FACULTY NEWS

_RESEARCH PLANS

Brent Metz

Summer Research Grant: "Maya Ethnic Organizations in the Chorti Region of Eastern Guatemala: A Revitalization or Revolutionary Movement?"

Douglas Caulkins

Celtic Cultures Project

"You really should write something for the popular press in Wales, Doug-- it is important!" Iwan Llwyd, one of three Welsh poets visiting Grinnell, leaned over to refill my wine glass. 'If we wrote it," he said, gesturing toward his colleagues, "they would say it was just more Welsh sour grapes." Llwyd, a politically engaged poet who regards Wales as England's first colony, was talking about my research on economic development in Mid Wales, which shows that English firms get favored treatment by government agencies in preference to ethnic Welsh firms. Iwan and his colleague Nigel Jenkins took a couple of my scholarly articles with them back to Wales to show their friends in the popular press, with the hope that they would ask me to write for them.

It is, of course, gratifying to have people outside of academia interested in one's research, although one has to consider the political implications of becoming identified with a particular side in a policy dispute. The "Celtic Cultures" project is a set of linked inquiries about identity (carried out with the help of student research assistants) and regional development in Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The identity theme builds on the research in Wales that Carol Trosset, 6 students, and I conducted in the summer of 1993. In 1994,5 other students and I studied Welsh-American identity in Iowa. Tina Popson, one of that group, has continued with the research and recently gave a paper that we coauthored at the National Association of Ethnic Studies meetings in Lacrosse, Wisconsin. Elaine Weiner, now a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Michigan, helped with my most recent research on development in Mid Wales in the summer of 1996.

After Wales, Ireland! I obtained funding for Annette Giangiacomo and Tanya Hedges each to carry out a semester of participant observation and interviewing in two separate communities in Ireland. The initial results of the Irish research look very promising, with a high degree of agreement on the cultural practices that contribute to Irish identity.

The Scottish phase of the identity research begins this summer with Meridith Good funded to do participant observation and interviews in highland Scotland before attending University of Stirling, Scotland, fall semester. The research design on identity calls for a study of one additional community in Scotland and two in Northeast England, a peripheral but non-Celtic part of the United Kingdom. Anna Painter will do research in Northeast England in the summer of ‘98. The research should help to answer the controversial question of whether or not there is a core set of "Celtic" cultural practices that persist (or are recreated) across the Celtic region of Britain, in spite of institutional differences between Scotland, Wales, and Ireland. Alternately, those practices may be a product of peripherality in a regional system (hence the study of peripheral but non-Celtic Northeast England). During my sabbatical I will be continuing my study, begun in 1986, of development in relation to the cultural practices that characterize the Celtic/Peripheral regions.

WORK IN PROGRESS

Brent Metz

Accepted for publication: "El sentido de pobreza entre los maya-Chorti." Direction General de Investigation, Universidad de San Carlos de Guatemala.

Under Revision: Mayas Chortis del Oriente de Guatemala, Centro de Investigaciones Regionales de Mesoamerica.

Under Review: "Chorti Masculine Aggression." Journal of Latin American Anthropology.

Under Review: "Identity Crisis, Political Crisis: Nationalism and Maya Revitalization Among the Chorti of Eastern Guatemala." Journal of Latin American Anthropology.

Proposed book (based on dissertation): Experiencing Conquest: The Political and Economic

Jon Andelson

"Amana-Society" in the new edition of Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart, by J.C.B. Mohr, T_bingen. English and German.

DEPARTMENT

PUBLICATIONS

John Whittaker

1997 Red Power Finds Creationism: Review of "Red Earth, White Lies" by Vine Deloria Jr. Skeptical Inquirer 21(1):47-50.

1996 Athkiajas: A Cypriot Flintknapper and theThreshing Sledge Industry. Lithic Technology, 21(2):108-119.

1996 Primitive Technology Experiments: Further Comments. Primitive Technology Newsletter 2:5-6.

1996 Some Prehistoric Copper Flaking Tools in Minnesota. Wisconsin Archaeologist 77(1):3-10. (with A. Romano)

1996 Fort Osage Knappers: Survey Results. Chips 8(2):5. (with Matt Hedman, '96)

Doug Caulkins

1996 "The Ethnography of Contemporary Welsh and Welsh-American Identity and Values" (With Carol Trosset) Proceedings of the First North American Conference on Welsh Studies, Rio Grande University, Rio Grande, Ohio, (pp 9-16).

