use here, analyzing DNA, running stable isotope analyses, or building computer models. Yet, our research is clearly applied, hands-on, and critical to our comprehension of all that it means to be human. How much more interesting can it get?

So what can we do to bring in the dissatisfied math, science, and engineering students? I have two suggestions:

1) We shouldn't hide the scientific or technical aspects of our field. Here at Tiny U, my biological anthropology class is often used as "non-sciencey" option for students trying to get their general education science credits. They're often appalled when they find out how much real science (and gasp! even some math!) is involved. But I've had math and computer science majors tell me they've learned more in my class than in any other natural science class they've taken. We should revel in our science, and not have it a secret discovered only by those who happen to take the class to fill a gen ed requirement.

2) We must make students aware of the applications of anthropology. I've had a number of students tell me they like anthropology, but they're majoring in psychology or sociology because anthro is "all research and no practical application". We need to make it clear that anthropology is not just the study of the exotic or the distant past, with no current applications. Anthropology gains if we clarify that it is hands-on and practical for our modern world.

care and feeding of your undergraduate research minions

In my previous posts on this topic (http://secondaryrefuse.blogspot.com/2011/08/undergraduate-research-structuring-work.html, and here), I talked about structuring research with undergraduates, and choosing good undergraduate RAs. This post is about keeping your research team running smoothly, once you've assembled them.

First, I should mention something that I left out of my post on choosing undergraduate RAs. I wrote that I announced the RA positions in my classes and had students fill out applications. But I didn't just "announce" the positions, I gave a short presentation in each class where I explained exactly what would be expected (hours per week, weekly meetings, readings, writing or independent research, etc.), and exactly what tasks I foresaw being part of the RAship (washing bones, initial sorting of bones, data entry into Excel, helping to format bibliographies in Word, library research on assigned topics, creating figures in Illustrator or Photoshop, etc.). I asked the students I chose for the positions to think about which of these activities they would find more interesting. Some students really want to work with their hands, others really prefer to crunch numbers, and others just want you to point them in the direction of basic tasks. Matching your RAs with their interests will make life easier on everyone.

Second, I insist that everyone on the research team attend a weekly meeting. It can take some doing to find a time when everyone is available, but it's too easy for over-stressed and over-committed students to just disappear for a week or two or ten. A weekly meeting greatly cuts down on the number of AWOL RAs, and improved team communication. At the meeting, we tell each other what we've done on the project during the past week, and I discuss and assign tasks for the coming week. My RAs have the opportunity to ask why we're undertaking certain tasks, and to get clarification on our ultimate goals. Often, the conversations turn to fieldwork opportunities, graduate school plans, academic problems, etc. These are smart, committed students, and they have lots of questions about how academia works, what career options there are in archaeology, and what the best course schedule would be for the next semester. I really enjoy these conversations, they're essential to the advising part of my job, and they add an aspect of mentoring to the RAship that wouldn't necessarily occur without those weekly meetings.

Finally, I try to push my RAs to get more out of the experience, so that it is as beneficial to them as possible, while at the same time keeping them tied tightly to my own research needs. An example of pushing my RAs: Not all of my RAs end up doing independent research. Depending on the type of RAship, they may just do the tasks I set them, and never really think about the context and purpose of those tasks. However, Tiny U has a number of fellowships/grants to support undergraduate research, so I strongly encourage my RAs to identify aspects of my research that they find most interesting and to pursue those as independent research projects in future semesters. I even come up with a list of appropriate topics, with some indication of the data that would be needed to test the hypotheses and the methods that would need to be employed. I help RAS to craft proposals for the fellowship applications, work through the research itself, and oversee the subsequent write-up (including co-authored papers or conference presentations).

At the same time, though, I find it critical to tie student's research very tightly with my own. Some of my RAs express an interest in doing something well outside my research interests, such as working in a different region, or with plant remains. I am very firm in saying "no" to their requests to take on directed studies or in any other way getting intimately involved with that type of independent research. I just don't have the time to walk them through the process if it means learning new literature and methods myself. If they want my help, they must work on materials I have in my lab, or on some side issue with the data that I've collected. I will work with them on other topics, but only if it relates so directly to my research that there is potentially a publication down the road (for example, the research may produce some useful comparative data to my own), or at least their literature review will help fill in holes in my own knowledge (for example, if the student wants to research stable isotopes, a topic I need to learn more about myself.)

