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March 2006 |
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Student News
Anthropology seniors Emily Stanfill ('08) and Shannon Freire ('08) can be seen in a recent BBC news article about excavations at Fanum Voltumnae, a shrine, marketplace and Etruscan political centre located in Orvieto, Italy. (Read the story.) Emily and Shannon are spending the Fall 07 semester in Italy studying archaeology and art history.
2006 Departmental Awards Winners
Tom Hathaway ('06) won the Franz Boas Award for outstanding achievement in all four fields of anthropology. Alejandro achieved the highest GPA in anthropology across all 4 fields, and recently completed his honors thesis titled Imbuing Material Culture With Meaning: Ceramic Production in Southeast Mesoamerica.
Amy Griffin ('06) won the Margaret Mead Award for special achievement in anthropology for her multi-disciplinary Senior Year Experience (SYE) Independent Study on the Egyptian Book of the Dead.
Shannon Freire ('08) won the Richard J. Perry award for the outstanding sophomore or junior major for academic excellence, either in class work or through independent study.
Congratulations, Tom, Amy, and Shannon!
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Here, There, and Everywhere: The Alumni
Here's what we've heard from some of you. If we missed you or botched the description, write to Dr. P. (address below) for the next issue!
| Laura Hacker-Durbin ('85) still travels the Pacific and Indonesia writing freelance travel pieces for yachting and cruising magazines. Chris Monahan ('86) lives in Hawaii (tough duty!) with his wife and two children, and does contract archaeology for Scientific Consultant Services, Inc. Jenny Larter Coughlin ('87) lives in Cazenovia with her husband and two small children. Lynne Greaball ('87) is director of domestic technical assistance at the National Alliance of State and Territorial AIDS Directors in Washington, DC. Lisa Guccione ('89) is the State Program Director of the Arizona Office of the Corporation for National and Community Service, working as Tribal Liaison for various programs with Native American tribes in Arizona, including the San Carlos Apache. Tracy Sumner Sesselberg ('93) received her MA in Medical Anthro. From U. Conn. And lives in Rochester, NY. William Clifford ('95) is Director of Marketing and Business development for Salans Attorneys in NYC. Mara Guccione ('94) got her MA in International Education from Harvard in 2000, and will be taking a position at Goldman Environment Prize in San Francisco, CA. Tabitha Feldman DeHays ('95) is teaching ESL in Massachusetts for pre-K to 12th grade students. Keenan Sheridan ('95) got a MA in TEOSL from U. Texas/Austin, and is currently teaching English as a Second Language in Massachussetts. James Rossi ('96) received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Yale, with a thesis titled Ontogeny, Homology, and Phylogenetic Significance of Anthropoid Paranasal Sinuses, and is currently a Rea Postdoctoral Fellow at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. David Hoffman ('97) has defended his dissertation ('The Subversion of Comanagement of a Marine Protected Area: The Case of Xcalak Reefs National Park, Mexico) at CU-Boulder. In addition, his book Dispatches from the Field: Neophyte Ethnographers in a Changing World has just been published by Waveland Press. David now works for the University for Peace in Ciudad Colon, Costa Rica. Caroline Archambault ('98) married Joost de Laat (economics '98) and is currently doing her fieldwork on the role of education among the Maasai, primarily in Kenya but also in Tanzania, for her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Brown. Valerie Foster ('98) just won a Fulbright IIE Fellowship to do her Ph.D. fieldwork working with AIDS widows in Tanzania, for U. Michigan in cultural anthropology. Jun Ebersole ('98) spent two years in Science City, a science center in Birmingham, Ala., and is now running the Alabama Collections Center, a small natural history museum in Hoover, Ala. Valerie Foster ('98) just finished up her PhD fieldwork working with AIDS widows in Tanzania and is back in the US writing her dissertation in cultural anthropology at U Michigan. Betsy Brownell ('99) got her MA in social anthropology from the U. of Wales, Lampeter, and is now getting a PhD in epidemiology at U Rochester. Kim Miller ('99) completed a stint in the Peace Corps and is now doing an MA in international development and social change at Clark University in Worcester, MA. Zach Green ('99) is beginning his fifth season as a Segment Producer for the television show Survivor; he hopes to use the experience to move eventually into (anthropologically correct, we hope!) documentaries for such networks as Discovery and National Geographic. Sherry Marchand ('99) has recently completed her fieldwork and is writing her dissertation for a Ph.D. in socio-cultural