Service
My dedication to service reflects my sense of ethics as regards responsible citizenship. My service choices underscore my desire to fulfill two major goals. First, I wish to build bridges between anthropologists and scholars in other disciplines concerned with cultural phenomena. Second, I feel a calling to engage in public anthropology, in other words, anthropology that is relevant to contemporary social issues.
Professional Service
In 2010, I am serving as Program Chair for the Society of the Anthropology of Europe, a section of the American Anthropological Association. The AAA meeting is set for November 17-20, 2010, in New Orleans.
From 2006-09, I served as contributing co-editor for the Association for Political and Legal Anthropology‘s monthly section column that appears in Anthropology News, the newsletter of the American Anthropological Association.
Department Service
I am Graduate Admissions Director for the UMass Department of Anthropology for the 2009-10 academic year.
Five College Service
I sit on the steering committee of the Five College Culture, Health and Science Program’s and also serve as a campus adviser to undergraduates wishing to pursue the CHS certificate.
Community Service
During my sabbatical in 2007-08, I collaborated with the non-profit Voices for Education, a leader in K-12 public education reform based in Tucson, Arizona. The organization works to reduce class sizes, improve parent involvement, and increase education funding. I put a lot of energy into an initiative called 2020 Vision: Transforming Pima County for its Youth. We organized and held six town meetings, conducted youth focus groups, and designed a survey for 11,000 7th and 11th graders. We wanted to figure out how well youth are being supported, educated, and engaged. Voices for Education plans to produce a report card on youth and then select three priorities for partners to move the needle on during the next three years.