Restricting my undergraduate RAs to my research has been incredibly important. I'm grateful that I'm allowed to do so. Some of my Tiny U colleagues in other departments are not so lucky. Many departments require students to do a senior research project, chosen by the student, and supervised by a faculty member. The faculty members cannot dictate or limit the students' choice, and frequently end up supervising research on topics very far from their own interests, sucking up a great deal of time and energy. If you're in a program like that, you have all of my sympathy.

gathering your (undergraduate research) minions

In a previous post, I talked about including undergraduates in your research. Mentoring and providing research opportunities is an important part of my job at a liberal arts college, and something the tenure committee will look at closely. On the other hand, supervising undergraduate assistants can suck a lot of your energy and time away from your own research, unless you manage it wisely. My last post was on the structure of undergraduate research as it integrates with your own. This post is on how to gather your undergraduate research team.

I find it hard to recruit good undergraduate research assistants. It's not that they aren't out there, it's just that I don't always know what characteristics will make the best RA. At first, I chose students who showed a great deal of enthusiasm in my classes, even if they hadn't been the top grade-earners. This turned out to be a mistake. They were pleasant and fun, but they didn't get top grades because they weren't consistent workers. They couldn't be trusted to show up on time, or to put that last bit of effort in to do the task right.

After that, I only chose students who were at the top of my classes. In general, this worked better, but I ended up with a student with unusual interpersonal skills (I assume she fits somewhere on the autism spectrum), which caused very severe communication problems for which I was not prepared. This also can lead to RAs who had overcommitted to other research or extracurricular activities and aren't willing to do as much for your research as you could hope.

My current approach has worked better. Last Spring, I announced the upcoming RA positions in all of my classes (and Dr. Mr. Palimpsest's archaeology class). I asked students to fill in a statement of interested that asked for their:
planned time of graduation
majors and minors
overall GPA and GPA in anthropology
classes taken in anthropology or archaeology
previous research experience
other jobs/commitments expected during the RA period
name of one reference

Most of the students who applied were already known to me, so I could judge their pleasantness, commitment to their work, eye for detail, etc., from personal experience. The information about how well they did in school in general, as well as how over-committed they plan to be, was extremely useful.

This semester, I have a cracking research team. Partly this is luck, but partly this reflects changes in the characteristics I value in an RA. YMMV, of course, but here's what I look for now:

pleasant personality, but not necessarily a social butterfly. I'm a complete introvert, but I have nothing against extroverts. I did learn the hard way, though, that enthusiasm for archaeology sometimes just reflects the student's extroversion, not their true commitment to the field. On the other hand, extremely quiet students may not just be "reserved", their quietness may mask an inability to effectively communicate with others.

attention to detail and pride in doing things right. These traits often separate the A students from the B students, but not all A students have them, and not all B students lack them. I can often see these traits in how well students write, and whether or not they go the "extra mile" in class assignments.

first- or second-year students. I find these students to be less over-committed, better able to balance the RA-ship and classes, and, ideally, willing to continue working with you for years to come.

becoming a "radical scholar" at a liberal arts college

Earlier this month, I wrote about Kate Clancy's call for women (especially parents) to become "radical scholars".

Here's what Clancy says about becoming radical:

But those of us who insist on playing with our toys in the academic sandbox need to be radicals. And I do think a lot of the ways we need to be radical involves how we perform our job: we need to set boundaries so that we aren’t always doing the service work no one wants, we need to make our passions our scholarly interests in the face of some who would invalidate it, we need to perform our confidence in front of people who might undermine us. We need to get tenure.

But I think it also means reflecting critically on what it takes to get tenure, and whether the way it’s done is the way it should be done. There are two problems with the current criteria for tenure: they don’t reflect modern, interdisciplinary scholarship, and they don’t include metrics to evaluate influence and perspective beyond peer-reviewed publications.

She goes on to discuss the importance of new methods of publishing and service to the field (like blogs), and developing new ways of counting interdisciplinary scholarship toward tenure.

Clancy's article is from the perspective of an R1 faculty member. But what about those of us at liberal arts colleges (LACs)? I don't know if women and mothers at LACs get tenure at lower rates than men and non-mothers, but we still face many of the same balance issues. How do we become radical scholars?