anthropology at Australia National University, working on Intercultural land management negotiations in the Wet Tropics World Heritage Area of Queensland. Abby Stamm ('99) finished her Peace Corps term in Malawi and has joined the graduate program at U Wisconsin, Milwaukee. Rebecca Watters ('99) is pursuing graduate studies with Yale University's Forestry and Environmental Studies program. Megan Bronson ('00) is attending University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign for graduate work in African Studies. Matt O'Brien ('00) finished his MA at U Wyoming, and is pursuing a Ph.D. at the U. of Wyoming in archaeology and physical anthropology. Rebecca Watters ('99) finished her Peace Corps stint in Mongolia, where she worked as an "environmental generalist," doing faunal counts and survey work; in 2002 she then moved to Cambodia for a year and a half to work as an environmental education specialist; she is now looking at graduate schools. Shara Korn (Multifield '00) is teaching elementary school and working on her MA in education in Boulder, CO. Kelly Thayer ('00) taught astronomy to elementary school kids in southern California for a while, but now mushes dogs in Wyoming for Continental Divide Dogsled Adventures (see foto below-we're not kidding!). Leah Barth ('01) lives in Burlington, VT, and works as a behavior specialist for middle and high school students; she plans to pursue graduate studies in clinical psychology. Rob Murano ('01) got his MA in secondary education and is teaching Global Studies and coaching girl's basketball at Oneida HS, near Syracuse. Tanya Justham ('01) is working as a geologist doing environmental site assessments and environmental impact studies in
Maine, and applying to grad schools in geo-archaeology. Shannon Glazer ('01) is a MA candidate at SUNY/Binhamton in archaeology. Denise LaBar ('03) received her MA in Counseling from SLU, and just landed a job as a middle school counselor at the Potsdam Middle School. Sara Lewis (Multifield '03) just entered U. Chicago's MA program in Social Science. Renee Koster ('01) currently putting together a dissertation proposal at Syracuse University to study changes in Native American settlement in the Upper St. Lawrence Valley during the early stages of European exploration and trade in the area (16th and 17th centuries); she's also working with us at SLU this year teaching Cultural Anthropology. Becky Chartier ('03) just completed an internship at the Smithsonian Institution?s new National Museum of the American Indian, in the conservation department, preparing objects for exhibition and installing them in the new museum on the National Mall. Jen Bunton ('04) is attending Simmons College in Boston, MA. Alejandro Figueroa ('04) is working at the Honduran Institute of Anthropology and History doing archaeology, ethnology, and cultural heritage management; he was recently accepted for graduate studies to the University of Leiden in the Netherlands. Owen Murphy ('03) did a nine month stint as a teacher for an environmental education non-profit named Nature's Classroom, based in Charlton, MA, and three months as a teacher for Ecology Project International in the Galapagos Islands of Ecuador; he's back in the North Country now, working at Birdsfoot Farm and St. Lawrence Tree Nurseries in Potsdam. Maria Bayona ('04) is working as an administrative assistant in the computer center at Brown U. Brettan deWeese ('05) is pursuing her PhD in underwater archaeology at Florida State U. Theresa Hyland ('05) is doing her PhD coursework at U Massachusetts, Amherst; she'll soon start her fieldwork in Ireland on language acquisition among immigrants. Megan McCarthy ('05) attended Stetson U College of Law in Gulfport, FL this year, studied abroad at the Hague and in Freiburg, Germany and has now transferred to Case Western Reserve U School of Law in Cleveland. Laura Dix ('06) recently began working in the ethics department of the United Nations. Claire Staby ('06) is applying for the Peace Corps and hopes to be placed in South America, Asia, or the Pacific Islands. |
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Faculty News |
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Dr. Shinu Abraham has finished up the first two seasons of her new project, the Malabar Region Archaeological Survey, in southern India. She continues her analysis of Pattanam, a 2,000 year old Indian port site and its involvement in Indian Ocean overseas trade. This semester Dr. Abraham is on sabbatical; she's busy developing a GIS database for her project, editing her dissertation for publication, and preparing for a handful of upcoming conferences in the summer
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Dr. Barthelme's course on Neanderthals was featured in USA Today on November 6. (Read the story)
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Dr. Gonzalez is teaching a new course this semester, called Human Variation.
