Anthropology Majors, please make your Advising appointment for Spring 2016 classes. Registration begins November 12th.
Appointment Plus Click to make appointment
Spring 2016 Course Descriptions
** NEW** Spring 2016 Courses:
Anthro 297AD Approaching Death: Culture Health & Science
Anthro 375 South American Archaeology
Anthro 397FB Forbidden Archaeology
Anthro 397SA Spatial Archaeology
Anthro 397TA Oral Traditions
Please congratulate our newly awarded Masers and Doctoral students for 2015:
Masters:
James Fisher
Castriela Hernandez
Erica Kowsz
Ying Li
Evan Taylor
Lauren Woodard
PhD/Doctoral:
C. Broughton Anderson
Cortni Borgerson
Robin Gray (9/1/15)
Joseph Jones
Valerie Joseph
Sofa Kalo (9/1/15)
Boone Shear
Flavia Stanley
Graduate Student Department Awards:
The Armelagos-Swedlund Graduate Research Award for outstanding research and in medical and biocultural anthropology.
1. Sarah Mathena: A Multistage Model for Treponemal Disease Susceptibility – recently presented at the Society of American Archeology Meetings in San Francisco
2. Kasey Jernigan – “Heritage as a pathway to the embodiment of disease: Obesity in the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma,” – presented at the UMass Center for Heritage Conference last May
Richard B. Woodbury Travel Awards – for presentation of a first paper at a major conference
1. Erica Kowsz
2. Julieta Chapparo
The Nathalie F.S. Woodbury Distinguished Service Award – for scholastic achievement and university service
1. Donna Moody
Undergraduate Awards:
Undergraduate Awards from University and College (11 students)
Frida Caro ~ Dean’s Opportunity Scholarship
Julia Snelling ~ Ansin Study Abroad
Bianca Renzoni ~Dean’s Opportunity Scholarship & Ansin Study Abroad
Georgina Wetzel ~ Ansin Study Abroad
Alyssa Catherine Mielke – Spring Study Abroad
Kayla Shea – Spring Study Abroad
Kelsi Sleet – Spring Study Abroad
Katie Waldron ~ Dean’s Research Award in collaboration with Elizabeth L. Krause.
Alison Masley – Chancellor’s Rising Researcher Award
Laura Dowd ~ Anthropology Department Field Scholar
Samya Stumo – UMass Salute to Service Scholarship, ole Research Award, Lorna Peterson
Prize (Five Colleges), First place in the student poster competition at the SfAA’s
Riding high on the water despite having eight paddlers aboard, a birchbark canoe cut swiftly across the surface of Puffer’s Pond on its first voyage, at high noon on May 2nd.
The canoe was hand-built by Five College students and Howard Kimewon, a visiting lecturer in the anthropology department. Its skin and ribs are white birch, bound by basswood fibers, and its seats are white ash.
It is the seventh birchbark canoe Kimewon, a native Anishinaabemowin speaker, has built in his life. He built this one with the help of students who study indigenous foodways, plant medicines, and anthropology, guiding them with instruction in his first language.
Kimewon, was born and raised on the Wikwemikong Unceded Indian Reserve on Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron. A collaboration among the Five College Center for the Study of World Languages, the Department of Anthropology, Amherst College, and the Native and Indigenous Studies Certificate Program supported his teaching.
Immersion in a canoe-building project is an innovative way to highlight the importance of water in the Anishinaabe language and culture indigenous to the Great Lakes region. For instance, in Anishinaabemowin, notkwemahza is a verb that means “he or she passes by in a canoe, singing a love song to [their]sweetheart”—one word that all by itself manages to convey motion, presence in a vehicle, two actions, mood, and a subject-object relationship.
Kimewon says the jiiman, or canoe, will have a hole burned in the left-hand side of the bow seat. The hole, placed where the watercraft’s heart would be, will in effect bring the canoe to life. “It’s got to be alive to keep us alive,” states Kimewon. Anishinaabemowin has a strong animistic principle embedded in the language: your car, for example, has a spirit because it is yours. A pencil becomes animate when it expresses life by writing.
Kimewon will now take the canoe to the Midwest, where he plans to pilot it across Lake Michigan.
“200 years ago, these canoes were alive, on the Great Lakes—they were everywhere,” pronounces Kimewon with admiration and awe.