Here are a few ideas from my own experience:

1) Teaching counts for more in tenure decisions at a LAC, so include time-saving technology, child-focused research, and other mother-friendly activities in your teaching and sell them as pedagogical innovation. Seriously. I teach intro courses in cultural, biological, and archaeology. In those courses, I include a substantial on-line component, where students use their home computer to take exams, quizzes, do weekly assignments, on-line prelabs, participate in discussions, etc. In my tenure file, I call this "innovative use of technology" that "continues the opportunities for collaborative and interactive learning outside the classroom." But do you know the major reason I do it? Because most of those on-line activities are automatically graded by the computer, and the grades automatically added to the on-line grading system. When a question requires human attention, I can grade at my own convenience, on my own computer, without having to haul around stacks of paper, or deal with 75 different examples of illegible handwriting.

Another example: I'm obsessive about breast-feeding (Pumpkin is sleeping and nursing in my lap as I type). I've done a lot of research on it. I'm also interested in other aspects of pregnancy and reproduction. So, I've made that the topic of one week of my ecological anthropology class. It's not my field, but it's an interest of mine, and it allows me to apply research that's important for the care of my own children to my teaching.

2) Service may count more at a LAC than at an R1 school (depending on the LAC and the R1, of course). Here at Tiny U, community-service based class activities are considered particularly impressive in a tenure application. I'm focusing my community service activities around young children, so my mothering experience and interests will complement my professional service. This year, my North American Archaeology class will be putting together a presentation on archaeology and site stewardship, as well as local culture history, for the preschoolers and kindergarteners in town. Yup, I'm taking my "big kids" to my own Bunny's kindergarten class. I get double bonus points for volunteering in my child's classroom and doing professional community service!

3) Although LACs put more focus on teaching than R1s, at many colleges, research will also be rewarded. Here at Tiny U, a mediocre teaching record and a stellar research record will get you tenure, but a bad research record will not necessarily be balanced by even the highest teaching honors. At Tiny U, only a small percentage of the faculty do significant research, but we have little pots of money to encourage faculty to do more. I've never been turned down for any money I've applied for, including grants in the $5,000-20,000 range! If you're one of the few here who do research, you can have a significant advantage when it comes to available seed money.

Obviously, the reason so few of us do research is because our teaching and advising loads are so high. This is where it becomes important to say "no", and to refuse typically "mothering" roles that both administrators and students may wish you to fulfill. I don't listen to students' personal problems. I'm happy to serve as their academic adviser, but they need to come to me with coherent questions and plans, I won't spend an hour discussing their vague dreams for the future. I'm not their mother. I'm not rude when I refuse this role, I'm just professional and distant, and I refuse to take any conversational opening that invites more "sharing". Every once in a while, a student is unable to read the conversational cues that say "I'm not your personal counselor, I'm your professor, let's keep this professional", but in general, I find my more "hands-off" role easy to maintain. (I should mention that I'm neither young, pretty, short, nor particularly feminine in appearance, advantages that help maintain some distance and respect.)

4) Public outreach is a category of service that is also highly prized at some LACs. I often have great ideas for public outreach (I'll give a series of lectures on human evolution! I'll put together an archaeology day!). I've decided to avoid these as much as possible, unless I can "double-dip", for example, by having one of my classes put together the archaeology day as a community-service based component of their classroom experience.

That brings me to the topic of this blog. One of the original purposes of this blog was to create a forum where I could vent, which is one of the reasons I made it anonymous. (The other reason is that I am concerned my colleagues in anthropology would see this blog as wasted time that could be spent on teaching or publishing.) I have used this space to vent in the past, but I've since regretted making this blog anonymous. In general, I like my job and my colleagues, and I don't have that much to complain about that I can't openly acknowledge. I wonder, if I was more open about my identity, could I foster more dialog on the topics of zooarchaeology, teaching methods, and family/work balance which are the main focus of this blog? I never intended for this blog to influence the field, or impress anybody, but it would be nice to have more interaction with other archaeologists interested in the same topics. Obviously, the few people who comment on this blog already know who I am. I'm not really keeping my identity secret, especially from other zooarchaeologists, but I do regret that I didn't begin this blog openly. I feel it would be too difficult to change now.

