Reflections of an (almost) 40 year-old Anthro Major
BY KARL KOCH, '81
In 1981 I graduated from Grinnell having every intention of completing my graduate studies in Museum Conservation. Ever since I was a child collecting flint tools with my grandfather in the Ozarks, I had wanted to be an archaeologist. In the summers I volunteered on University of Missouri digs. Although I didn't know that archaeology came under the heading of "Anthropology", by high school I was on the right path as I read books by Margaret Mead, George Bass, Thor Heyerdahl, Dee Brown and followed the work of the Leakeys and Jane Goodall in National Geographic. At Grinnell, I took an eclectic liberal arts class mixture but I never considered any major except Anthropology. During my Junior year at Grinnell, I spent a semester in Costa Rica. It was a big turning point for me as I got my first real taste of full-time field work in a foreign country (what I had claimed I wanted to pursue as a career up until then) and was exposed to some new issues that I hadn't previously considered by the graduate students with whom I was working. The first issue was the ethics of archaeological research, ie, do we as "scientists" have the right to disturb human remains? Where do we draw the line as far as our actions in the name of higher learning when we know that the process of ethnographic research will affect the people we are studying? I haven't personally resolved these issues to this day and they had become a nagging voice in the back of my head as graduation drew near. I needed to plan the next step in my career. The second issue that was on the minds and lips of field researchers in the early 1980's was the availability of research funding. Reagan had been elected and educational funding was taking a back seat. During my Senior year, I began to look into "related" careers. My Costa Rica experience had included spending a month at the National Museum cleaning and making drawings of the artifacts we had uncovered and I became attracted to the idea of Museum Conservation as a career. I decided to get married right after graduation instead of waiting a few more years as Cheryl and I had previously planned so my career/education decisions became skewed by the practical matters of making ends meet. I rejected two job offers excavating in Colorado and Wyoming because I was afraid the work would be seasonal and we would be stuck out in the boonies without jobs. Unable to get as enthused as I had been about school and lacking a clear direction, I decided to postpone my graduate studies for a year.
I never made it back.
On the other hand, I got a "temporary" job doing office remodeling and studio cleanup with a film/video production company in Indianapolis. There was only 6 months worth of carpentry work to be done and that suited me fine as I intended to go back to school anyway. By the end of 3 months I was working on the production crew full time and they had hired someone else to remodel offices. After 6 months they asked me to stay and offered me a raise and the opportunity to learn more about lighting and camera work. I was hooked and spent many evenings "off the clock" exploring photography and developing an "eye." I still said that I would get back to school someday and thought of myself as an "archaeologist." I even volunteered to do some digging for Indiana University but was putting in too many long days and weekends at work to be a reliable asset to IU. In 1983, my wife and I quit our jobs, bought a few lights and started a motion picture equipment rental company with Cheryl running the office and me working freelance as a lighting director and gaffer.
The demands of servicing our clients and growing our business took all our focus and thoughts of archaeology and graduate school were pushed far into the background. I subscribed to "American Cinematographer" and "Lighting Dimensions" instead of various anthro publications. Our business was more successful than we had ever dreamed and, as the years went by, we sent out other freelancers with our lighting trucks and equipment so I could be freed up for my personal clients and the priorities of being a father and husband. I discovered that the business could go on without my involvement in every little detail. I also discovered documentaries. They could be like little ethnographies although they were not as rigid in their data collecting methods. In 1990, I volunteered to help on a documentary being done in New Mexico on the Acoma potter Lucy Lewis and her daughters. Although I had to pay my own expenses, being involved in the making of "Daughters of the Anasazi" helped me rekindle some of my old interest in anthropology.
Since that time, I have attempted to place myself on jobs that are documentary-oriented although these jobs are usually not equipment intensive enough to be lucrative for our company. In 1997, a friend and client shot a documentary in the Dominican Republic about a group of Indiana University archaeologists investigating Taino remains at several sites; including a ceremonial cenote. Divers were recovering artifacts at depths ranging from 115 to 240 feet in a flooded underground cavern accessible only through small holes in the ground . . .60 feet above the water's surface. The archaeologists were not allowed access to the footage shot by the video production company and asked the same cameraman to shoot additional, more specific, documentation of the sites for future grants and other department needs. I was asked if I would be interested in backpacking gear into the jungle, building a rig to raise and lower a cameraman 60 feet down to the water, setting up a generator and lighting for the cavern interior, and shooting underwater footage of the archaeologist divers. An interest in archaeology and fluency in Spanish were considered a plus. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity even though only my expenses were covered. This job led to other underwater archaeology- related projects where I volunteered my time to shoot underwater video; expenses paid. Sometimes it cost me paying jobs but I was able to adjust my work schedule and make these projects a priority. There are more potential jobs coming up, including one in Madagascar.