Review of John Liep and Karen Fog Olwig, "Komplekse Liv: Kulturel Mangfoldighed i Danmark" for American Ethnologist,24, 1, February 1997(244-245)

"The Welsh" for The Encyclopedia of American Immigrant Cultures, MacMillan. Forthcoming.

Katya Gibel Azoulay

"Outside Our Parents' House: Race, Culture and Identity." Research in African Literatures, vol. 27, no. 1 (1996).

"Experience, Empathy and Strategic Essentialism" Cultural Studies vol 11, no. 1, January 1997.

IN PRESS

Kathy Kamp

1997 Life in the Pueblo: Understanding the Past Through Archaeology. Waveland Press, forthcoming.

Jon Andelson

"The True Inspirationalists from Germany to Amana, Iowa," in Donald Pitzer’s (editor) America’s Communal Utopias, May, 1997.

PRESENTATIONS

Brent Metz

November, 1996 American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings "Complementing Detached with Participatory Empiricism in Maya-Chorti Ethnography"

November, 1997 American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings "Ladino vs. Maya Nationalism Among the Chorti of Eastern Guatemala"

Doug Caulkins

1996 "Measuring Cultural Continuity in the Welsh Diaspora" (with Carol Trosset) Poster Session: "Shifting Identities: Social and Racial Adjustments." (peer reviewed) American Anthropological Association Annual Meetings, November 21, San Francisco.

"Using Scenarios to Assess Cultural Consensus and Cultural Criticism," invited presentation for Seventh International Kurt Lewin Conference, Society for the Advancement of Field Theory, September 7, University of California, Los Angeles.

Carol Trosset

"Dialogues or Monologues: Examining Student Talk about Difficult Differences" presented at the American Association of Colleges and Universities Conference on Diversity, Learning, and Institutional Change in Ann Arbor, Michigan, on April 18, 1997.

Celtic Cultures Project collaboration with

Student and Alumni research

Summer 1996: Elaine Weiner, Doug Caulkins, Study of manufacturing firms in MidWales, with special emphasis on women entrepreneurs.

Fall 1996: "Celtic" Cultural Practices in Ireland, interview research by Tanya Hedges

Spring 1997: Enculturation of Welsh-American Values, interview research by Tina Popson

Summer 1997: "Celtic" Cultural Practices in Scotland, interview research by Meridith Good

[Gautam Ghosh, ‘83, will be here for one year, 1997-98, through the Consortium for Stronger Minority Presence program, finishing his dissertation (University of Chicago) and teaching Anthropology of Development (ANT. 295.02)].

On the day I arrived at Grinnell College as a freshman, I was pre-law -- and my parents were ecstatic. On the day I graduated my passions were firmly oriented towards the study of philosophy and music -- and my parents were a little concerned. Now I am on the verge of completing my dissertation in cultural anthropology -- and (thanks for asking....) my parents are confused but (claim to be) content.

How to account for such a checkered, sordid and tortuous past? Well, a full account would have to consider my family history, my social class, my gender, my ethnic identity, my encounters with Coach Pfitsch and, perhaps, my bad knee. For starters. A full account, in short, would have to be anthropological in every sense. But it would take a lot of work and probably be boring for all, so let me just pick one leitmotif.

I grew up feeling that there were many different ways of perceiving the world and that some ways were better than others. This sense may have been generated by the hints in my house that we were Hindu, and the hints in Hinduism that one could experience radically different forms of consciousness. This sense may have also come from my feeling, at times, that I was an outsider...others had more money, lighter skin, and better knees. In any case, I had it: an abiding sense that there is more to the world than meets the eye, and if we could change our vision we could change a lot of things that warrant changing.

My engagement with philosophy was largely animated by an attempt to grasp other worlds, other realities through the skepticism that Reason allows. Philosophy can make one think twice about common assumptions, and then think twice about thinking twice. It was -- and is -- a crucial practice for clearing the ground, for rephrasing the questions. But can it provide the answers? Can any one approach provide the answers? Are there answers?