As a final note, I planned to write this post 10 days ago, but I was delayed by the same sorts of life events that make motherhood and academia hard to merge. Pumpkin had minor surgery, and my parents were here for a week to help. Between the surgery, a day at home for Pumpkin, and a volunteer responsibility at Bunny's school, I lost most of last week. This week, Bunny doesn't have school Thursday and Friday, and Pumpkin has been sick at home the last two days. If I'm lucky, he'll be well enough to go to daycare tomorrow, so I'll have one day this week to work. I had a Wenner-Gren grant proposal 80% done on the 7th, and I've barely touched it since. (Hmm, maybe I should be doing that instead of writing this blog.)

undergraduate research: the basics

Many institutions - with or without graduate programs - value undergraduate research opportunities. Faculty may be under pressure to provide such opportunities, or may wish to take advantage of funding for undergraduate research to further their own research agenda. My personal experience is that undergraduate research is usually more valuable to the student (as a means of deepening their education, preparing them for grad school, etc.) than it is to the professor (in terms of providing material aid in their research). In fact, providing research opportunities for undergraduates can take a great deal of a professor's time and energy, for very little "pay off" in terms of substantive contributions to the research.

I take it as a given that we all wish to improve our students' education by giving them opportunities for independent and/or supervised research. But how do we make these undergraduate research opportunities work for us, and not against us, when it comes to our research productivity? I don't pretend to have all the answers, but my current research involves several undergraduates, so I've planned a series of posts on how to approach the issue. This first post will focus on the different ways one can structure undergraduate research opportunities, and the pluses and pitfalls of each.

1) Have some class. One of my undergraduate minions is working on my research through an independent study. Essentially, we created a class where much of the work is hands-on research. Tiny U requires that all independent studies have a written contract, which spells out in detail what is required of the student. Because this is an academic class, the contract must include readings, tests/papers or other evaluation techniques, learning outcomes, etc. If your university doesn't require such a contract, I highly recommend you create one, just to avoid confusion and misunderstandings.

The pluses of this approach lie in the academic requirements of the class. My student is not only working with data, she will be required to read about the archaeology of the region, and basic zooarchaeology. She will have a much better understanding of what we are doing, and why, than students who come to the research through a different channel. Additionally, the class structure requires a research paper, and I have outlined a series of small research projects that are the right length and difficulty for a single-semester paper. My student may choose to do something else, but if she chooses one of the projects outlined, I will get part of my research project written up through her classwork. If she does a good job, I can co-author a paper with her. If she does a lousy job and I have to totally re-do the work, at least she's found some of the essential references for me and summarized the data.

The major pitfall of the independent study is that it takes some work on my part. I need to provide her with the readings, make sure she's making progress on her research paper, and generally spend some portion of the time I would have to spend were this a normal classroom course. It's easy to fall behind on discussions of the readings, or in evaluating outlines of the research project, with the result that the class is not as academically engaging as it should be.

2) Be Practical. Many universities, including Tiny U, offer credits of "research practicum". Other universities may use a different name, but basically the student signs up for 1-4 credits or practicum, and they spend that time doing whatever tasks you assign them, as long as it is related to your research. There is no expectation that this represents an academic class, so it is not required that the professor and student have a contract, required readings, or evaluation opportunities.

The pros of this approach: 1) It's easier and more approachable for the student; they don't have to commit to a major research paper or readings. 2) It's easier for the professor. Obviously, the more background and context you give your minions, the better job they can do, but the research practicum is less work to set up and maintain than an independent study. 3) It's a good way to "try out" a new minion, to see if he/she will make a good long-term part of your research team, and to ease him/her into a more active role. One of my students this semester is taking this route, and I hope to continue working with her in the future, perhaps moving her into a directed study.

The pitfalls of this approach: The only real pitfall is that you can't require your minions to do background reading, and whether or not they will engage in a semi-independent research project depends on individual negotiations with that student.

3) Work 'em hard. Federal or university work-study money can pay for undergraduate research assistants. At Tiny U, we can only use federal work study, since we have no money of our own. RAs are paid at a much higher rate than TAs here at Tiny U, but the total amount of money they are able to make over the course of the semester is the same. In other words, RAs who work the same number of hours as TAs during the week will not be able to work the whole semester.

The pros of this approach are similar to those of the research practicum, with the added benefit of supporting a student in need of extra income. Unlike many of the jobs students use to support themselves, this job will enrich their education and experience.

The major pitfall at Tiny U is the limited number of students who are both work-study eligible and qualified and interested. I have one student working for me through the federal work-study program, and she is the least qualified and least engaged of my minions. But, they are all exceptionally bright young women, so that's not saying much.