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Dr. Nyamweru returned from sabbatical leave in June 2005; she had been Visiting Research Fellow at the African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge, England. While she continued her work on the sacred forests of coastal Kenya (the kaya forests). She is the co-editor of a volume African Sacred Groves: Ecological Dynamics and Social Change, which is to be published by James Currey in 2007.
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Dr. Perry is enjoying his retirement and has put his free time to good use: his fifth book, "Race" and Racism: The Development of Modern Racism in America will due out in December 2007 by Palgrave Macmillan. |
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Dr. Pomponio was been named a Fulbright Scholar and is spending the 2007-08 academic year at the University of Siena, Italy. In addition to continuing research on the Palio (a horse race and pageant with medieval roots), she will be team-teaching a graduate course, Ritual, Festivals and Performance: Comparing American and European Approaches.
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Richard J. Perry Award Established |
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As some of you know, Dr. Perry was the founding chair of the Anthropology Department. He had a hand in hiring the rest of the faculty in this department, and he shepherded the combined Anthropology/Sociology Department to an amicable split in 1985. He taught the most students, and published four books, all of which have been adopted across the country (one as far as New Zealand!) for university classroom use. The members of the anthropology department felt that we needed to commemorate his extraordinary teaching, scholarship, and service to the St. Lawrence community. The University agreed. We felt that the most appropriate thing would be to establish an award for students in his name, which will be given in perpetuity.
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| The Richard J. Perry Award will be given annually to an outstanding sophomore or junior major for academic excellence, either in class work or through independent study. As a special surprise for Dr. Perry, Laura Hacker-Durbin (’85), the first student from SLU to graduate with an anthropology major, traveled back from Kalimantan, Indonesia, to present the award on behalf of all the anthropology alumni. Thanks again, Laura! |
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We tried to locate all anthropology alumni to ask you to contribute to this award. If we missed you, or if the request got buried under more pressing mail in your life, it’s not too late! The actual amount of the award will depend on how much principal we can put into it, since the award will be given from the interest on that principal. At this writing we have collected just about $4000. This will be vested in a restricted fund and accrue interest for at least one year, before we can use funds from it for this award. Right now the award is being temporarily funded by the department budget.
We DO need YOUR help. So please give whatever you can “above and beyond what you would normally contribute to SLU.” Your tax-deductible contribution should be made out to the “Richard J. Perry Award” and sent to: Donor Relations, St. Lawrence University, Canton, NY 13617. Thanks in advance for your generosity—we literally cannot do it without you.
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Department Kudos and other Tidbits! |
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Our department maintains its reputation as one of the best and most demanding academic programs at SLU. |
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We continue to send students to graduate programs in all four fields of anthropology. We maintain a rate of about 20%, many of whom decide to go on after 1-3 years’ hiatus from academics. |
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The Anthropology major now has a language co-requisite. All anthropology majors must have a second language, taken either to the 200 university level for a language studied previously, or 2 semesters of a new language, all or part of which may be studied in conjunction with participation in an overseas program. |
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We continue to swap faculty and students with SUNY/Potsdam. As a result, this fall we are enjoying a course on Humans, Disease, and Death. |
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Old, new and future anthropology majors might be interested in several publications and brochures we have in the department about careers in anthropology. Contact Dr. Pomponio at the department, or via the email address below. |
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Thanks, guys, from all of us! And keep us posted on your whereabouts and doings for the next Tok Save.
Contact Dr. Pomponio at the department or via email at: apomponio@stlawu.edu. Please include your graduation year when you write. In the meantime, check out our department website at www.stlawu.edu/anthropology
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Drs. Gonzalez, Barthelme, Nyamweru, Pomonio and Abraham, in the Anthropology Lab at SLU (2007)
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| * Tok Save (pronounced “toke SAH-vay) is a phrase from Melanesian Tok Pisin, the major lingua franca of Papua New Guinea, dialects of which are also spoken in the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It means “news” as a noun, and “to inform [e.g., someone of something important]” as a verb. |
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Page, graphics and banner designed by Michael Phillips. Background images property of JQ Jacobs - Used with permission.
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