After I graduated I spent a year in India studying Indian philosophical systems. I learned a lot: about philosophy, about poverty, about colonialism, about cricket, about the possibility that I might be "Indian" .... But mostly I came to the conclusion that my exploration could not be carried out solely in some abstract realm of Reason, in some universe of universal laws. If we discover "truths" it is not in spite of our bodies and cultures, it is in and through them. I have been doing some form of fieldwork ever since.

My Ph.D. thesis concerns the 1947 emergence of India from British colonial rule and as an independent nation. As it happens, at the very moment that India became independent, it also was partitioned into two states: India and Pakistan. This division precipitated dislocation of population, widespread violence, and memories that continue to haunt people (and politics) today. Studying this can shed light on a number of exigent issues, including how nation-states are formed, and how people make sense of their lives, and how refugee policy is formulated. These are some of the issues the thesis addresses, with which social science is concerned today.

But I also think, or hope, that the dissertation will serve to "dislocate" our own "commonsense" understanding about the world in any number of ways -- about, for example, what is involved/at stake when we carry our cultures across national (and other) boundaries, or when our cultures or nations or states seem to abandon us. The thesis, overall, should remind at least one person -- me -- that the challenges that face people and peoples today can be met by myriad responses, and that some may be worth pursuing more than others..

SABBATICAL IN FLAGSTAFF

By John Whittaker

Kathy Kamp and I spent much of our sabbatical year in Flagstaff, Arizona. This allowed us to dodge our committee-forming colleagues and other plagues of normal Grinnell life, and avoid much of the Iowa winter. We worked on various projects, including trying to write up some of the backlog of information collected by the summer Field School excavations in our Flagstaff sites. Kathy has a book on archaeology and the Sinagua accepted for publication by Waveland Press, and our site report on Lizard Man Village is being reviewed.

I am writing an ethnography of the modern flintknapping world. Being in Arizona, I seized the chance to visit Quartzite, near the border with California. Quartzite is surely one of the most hideous towns in America, consisting almost entirely of mobile homes, "parks" for recreational vehicles," and huge empty lots where several swap meets are held, attracting about a million visitors. The occasion was the world's largest annual gem and mineral show, where a number of flintknappers go to sell arrowheads and find stone to work. Somebody (somebody else) ought to do an ethnography of the wandering folk who follow the swap meet circuit, and the bizarre ephemeral towns they create.

Kathy worked in the Museum of Northern Arizona and began a long-term project analyzing our site survey data on GIS. Geographical Information Systems are complex computer mapping and analysis programs. The Arizona State Historic Preservation Office, both the National Forests around Flagstaff, and various other organizations are trying to create a central data base of site information for Arizona, but can't decide what should be on it. Kathy's main accomplishment was browbeating them into having meetings and making decisions. This was necessary, but much more difficult than what we really want to do, which is put our site data on a computer and figure out where the Sinagua were living at different times, and why they moved.

A number of instances of wasteful practices on campus spurred faculty John Whittaker and Jon Andelson, with Brad Bateman of the Economics Department and Lenore Durkee from Biology, to meet with President Ferguson and other administrators. One result was the formation of an EcoCampus Committee, composed of faculty, students, and administrators, with Whittaker as first chair. The Committee is to provide a voice for environmental concerns, serve as a clearing house for information and issues, research problems and support research and education on campus environmental issues, and consider campus practices and policy. The goal is to make Grinnell College as a whole more environmentally aware and sensitive in its behavior. Among other things, in its first year the committee held an open forum to discuss what is being done and hear student concerns, considered issues of pesticide use and food waste disposal, organized more effective salvage of the masses of clothes and other goods abandoned when students leave dorms, supported the student Environmental Action Group home page as an information clearing house, and was involved with Earth Week activities.

STUDENT/ALMUNI NEWS

(Some of the alumni news listed below may be outdated. Some of these responses from alumni were received last summer. Sorry for the inconvenience. If you would like to update your information for the fall 1997 newsletter, please e-mail [wingerter@ac.grin.edu]. Thank you.)