Besides work and family, I have enjoyed several hobbies since college, my favorite being the study and practice of karate and kobudo. Karate is a system of self-defense originating in Okinawa that has its roots in China and other countries and its branches have spread world-wide. Kobudo is the practice of self-defense using a number of traditional Okinawan weapons based on farming and fishing implements as well as bladed weapons from the upper classes of Okinawan society. Karate and Kobudo have incredibly rich and complex lineages where subtle movements and meanings can be traced back from student to teacher for several hundred years. Most historical figures are clouded in a mixture of fact and legend and there are fascinating links to the Japanese Samurai class, Zen Buddhism, and Korean and Chinese influences. I am particularly fascinated by the crafting of traditional weapons such as turtle shell shields, boat oars, hoes, etc. In short, it's an ideal interest for an anthropologist wanna-be. Perhaps to make up for my lack of fighting prowess, I have spent a great deal of time chasing down copies of out-of-print books, conducting interviews by phone, e-mail, and in person, and having documents and tapes translated from Japanese.
There are quite a number of Anthro-major graduates out there that have seemingly "other-than-Anthro" careers. I might have found this thought discouraging while still in college. However, looking back, I realize that the goal of a liberal arts education is to broaden rather than narrow a student's choices. There are a number of paths leading from a Grinnell graduation day and many of them will lead to career choices that are not strictly Anthropology-related by definition. But, I believe that you can find uses for your Anthro background in a non-Anthro field or find time to volunteer in something related to your interests. Perhaps it's enough to have a consuming hobby that leans toward Anthropology (flint-knapping seems obvious). Finally, there's the option of doing something else you find challenging and fulfilling for part of your life and then going back to your original field. Cheryl and I are in the process of selling our company, but we are too young to "retire". After the sale is final, I intend to continue working freelance while I decide what to do next. Pursuing a graduate degree and further work in underwater archaeology is at the top of my list but there are so many good choices out there for a Grinnell graduate that it may take a while to make a decision. No matter. Like you . . . I have the rest of my life ahead of me.
An Active Department
Alumni should check the recent "President's Report" and notice that Anthropology, while not the largest department, has the largest list of recent publications and related achievements of any department in the college. For the record, we currently have 5 1/5 teaching positions, involving 8 actual humans teaching courses. We are graduating 34 majors in 1999, and currently have 83 declared majors.
STUDENTS
AND
ALUMS!
In April, Sharon Doerre, '89, returns to campus as an Alumni Scholar. She will give a talk on "Dirty Words, Learning About Language, Gender, and Power in Damascus", and will meet with students to discuss graduate schools and academic futures. Sharon is currently finishing her Ph.D. at the University of Texas, Austin.
Amy Johnston, ‘93, is currently a graduate student in the M.A. Anthropology program at Northern Arizona University in Flagstaff. Her focus is on applied sociocultural anthropology. At the annual Society for Applied Anthropology meeting in Tucson [April 21-24,1999] she will be co-presenting a paper entitled, "Changing Use and Priorities: Health and Social Services in the Verde Valley" during a session entitled "The Verde Valley: A Mosaic of Change and Continuity."
"My most exciting plan for this summer is to go to Bali on a field school program for five weeks where I'll be doing "ethnoprimatology", how the monkeys interact with the people..." Marion Rawson, '99
Courtney Birkett, ‘99, is the top scoring female atlatlist in the world, according to World Atlatl Association records. She will be entering the graduate program at William and Mary College in historical archaeology.
"Hi, I'm having good times in Zimbabwe right now. I'm beginning to study street people and forming theories that excuse me from assisting them while at the same time trying to gain access to their world and see them as people and not just a social role. So we'll see if I give away all my worldly possessions or not, hmmm? This summer I have an unpaid part-time internship with the Icon newspaper in IA City. I hope to get valuable experience in writing and photography." Mali [Margaret] Lorenz, '00
The Watson Selection Committee is pleased to announce that Margaret L. Taylor , '99, has been awarded a Watson Fellowship for 1999. Margaret's project is titled "Space, Place and Identity in the European Circus"
(United Kingdom, France, Denmark, & Switzerland).
The Grinnell-Nanjing Selection Committee is pleased to announce that the Grinnell-Nanjing Fellows for 1999-2000 are Mansir Petrie, '99, and Van Luong, '99.
Matt Horstman, '99, will be an assistant English teacher in Japan for one year through the JET Program.
Mckenzie Morse '99, will be spending about five months working on a Phase I archaeological survey at Allegheny National Forest in western Pennsylvania.