Jonathan Rosa, Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology, has been awarded the Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. He will be in residence at Northwestern University’s Latina/o Studies Program for the 2015-2016 academic year.
The Ford Foundation seeks to increase the diversity of the nation’s college and university faculties, maximize the educational benefits of diversity, and increase the number of professors who can and will use diversity as a resource for enriching the education of all students.
“The Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship will allow me to finish up my book, Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Exclusion and Ingenuity in the Learning of Latina/o Identities, which I am publishing with Oxford University Press,” says Rosa. “The book focuses on the interplay between race, language, and education in a predominantly Latina/o Chicago public high school and its surrounding communities. I have been working with Chicago’s Puerto Rican Cultural Center to articulate a pedagogical vision for “community as a campus” on the one hand, and a citizenship of the Americas on the other. Language and culture figure centrally in these efforts to link community-based educational approaches to broader processes of political transformation.”
In other related news, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a Bridging Cultures at Community Colleges grant on which Rosa collaborated with colleagues from UMass and Holyoke Community College. The $150,000 grant, titled “Latino Studies in the United States: An NEH Bridging Cultures Project,” will help to create a Latina/o Studies Program at Holyoke Community College, as well as strengthen the relationship between HCC, UMass, and local Latina/o communities.
“I am thrilled to be participating in this project,” adds Rosa. “I see it as integral to ongoing collaborations among Five College colleagues and local communities to enhance Latina/o Studies in the area and create educational pipelines from K-12 to higher education.”
Whitney Battle-Baptiste, associate professor of anthropology, and Demetria Shabazz, assistant professor of communication, have been recognized as Women Who Lead by Example in Massachusetts by UnityFirst.com, a Springfield-based distributor of diversity-related e-news to corporations and diverse communities.
Battle-Baptiste, Shabazz and other honorees from business, education, arts, government and other fields are featured in a special issue released March 28.
According to Janine Fondon, president and CEO of UnityFirst.com, this year’s honorees “represent the best of women’s leadership in corporations, communities, education, arts, business, government and all areas of life and work across the Commonwealth … We want to share their stories to inspire others.”
Battle-Baptiste, who joined the faculty in 2007, also serves as the director of the W.E.B. Du Bois Center. A historical archaeologist who focuses on the intersection of race, class and gender in the shaping of cultural landscapes across the African diaspora, Battle-Baptiste’s theoretical interests include black feminist theory, African-American material and expressive culture and critical heritage studies. Her work includes historic sites as varied as the home of Andrew Jackson in Nashville, Tenn., Rich Neck Plantation in Williamsburg, Va., the Abiel Smith School in Boston, the W.E.B. Du Bois Homesite in Great Barrington, Mass. and the Millars Plantation on the Bahamian island of Eleuthera. She earned her Ph.D. in anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.
A member of the faculty since 2007, Shabazz’s research interests include the role of media in history as constitutive of African, African-American and other communities of culture. She is also interested in contemporary media and filmic production practices, codes and conventions, and public policy and regulation of the media from the standpoint of the socially and economically challenged. Her work emphasizes the use of media, media production and other communication practices to help foster civic engagement. She taught previously at Oklahoma State University, the University of Alabama, Mississippi State University and Northeastern University. She received her Ph.D. in mass communication at the University of Alabama.
A 10-hour per week research assistantship is available to work in the Kamilar Lab for the 2015-2016 academic year.
GENERAL DUTIES
Supports research projects and activities in the Lab, including:
• Perform research under faculty supervision.
• May develop or utilize computer-based systems to collect and analyze data.
• May assist in preparing manuscripts of research findings.
• May assist in configuring, purchasing, and testing lab equipment.
• May assist in supervising undergraduate students working in the lab.
The ideal candidate will have a strong interest in biological anthropology and be detail-oriented. In addition, he/she will have demonstrated ability to effectively manage time, organize data, and communicate effectively. Candidates should be competent in standard computer software suites (e.g. spreadsheet and word processing programs). Experience in a variety of statistical methods and computing environments (e.g. linear models, phylogenetic comparative methods, GIS, programming in Python or R) is a plus. A willingness and enthusiasm to learn new skills is important.
Current projects in the lab focus on the evolution of primate behavior and life history, primate biogeography and ecological modeling, the evolution of primate hair morphology, the evolutionary ecology of primate visual systems. Additional research projects in human/nonhuman primate behavior, ecology, and/or evolution can be developed to suit the specific interests of the RA.