IOWA ACADEMY OF SCIENCE MEETINGS

Two students representing the Anthropology Department presented papers at this year’s Iowa Academy of Science Meetings (April 25-26, 1997) in Dubuque. Leah Ray (‘00) presented a paper entitled "What Males Want: An Evolutionary Perspective" and Malcolm Sturgis (‘00) presented "What Females Want: An Evolutionary Perspective". Both papers were the result of research these students and their co-authors [Courtney Hougham (‘00), Gail Spector (‘00), and Bradford Williams (‘00)] conducted in Vicki Bentley- Condit’s tutorial during the fall semester entitled "Sex, Love, and Relationships: An Evolutionary Perspective". The papers received an enthusiastic reception at the meetings and generated discussion among the audience.

Vanessa Smith, ‘97. My plans for the coming year have been slowly accumulating into a large variety of events. I will be working for Kathy Kamp until June, with her computer database program. Then from June to the middle of July, I will try to work as a volunter for different organizations around the Twin Cities while holding down a part time job with an antique business, doing refinishing and restoration. In late July, I hope to travel to Bosnia to visit a friend who lives there. From Bosnia I will fly to Scotland, where I am going to hike and camp with my sister until late August. From September to the beginning of November I am going to be racing cars with my father. These experiences will culminate in a two week race from the southern to northern tips of Mexico. The race is called the Carrera Pan-Americana. In November and December I am going to spend time with my family and work at the antique business mentioned above. By January I hope to be placed in a location with the Peace Corp, if not I will continue to work until this placement happens.

Tina Popson, ‘97, will be interning at the Museum of Northern Arizona at Flagstaff. Before interning, she will continue to work at the National Sprint Car Hall of Fame and Museum. In the fall, she will be attending the University of Nebraska-Lincoln graduate school of museum studies.

Douglas Woods, ‘97, will be traveling and learning.

For the next few years, William Eichmann, ‘97, will be teaching English to elementary through highschool students at state schools in Hungary.

Gianna Hochstein,‘46. Married, two sons. From 1947-48 she was at Columbia Univ. in New York, N.Y., studying English as a second language and completing the requirements for the M.S. degree. From 1954-56, American University, Washington, D.C., earning M.S. degree in Social Psychology. Between 1965-69 Gianna was at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, N.C., where she had completed all requirements for the Ph.D. degree except for submission of thesis, in the field of Anthropology. She is member of American Anthropological Society, Society for Applied Anthropology, and the Society for Medial Anthroplogy. Vivian Era Adzaku, ‘68, is an assistant professor at Ferris State University, in the Intensive English Program. Andrea Fisher Maril, ‘70, received her M.A. in Anthropology at the University of Iowa in 1974, and Ph.D. in sociology at Oklahoma State University in 1995. She is mother of three, wife of Lee Maril, ‘69.

Suzanne Griset, ‘71, is an archaeologist with the St. Louis District, Army Corps of Engineers.

Alice Rogoff,’ 71, is married and the editor in poetry publications This Far Together, which includes writing by Native Americans and writers of many ethnic groups. Married to Jard Van Wageren, ‘72, and mother of two children (Jonathan and Julia).

Martha (Nelson) Natel, ’72, lives in Israel and owns and operates (single-handedly) a preschool for children aged 1 1/2 - 2, tutoring English, arithmetic, and special education. She has a daughter, Zili, studying pre-school education , a son, Shai, doing army service, and a daughter, Gal, who started junior high last fall.

Candance E.K. Cropper-Silverman, ‘76, is a kindergarten teacher in inner city of Philadelphia. In 1985 she earned M.Ed. Dance Education, from Temple University. She married on Jan. 3, 1987, to Pety Silverman, and has one adopted daughter (from PR China) and one step-daughter.

Karen Kahn, ‘77, in 1995 published "Frontline Feminism: Essays from Sojourner’s First Twenty Years."

Mary Brandt Kerr, ‘77, is director of the Fitch School Family Resource Center, and has two sons, Cameron and Tyler.

Ed & Jannifer Peaco, ‘78, visited Richard and Jose Morgan in Knighton, Powys, where Ed lived while doing the villages project in 1977. They also visited Lyonshall, where Jannifer stayed during the same village hitch. Though the trip was entirely for pleasure, Ed and Jannifer noticed some economic and social trends of possible interest:

1. The impressive rise of Welsh as the official language of the region.

2. A movement to form an independent Wales in a new continent-wide federation. Thus, paradoxically, such a development would not only make the nation-state obsolete, it would also allow the independence of a "minority nation" like Wales.