4) Road trip! This summer, I took two students to Old Graduate Town to work in the museum with me. One of the students signed up for an independent study, while the other came just for the experience. I paid for their expenses while they were working with me, but they had to pay their own way to the museum.

pros: the students were thrilled to be in a cool, new city, with opportunities to explore in the evening and on weekends. They were enthusiastic about the work, and they were at my disposal, day in day out, for weeks. They did a lot of the data entry and metrics, while I identified the bones. If you have a project with a chunk of "grunt work", having a student with you in the lab can greatly contribute to your productivity. This summer was the only experience I've had with undergraduate research where the benefits to my productivity greatly outweighed the costs.

pitfalls: depending on what you're doing, students may not learn very much from the experience. My students this summer learned their bones very well, and probably have van den Dreisch memorized (poor things), but they didn't learn how to identify the different species, and they didn't get as much background on the reasons for the project as I would have hoped.

5) Seminar. I've never done this, but I know people organized entire seminars around their research. They use student projects (annotated bibliographies, class papers, etc.) to cut down on their own workload. This isn't possible at Tiny U, where we only teach three archaeology classes. Even a topic as general as "zooarchaeology" is too specific to attract sufficient students. But, depending on your institution, there may be ways to make this work.

pros: Like I said, I've never done it, but I imagine the pros are the same as those for an independent study.

pitfalls: Prepping a new class, teaching, and grading is a huge amount of work. On the other hand, if you were going to have to prep, teach, and grade that number of credits, anyway, then you're robbing your teaching time to pay for your research. Sweet.

Next post: the care and feeding of your minions.

fun with the liberal arts

I teach a regional overview course where each student does substantial research on a separate culture within that region. They give weekly reports on their research, and at the end of the semester, they write a term paper. For many of them, this paper is just their weekly reports put together. They have the option, though, of writing a short story set in their culture. The story must show mastery of the archaeological record, and give the reader a good idea of what daily life was like at that time and place.

This semester, about half of my students chose the fiction option, and their papers were fun to read. They ran the gamut from fictionalized accounts of documented archaeological events, to science-fiction stories involving time travel, to magical realism involving an invader and his pet mouse.

I really like this assignment because it represents the best of the liberal arts: forging links between scientific and humanistic disciplines, fostering creativity, and encouraging self-expression. If you're interested in doing something similar, I have two recommendations:

1) make sure students know they will be graded on the academic content of their story, not (or not solely) on plot, character development, etc. Make them include footnotes or an annotated bibliography for their sources.

2) include a significant amount of traditional academic writing/research in the class, in addition to the fiction component. This activity works for my class because my students have done a huge amount of research and writing on their culture before they turn to fiction. By the time they get to the final project, they've written nine short (1-3 page) papers on their culture's subsistence system, architecture, mortuary customs, etc., etc. In other words, we can have fun with a fictional account of their culture because they've proven without a doubt that they've mastered the material.

neandertals maligned

I had my students read Gifford-Gonzalez (1998) and write a short reflective essay on the role of popular culture in shaping our ideas about early human ancestors. I asked them if they had ever seen a museum display, cartoon, or film about human evolution, and how they felt this affected their perspective on our ancestors. My favorite answer started with these lines:

I can only assume you are referring to the documentary series "Jersey Shore" that portrays an early Neandertal community in its quest for food, shelter, and whatever the hell "smoosh-smoosh" is. (I'm not an anthropologist.)

Funny, but perhaps I need to make them read Speth 2004, too.


BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Gifford-Gonzalez, Diane
1998 The Real Flinstones? What Are Artists' Depictions of Human Ancestors Telling Us? In Selig, Ruth Osterweis and Marilyn R. London, Anthropology Explored: The Best of Smithsonian AnthroNotes, p.74-82. Smithsonian Institution Press, Washington DC.

Speth, John D.
2004 News Flash: Negative evidence convicts Neandertals of gross mental incompetence. World Archaeology 36:519-526.

worthwhile extra credit

I wrote the title for this post, and then hit "publish", accidentally posting it without any content. I thought about leaving it that way, since it neatly sums up my view of the topic!

OK, that's not true. "Typical" extra credit at Tiny U consists of giving students points for a short reflection paper on a presentation/lecture/movie viewing/concert/etc that is related to the class subject. This type of extra credit has two positive outcomes: 1) it encourages students to take advantage of cultural opportunities around campus, which is particularly useful at a liberal arts college; and 2) it makes students happier, since they think they're improving their grade, even if the points involved are minuscule. (My students tend to be bad at math, and even worse at assessing their risk of doing poorly in the class, whatever "poorly" means to then.)