Time commitment: 10 hours per week for the 2015-2016 academic year; specific schedule is flexible.
Additional summer funding may be available through existing grants.
Please submit:
• A short statement (500 words max) about your interest in the position and any relevant experience.
• A CV (including relevant coursework and experience and skills in quantitative methods)
• The above documents should be sent by e-mail as attachments to Jason Kamilar, jkamilar@anthro.umass.edu
Application Deadline:
April 24, 2015
Please contact Jason Kamilar (jkamilar@anthro.umass.edu) with any questions or concerns.
Please check the following for various information regarding Social and Behavioral Sciences Scholarships, Internships as well as Anthropology opportunities
SBS Scholarships: http://www.umass.edu/sbs/current-students/undergraduate/sbs-scholarships
Other Places to Look for Awards:
Financial Aid Resources page
Alumni Association Scholarships
Commonwealth Honors College (NOTE: Not all of these awards are for honors students – read carefully)
Office of National Scholarship Advisement
Department of Anthropology 2015 Study Abroad Scholarship Application for Undergraduate
Eligibility: All anthropology majors who plan to study abroad (including participation in field schools and faculty research projects in international settings) are eligible to receive a scholarship to help offset the cost of their plane tickets. Applicants must be participating in programs approved by the UMass International Programs Office.
Selection: A committee will choose recipients in the Spring semester for study abroad programs during the following summer or academic year. Selection will be based on academic excellence and relevance to program, personal, and career goals.
Deadline to apply: April 17, 2014
The recipients of this award will be expected to
• Attend the Anthropology Spring Award Ceremony in May, 2015
• Submit a one page report of their experience following their study abroad
Applications should be submitted in hard copy to:
Debbie Averill deboraha@anthro.umass.edu
Department of Anthropology
Machmer Hall, Room 215
240 Hicks Way
UMass Amherst
Amherst, MA 01003-9278
Summer Undergraduate Undergraduate_Internship__Museum_Education_at_Historic_Deerfield.
Professor, Jonathan Rosa has been awarded a Ford Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship. Jonathan tells us “this will fund me to be in residence at Northwestern University’s Latina/o Studies Program for the 2016-16 academic year. During the fellowship period, I will complete my book manuscript, “Looking like a Language, Sounding like a Race: Exclusion and Ingenuity in the Learning of Latina/o Identities,” which I am publishing with Oxford University Press.”
We have also learned that the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a Bridiging Cultures at Community Colleges grant in which he collaborated with colleagues at UMass and Holyoke Community College (including alum Vanessa Martinez!). The $150,000 grant, titled “Latina/o Studies in the United States: An NEH Bridging Cultures Project”, will help to create a Latina/o Studies Program at Holyoke Community College, as well as strengthen the relationship between HCC, UMass, and the local Latina/o communities.
UMass Amherst is realigning its academic advising program to better serve the one-in-four first-year students who enter the university without a declared major.
Beginning in September, all undeclared first-year students will join the new Exploratory Track Program and be placed in one of eight academic advising tracks designed to help them find the best major for their interests and aspirations.
Advisers who previously worked out of a central academic advising office will be reassigned to particular tracks, each affiliated with a school or college, providing more defined assistance and support to students in their exploration of a major.
While the approach to advising has not changed, the new program is expected to give students a stronger sense of belonging within the schools and colleges while still encouraging them to explore options across campus. Students will also participate in special academic programming, including a first-year seminar within their school or college.
Katherine S. Newman, provost and senior vice chancellor for academic affairs, said, “Every student at UMass benefits from having an intellectual community to participate in from the very beginning of their time with us. The Exploratory Tracks represent a novel and exciting way to introduce students who are searching for the right major to the possibilities in each of our colleges and schools. They will have wonderful first-year seminars to choose from, advisors to work with, and a faculty community to get to know. I think this will enhance the first-year experience for everyone.”
Students are matched with a track based on a review of their university admissions application focusing on interest, eligibility and academic proficiency.
Five of the tracks are available to all undeclared first-year students based on the review of their records. The five are humanities and fine arts; social and behavioral sciences; natural sciences; public health and health sciences, and education.
Three tracks – business, engineering, and computing and informatics – are open by invitation only to select students who had applied to them but did not receive direct acceptance.
The Exploratory Track Program was designed by the office of the provost working with the academic deans. The program will serve students past their first year as needed.