3. The twin forces of American-multinational mass marketing and European Economic Union allowing villagers in Knighton an explosion of choices. Ed and Jannifer would like to know whether or not current anthro students are learning anything about these subjects.

Tim Connor, ‘79, completed his M.S. in Clinical Psychology in December ‘95 at Pacific University. He is continuing in the doctoral program, working with substance-abusing adolescents. Nancy Gould (Phillips), ‘80, works as the Director of Planning and Urban Design for HLW International, a large NY based architecture/engineering firm.Nancy is married and has one boy.

Sydney Henthorn, ‘82,In fall 1995 Sydney was at Mount Holyoke College, installing draperies in the renovated President’s house.

Sharon McKee, ‘82, had completed a J.D. degree at New York University School of Law and is now spending a year in Eire, Pennsylvania, working for Hon. Richard L. Nygaard as a clerk -researching issues, drafting opinions.

Diana L. Thompson, ‘82, is a practicing massage therapist. She has been licensed in WA since 1983. She also teaches massage therapy, has lectured at state and national massage, physical therapy and midwifery conventions, and has authored a text book on massage called, "Hands Heal: Documentation for Massage Therapy, A guide to SOAP Charting." Diana is married to Jackie Phillips since Oct. 1996.

Roy R. Grinker, ‘83, Dept. of Anthropology, George Washington Univ., Washington, D.C. 20052. Promoted to Associate Professor in 1996. Published new book, Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and ..?..

Ellen (Tachau) Koronet, ‘83, married in ‘89 to David Koronet, a chiropractor. Ellen works for Migliara/Kaplan Association, a marketing research firm that specilizes in pharmaceuticals.

Lori Leinbach McAllister, ‘83, has moved four times in 12 years, criss-crossing the country. Lori has two kids, Keegan and Leanna, and has been stay-at-home mom since Keegan was born.

Jenny (Ross) Pickett, ‘83, is married to Bill Pickett, ‘81, and has a daughter Ali. She was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis shortly after Ali was born. Jenny is working on an allergy-free cook book (no dairy, no gluten) that she is creating to fit her diet.

Jim Hunter, ‘84, and a partner, Diane King, bought a ten acre farm where they plan to do commercial organic fruit and vegetable production and agricultural awareness education.

Lisë N. Stuart, ‘84, is program coordinator for the Flagstaff Multicultural AIDS Prevention Project - Northern Arizona University, Anthropology Department. She manages and analyses data for the Centers for Disease Control - Project LINCS. She is also in 4th semester of doctoral program in political science.

Lisa Gamble, ‘85, married Ian Gamble in 1988. They have two children, a daughter and son. Lisa has earned a Masters of Science in Counseling from University of South Maine.

Mary C. Niehaus, ‘85, was named a partner in the law firm Sedley & Austin.

Steve Hingtgen, ‘85, is the development director for the Burlington Community Land Trust.

Karen Brockman, ‘86, works as Director of the Oneida National Museum in Oneida, WI. She received her MA in Anthropology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, in 1992, and a musem Studies Certificate from George Washington University in Washington, D.C. in 1994.

Sarah Fee, ‘86, has begun a one year predoctoral fellowship at the anthropology department, Musem of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, to prepare and interpret her last few years of field research in Madagascar on textiles and gender.

Rhonda Malina, ‘86, received her Masters in Social Work (MSW) in 1992 from Salem State College in Salem, MA. She worked as a social worker in an early intervention program in Meadford, MA. She moved to Hifer, Israel October (‘96). She traveled to Russia and the Ukraine in July ‘96.

Sandra Raimondo, ‘86, is a OB/GYN physician at Ravenswood Hospital Chicago and married Scott Berg in May, 1996.

Jay Satterfield, ‘86, is a doctoral student in American Studies at the Unviersity of Iowa.

Valorie Voigt, ‘86, was married in October ‘94 to Heriberto Martinez, of Tarija, Bolivia. She works as deputy director of the Peace Corps/Bolivia Training Center, where her principle duties include coordination of the technical department and designing, and facilitating the "Role of the Volunteer in Development" training. She also coordinate PC/Bolivia WID (Women in Development), as well as GAD (Gender and Development) Initiatives. Steve Nash '86, who is finishing his PhD at the University of Arizona has published "A Cutting Date Estimation Technique for Ponderosa Pine and Douglas Fir Wood Specimens" American Antiquity 62(2):260-272, 1997; and "Is Curation a Useful Heuristic" in Stone Tools: Theoretical Insights into Human Prehistory, edited by George Odell, Plenum Press, NY, 1996.