Note I didn't include "helps students fully understand and apply class concepts" as one of the positive outcomes. In my experience, this type of extra credit very seldom does so.

I've moved away from that model of extra credit, and now, in most of my classes, I have a limited number of pre-fabricated extra credit activities. They are worksheets, self-testing quizzes, fill-in-the-blank study guides, and other material that is useful for studying for the exams. For example, for the primate section of my physical anthropology class, the extra credit activity was to fill in a chart with information about the physical and social adaptations of all the major primate groups. The activities are available on the class webpage from the beginning of the semester, and they are due on the same day as the exam to which they relate. I frequently take exam questions from those extra credit assignments. In other words, the extra credit helps them study for the exam.

Not only does the extra credit directly relate to class concepts, and sometimes help students apply those concepts to previously unfamiliar case studies, I get a lot fewer questions about extra credit opportunities. Students know up-front how many opportunities there are and when they are due, since they are listed directly in the syllabus. I don't have students constantly asking me "will there be more extra credit opportunities coming up?", especially at the very end of the semester when the poorest students suddenly realize that skipping class has left them with gaping holes in their grade and poor test scores.

I've been very happy with this type of extra credit. It's the only kind I'll use from now on.

teachable moment (or thanks for the educational opportunity, "gay caveman")

We just finished gender in my cultural anthropology class, so the story about the "gay caveman" was well timed. In class today, we covered the facts, briefly. The individual was neither a "caveman" nor demonstrably "gay". Discuss. We talked about what it means to be "gay", what is "third gender", the difference between "gender role", "sex", and "sexual orientation". This was all good review.

But the best discussion centered on why this story made headlines around the world. After all, we know there are gay men in the modern U.S., why should we be shocked to find there were gay men in the ancient Czech Republic (whether or not this burial represents such an individual)? We talked about what the term "caveman" represents in our society, and agreed the term is used as either a reflection of our mythical "natural" state, or of the "nasty, brutish" side of our species (or both). So what would it mean if we discovered gay cavemen? I pointed out that it's not exactly a newsflash that sexual orientation has both biological and social components, but my students argued that the this story reflects fundamental concerns with whether homosexuality is "natural". My students were reassuringly savvy consumers of the media message, and clearly picked up on the modern political currents swirling around this archaeological find.

story-telling

If you've never searched for your own name on Facebook, I recommend it. I found a comment that a former student wrote about me on a current student's page. She was complimentary, saying she'd like to take more classes with me, because I'm "a great storyteller."

I never consciously decided to make story-telling one of my primary methods of teaching. That comes out of my own interest in stories. Before college, I wanted to be a history major. Most of my high school classmates viewed history as a boring collection of dates and facts, but to me it was a collection of stories. People's lives are endlessly fascinating, and real life is more unique, idiosyncratic, and fun than fiction, if only, as Twain said, because fiction has to make sense.

Embedding the perfect story into your lecture does three things for your students: 1) it wakes them up, by interrupting the normal rhythm of the lecture; 2) it engages them with the material, since story-telling is more intimate than "just the facts" lectures; and 3) it helps them remember concepts through applied examples. Add a story to your lecture, and I guarantee you will find that story repeated in half the essays on the next exam.

Usually the stories I tell are true (or true enough), but I've experimented with students telling fictional stories as a pedagogical technique. For the final project in my Latin American archaeology class, students have the option of writing a standard term paper or creating a short, fictionalized account of a prehistoric context, one that brings the archaeological record to life in a way that no research paper ever could.

teaching gender

There are lots of ways to show students that gender is a culturally created category, not a biological imperative. One way is to discuss the different agents that enculturate us into our gender roles. If gender is so natural, then why do we have to be taught, from birth, by our families, peers, media, schools, etc., how we are supposed to think/act/be?

After talking about these agents of socialization, I like to show a series of videos that show people playing with gender roles. When students see these unexpected messages coming from the usual media sources, it makes it very obvious that normally we are bombarded by the same message, day after day.

Here are some interesting options:

Girls on Film has re-makes of movie scenes where women play male characters. The Star Trek scene is pretty good. The scene from The Town makes the point better, I think, but is too raunchy for my students' ears. (I'm still trying to live down the great whitewashed willie debacle). What we really need, though, are Boys on Film. Imagine re-making movie scenes where men play female characters. I think it would make it very clear that women, increasingly, can stretch gender roles, but men cannot.