Andy Gladstein, ‘88, is working at Abbott-Northwestern Hospital. She is licensed as a Registered Nurse. Kimberly Sturgess Lace, ‘88, is married, has a son and a daughter. She is finishing her Masters in Science Education and Teacher’s certification in Chemistry at the Unviersity of Texas, Austin.

Kyle Torke, ‘88, is an Assistant professor of English at Elon College, in North Carolina. Married to Kirsten Hanson (August ‘94). Kyle is writing screenplays and has optioned two.

Sharon Doerre, ‘89, was a Fulbright Fellow in Damascus, Syria, doing dissertation fieldwork on Islamic mysticism and faith healing. She is working towards the Ph.D. in social anthropology at the University of Texas at Austin (MA 1994).

Valerie Ingram, ‘89, is the Grants and Corporate Funding Officer at Santa Fe Community College.

William Lawless, ‘89, since Grinnell has worked in Chicago and Seattle, and now lives in Minneapolis, where he works as a technical and marketing writer for a specialty software company. Marina Micari, ‘89, is married to William Lawless (‘89).

Jonathan Till, ‘89, conducts small archeological testing projects for Abajo Archaeology Inc. in Bluff, Utah.

Julie L. Stiles, ‘90, is the scholarship work study coordinator at the Omega Institute, New York.

Jennie Robinson, ‘90, finished an M.A. in Higher Education at the University of Minnesota - Twin Cities in summer 1995. She is working in Student Affairs at the University while searching for a dissertation topic for her Ph.D. in Educational Policy and Administration.

Thomas Klouda, ‘91, working for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives. Erica Lehrer, ‘91, is a third year graduate student in anthropology at University of Michigan. As a first year anthro student at Michigan she was selected to participate in the "Graduate Associates Program" of the school of art, through which grad students from non-art departments who do work which deals with visual issues present an original paper to the school of art community, in order to provoke interdiciplinary discussion of visual themes. Last summer she went to Poland to do research on "Jewish Culture" in present-day. As the member of the G.A.Program she gave discussion of her research and photographs.

Mike Galaty, ‘91, is working on his PhD at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and just published "Ancient Greece: Recent Developments in Aegean Archaeology and Regional Studies" (with J. Bennet), Journal of Archaeological Research 5 (1):75-120.

Colleen Mahar, ‘91, finished the first year of the China Studies MA Program at the University of Washington in Seattle. This year she is studying at the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing, China.

Mark Pilder, ‘91, is working with young children in an afterschool program. He plans to be Site Director by 1997.

Gerrit Saylor, ‘91, works in the computer industry, for Digital Equipment Corp., in Marlborough, Massachusetts, on maximizing performance of scientific/engineering software on Digital’s machines.

Daniel Werner, ‘91, graduated from SUNY at Buffalo Law School in May ‘96. He received a National Association of Public Interest Law Equal Justice Fellowship to work as an attorney in South Florida, representing migrant farmworkers.

Heidi Bakken, ‘92, is a nursing student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Nora Bloch, ‘92, worked for Massachusetts Dept. Of Public Health in Boston. In fall ‘96 she started school at the Yale School of Management. She hopes to go into non-profit management.

Guy Potter, ‘92, is in the 4th year of a Ph.D. program in Clinical Psychology at the University of North Carolina in Chapel Hill. His current field of study is aging and memory processes.

Megan Bergstrom, ‘93, traveled to Turkey and Italy in summer 1996 for two months to study ceramic production, past and present. She planned to be in Mexico in fall ‘96, to look at some ceramic production there as well.

Alisa Greenwald, ‘93, teachers sixth grade at Homecroft Elementary School, St. Paul, MN.

Byron F. Johnson, ‘93, since graduation has been teaching environmental education in Colorado, Northern Minnesota, New York, and, at present, on the outer banks of North Carolina. His students range from third graders to elder hostel participants.

Amy Johnston, ‘93, has been working since July of 1996 at the Greater Boston Housing Initiative as a housing advocate, helping homeless individuals search for permanent housing. Karen Kulbe, ‘93, graduated from Rutgers University in May 1995 with an MSW. She moved to the DC area and is working as a medical social worker for a dialysis clinic and a home health care/hospice agency. Katya Ricketts, ‘93, was married to Scott Muskin in Spring 1995. Katya is in her second term at the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota. Morgan Robertson, ‘93, in summer 1996 worked as an intern at Bonestroo & Assoc., an environmental engineering firm in Minneapolis, learning the practicalities of wetland conservation and private sector environmental mgmt. In fall 1996 Morgan entered the graduate program in Geography at the University of Minnesota.

Denice Skelly, ‘93, is a Peace Corps Volunteer (‘94-’96) in Nicaragua, Central America, working as a health promoter.

Sarah Dye, ‘94, after Grinnell taught for a semester on Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota, 3rd and 4th grade combination. Sarah is currently an elementary school librarian in St. Paul.

Megan Miller, ‘94, is working full time as a reproductive health counselor at a women’s health clinic, and part time as a cashier at the health food co-op in Laurence. In June ‘96 she married Alexis Powell (bio major from class of ‘92).

Jason Reynolds, ‘94, worked on a Geographical Information Systems/Zoning project for the Grand Rapids planning department during summer 1996. He is currently working on his Masters degree in Urban Planning at the University of Michigan.

Jill Abramson,‘95, works as the Assistant Director of Shwayder Camp and Youth Programs for congregation Emanuel in Denver, Colorado.

Jonathan C. Cook, ‘95, lives in Memphis, TN, with Cara Johnson (‘93), where he works as an independent research consultant through Kenny & Associates, Inc. The firm specilizes in consumer psychology, a qualitative form of market research. Jonathan also does substitute teaching in the Memphis city school. Stephany Schmidt, ‘95, is currently working on her M.A. in Anthropology/Museum Studies at the University of Denver and curated an exhibit on "The Human Body as a Canvas: The Art and Ritual of Tattoo. [Remember her ankle?]. She plans to return to Grinnell in 1997 to be with her fiancee, Joseph Moon and get married in December.

SUMMER WORK

with Kathy Kamp

Three Anthropology students will be working on archaeology projects with Kathy Kamp in Flagstaff, Arizona this summer. Tina Popson will be at the Museum of Northern Arizona, cataloguing artifacts recovered by Summer Archaeological Field School students. Samuel Bausson will be working on the production of a CD ROM dealing with the archaeology of Northern Arizona.The CD ROM, which will be available for student use at Grinnell, will combine information about the archaeology of the area with a wide variety of photographs of artifacts and archaeological sites. Camille Johnson will be working at the Coconino National Forest and the Museum of Northern Arizona. Her project will entail the computerisation of information about archaeological sites that will allow students at Grinnell to do projects with Geographic Information Systems (GIS) programs. GIS is an exciting new technology that allows the sophisticated analysis and display of data that has a spatial component.

AFRICANA STUDIES CONCENTRATION

HOLDS 1ST ANNUAL CONFERENCE

AT GRINNELL

The Afro-American Studies Concentration, recently renamed "Africana Studies Concentration" sponsored its 1st Interdisciplinary Conference, "Citing, Sighting and Disciplining ‘Race’ in the Academy" on 23 April in collaboration with the Multicultural Affairs Office.

The conference included student and faculty presentations and took place in both the North and South Lounge of the Forum. With two sessions and four panels, this was the first event of its kind. Under the umbrella of the conference the papers addressed a range of topics across the four divisions actualizing a major goal of the Africana Studies Concentration: interdisplinary foci in which the linkages between fields of study are unveiled and made explicit. All the sessions were well attended and a reception closed the evening with remarks by the President of the College, the Chair of the Concentration and the Assistant Dean of Students

The Conference was conceptualized as an annual event and the next conference has been scheduled for 15 April 1998 and will convene in the new Science Building. Students and faculty who have ideas or have written papers this semester may want to hold on to them for next year. The theme of the 1998 Conference will be Music, Art and the Sciences although all proposals will be welcome and may be sent to Prof. Katya Gibel Azoulay or Ms. Siclinda Canty-Elliott.