Kaltura's gendered advertising remixer allows you to play the video from a boy or girl's toy ad, while playing the audio from an ad aimed at the other gender. The contrast is pretty striking.

There are a couple wonderful YouTube videos that create gendered messages through music in a way unintended by the original artist. I love the all-female Cornell a capella students group version of Dr. Dre's "Bitches ain't shit." (I've never heard the original of that song, but let me tell you, the title is one of the least offensive lines.) Watching young, affluent women, dressed in country-club style (with tennis rackets), singing a song like that is both hilarious and a fascinating play on gender. Unfortunately, I've never had the guts to show it to a class, because the lyrics are so horrific.

A cuter, and much more class-safe option is the gay remix of Taylor Swift's You Belong with Me. In this video, the "tomboy" girl is a man, in love with his neighbor. It's a very sweet little song/story. But, it still gets the point across, and makes you think about the lyrics and gender roles portrayed in a different way.

getting my Irish on, again

One last Irish post. In previous years, my Cultural Anthropology class was covering the topic of religion around St. Patrick's day. There is a traditional prayer attributed to St. Patrick (called St. Patrick's breastplate, or the Lorica, or the deer prayer) that is a wonderful example of syncretism. The prayer is in the form of a traditional druidic incantation for protection, but with overt Christian symbolism. The modern versions are translations, obviously, but they include clear references to pagan magic, and the invocation (literally) of God as a protector: "I bind unto myself today, the strong name of the Trinity, by invocation of the same, the Three in One, the One in Three."

In fact, the legend of the prayer is that St. Patrick used it to turn himself and his companions into deer, so they would not be killed by the druids who were seeking them out. Honestly, men who become deer through invocation of the power of the moon, stars, sun, ocean, and rocks? How much more pagan can you get? Except it's not.

I like to use this example of syncretism, because textbook examples often portray this process as something "primitive". Students get the idea that somehow only very ignorant or religiously backward people engage in syncretism. (Yes, I know, the very idea is non-anthropological, but not all students recognize that.) This example from the early church resonates more with students, and makes it clear that this is a wide-spread phenomenon.

the great whitewashed willie debacle

I grew up (more or less) in this region of the country. I know my people, and we're prudes.

But, I grew up, gained wisdom (or maybe just got jaded), and, frankly, reached an age where nekkid bodies in a non-erotic context just aren't all that, well, erotic.

My students, not so much.

My first inkling of the problem was when I showed the classic movie Onka's Big Moka. Apparently, several of the young women in the class were mortified by visible male genitalia, and complained (to another professor) that they couldn't "ignore" it because the subtitles were right at crotch level. I went back and watched parts of the video again, since I hadn't noticed full frontal nudity. It's there, but with dark lighting, it wasn't noticeable (to me).

I edited a couple of lesson plans to avoid offending anyone, but this week I showed another classic movie, Masai Women. I love this movie, which is a perfect example of the intersection of gender, kinship, marriage patterns, and aging. But, I'd forgotten that the last part of the movie focuses on a warrior initiation ceremony, where young men are dancing, covered in a slurry of white chalk, and naked below the waist. In other words, there was a whole wall of whitewashed willies bouncing up and down for a good five minutes.

Oops.

I expect the complaints to begin immediately.

teaching with the Irish

After my St. Patrick's day post, I was thinking about how frequently I use Irish examples in my classes.

In my Cultural Anthropology class, I talk about Irish immigration to the U.S. during the last half of the 19th century. I show students some contemporary images that portrayed the Irish as inferior (like these), and I read quotes from leaders of American society that portray this influx of new people as the end of American civilization.

First, we talk about parallels between the portrayal of immigration in the 19th century, and the portrayal of immigration in the 21st (and why). Then, we talk about how the Irish were seen as a separate race, with significant physical differences from the Anglo-Saxons who dominated U.S. culture at the time. I show them that the Irish were considered intellectually unsuited to most professional pursuits, but they were thought to be naturally talented athletes and entertainers. Many vaudeville acts were Irish, and the Irish dominated certain competitive sports, like boxing (hence Notre Dame's Fighting Irish mascot, with his hands raised for a match.) I help my students make the connection between these ideas about the Irish, and similar ideas about other ethnic groups, and how the lack of access to higher education and wealth can create this self-fulfilling stereotype.

At the end, I return to the quotes that predicted an end to U.S. culture if we allow the Irish to immigrate in such large numbers. The major point I make to my students is that, although these quotes sound ridiculous to us, the writers were right. That is to say,if we could disinter those distinguished gentlemen and show them the modern U.S., they would be appalled by some of the changes that have occurred, largely as a result of Irish immigration. Catholicism is the largest single denomination in the country. Irish ancestry is more common than any other, except German. We celebrate St. Patrick's day, for heaven's sake! From the perspective of the Victorian WASP, U.S. culture did "degenerate". We don't see it that way, though, because we're the decedents of those immigrants, and we know that the changes that occurred in this country have led to the powerful, rich, and free nation that we know and love.

I end the lecture by predicting that our grandchild will have similar attitudes toward today's immigrants. They'll read our vitriolic rants about immigration, and say "hey, they were crazy back then." Then, they'll head out to celebrate Chinese New Year with the traditional mariachi band.

more on race

Here's some more detail on one of the activities I use to teach race. It's called "Race is in the cards", and it comes from Strategies in Teaching Anthropology (Graber 2000).

I made "decks" of cards, four cards to a deck. On each card, I drew a stick figure. In each deck, two of the figures are short, and two are tall. In each deck, two of the figures have curly hair, and two have straight. In each deck, two of the figures are drawn with an orange crayon (technically, the crayon was named "mac n' cheese"), and two are drawn in purple ("purple mountain majesty").

Here's the difference: In one deck (marked "c", for concordant), the traits are correlated. That is, the curly-haired figures are all short and orange, while the straight-haired figures are all tall and purple. In the other deck (marked "d" for discordant), the traits are not correlated. So, there is one figure with curly hair and a short, orange body, while another figure with curly hair is purple and tall, etc., etc. The students are given the two decks, and asked to create "races" from them. In one case, this is easy. In the other, it's hard, because any choice they make will be arbitrary. The idea is to convince students that dividing discordant physical variation is arbitrary, and based on social rules, not biological ones.

This exercise only works for about half the students, even though we talk through it in great detail. The other half write the damnedest things when asked to reflect on the exercise. I get some truly bizarre answers (like, "this exercise shows the racial prejudices of our country." Yes, that's so true. When, oh when, will we ever see a mac n' cheese colored president?!) Most of the students who "go wrong", though, seem to have gotten caught up by the color issue. They assume that color is the only way to divide figures into races (that's what we do, right?), and therefore, they don't really get what I'm trying to say, other than "gee, the different races are more diverse in deck "d" than in deck "c"."

I've decided to change this exercise next year, and use plain black stick figures on a white background. The third variable be something unrelated to color, like squiggly bellies, or something. I hope that will help get the point across more effectively.

another year, another race failure

Every year, I spend a significant amount of time talking about race in my introductory classes (both BioAnth and Cultural). The focus is different in each, but I get up in front of the class and do a song and dance. I have them read multiple articles and the textbook, and I do a couple in-class activities where they look at human biodiversity in a hands-on manner. The major point I try to get across is that any division of human diversity into racial categories is arbitrary. Since different cultures make different arbitrary choices about the physical characteristics that define racial groups, clearly race is a socially-defined characteristic.

It's such a simple concept, but every year I fail to get this point across to at least half the class. It's not that they disagree with me. I would be disappointed, but not a failure, if half the students said "Yeah, whatever. You can say it's arbitrary, but look how skin color correlates with certain facial features and hair texture, etc., so no matter what you say, I'm going to believe there are significant physical differences between the races, and those are scientifically viable."

What students actually say is whatever their kindergarten teacher taught them along the lines of "we're all the same under the skin", or (cringe-worthy) "I don't see color and physical differences." But when asked "why do anthropologists say race is a socially defined characteristic?" half of the students give answers that show they have absolutely no understanding of my argument, whatsoever. They say things like "because we base racial categories on language, customs, dress, and other social traits." (Uh, we do? What country are you living in?) Or they repeat their elementary school lessons about égalité and fraternité in such a way that shows they have no comprehension of the biological differences or similarities between populations. Clearly, they think that's what I want to hear,a chorus of Kumbaya around the anthropological campfire.

I believe this to be one of the most critical topics that anthropologists can teach to the world, but I'm utterly failing to get through. Any ideas? Anyone else finding a way to teach this concept?


(Obviously, I'm in the middle of grading assignments about race. Depressing.)