Grinnellians at Society For American Archaeology meetings in Chicago
John Whittaker and Kathy Kamp attended the SAA meetings in March, and exchanged greetings with a number of Anthro alumni. Bill Green, '74, (IA State Archaeologist) presented "Cultivating Ecosystems of the Prairie Peninsula: Woodland Subsistence Patterns" and chaired the poster awards committee. Jon Till, 89, (U. Colorado grad school) with others from Colorado had a lively poster presentation on "The Bluff Great House Kivas." Steve Nash, '86, presented with J. Haas "The Paul S. Martin Project: A Progress Report", explaining his post-doc at the Field Museum, where he has been organizing and researching the collections made by Martin in Arizona years ago. As a Chicagoan, he also hosted a party at his and Carmen's place. Mike Neeley, '84, (Montana State) gave a paper on "Going Microlithic: A Levantine Perspective on Microlithic Technologies." Mike Galaty, '91, (Mississippi State) with others presented "Creating and Destroying the Past: Examples from Albania." Whittaker gave "Where the Waste Went: A Knappers' Dump at Grasshopper Pueblo" with Eric Kaldahl, and a panel presentation "Offending the Masses" in a workshop on writing archaeology for the public. Such was the hurley-burley of events, with some 3000 archaeologists and up to 25 sessions all going at once, that only Jon Till, '89, and Rob Brubaker, '85, managed to join Kamp and Whittaker for a "reunion" dinner - better luck next time.
Anthro SEPC by Jocelyn Wyatt,
'99 [anthsepc@ac.grin.edu]
http://www.grinnell.edu/groups/anthsepc/www/index.html
The Anthropology Department's Student Educational Policy Committee (SEPC) has been very active this year. Members include Nell Barker, Kim Goergen, Megan Hayes, Matt Horstman, Leslie Kadish, Laurie Kauffman, Van Luong, Oma McLaughlin, Laurelin Muir, Anna Painter, Christina Peters, Mansir Petrie, Nora Stick, Malcolm Sturgis, Maggie Taylor, and Jocelyn Wyatt.
We hold weekly meetings in Goodnow (which is now open at night!). First semester, we organized a discussion with majors and faculty members regarding careers in anthropology and have updated the career resources in Goodnow. We participated in the SEPC bowling tournament, and although we did not win, we scored pretty well overall. We used SEPC funds to buy two gifts for families in need in Grinnell during the holiday season. We wrote a letter to President Osgood regarding our opinions about the proposed Capstone Experience. We have completed faculty reviews for Katya Gibel-Azoulay and Gautam Ghosh. At the end of the semester, we held a cocktail party for all majors and faculty members.
This semester, we have devoted much time to creating anthropology department t-shirts which have been made available to all majors and faculty. We have written a letter requesting new computers in the Goodnow computer lab and those funds have been approved for next year. We now have a bike rack in from of Goodnow thanks to the SEPC as well. We have been working on an SEPC web page which will be linked to the Anthropology Department's web page and will include photos of all of us at the cocktail party. John Whittaker gave us an exclusive tour of the Goodnow Tower during one of our meetings. We are currently planning another discussion with faculty regarding anthropology graduate schools, a pasta party for majors and faculty at the end of April, and we will have another picnic at the end of the semester.
ANTHROPOLOGIST IN NEW PRAIRIE STUDIES PROGRAM
Jon Andelson, Professor of Anthropology, will be the first director of the new Program in Prairie Studies at Grinnell, supported by the Fund for Excellence. The purpose of the Program is to create and encourage the use of new opportunities for hands-on classroom learning, student research, student artistic expression, student internships, and student-faculty collaboration by focusing on the prairie region in which Grinnell is situated. The Program will foster work across the three academic divisions, focusing on the natural and cultural diversity of the prairie region, past and present. Anthropology students will find new opportunities in classes and internships for learning in all four subfields. Information about the Program is currently being developed and will be available over the course of the semester and next fall.
The original proposal for the program, which can be studied in Burling Library, was put together by, Andelson, Katya Azoulay (Anthropology), Bradley Bateman (Economics), Jackie Brown (Biology), Victoria Brown (History), David Campbell (Environmental Studies), Jonathan Chenette (Music), Tony Crowley (Art), Vince Eckhart (Biology), Sandy Moffett (Theater), Wayne Moyer (Political Science), Liz Queathem (Biology), and Barbara Trish (Political Science).
The Paul S. Martin Project:
Field Museum Archaeologists Catalog and Computerize
A Collection of Prehistoric Southwestern Artifacts
What do 33,000 prehistoric corncobs, 600 ceramic vessels, 1,300 projectile points, and tens of thousands of potsherds have in common? They were excavated by Paul Sidney Martin during a remarkable 43-year career as archaeologist at the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago. Archaeologists led by Steve Nash'86 are currently engaged in a National Science Foundation-sponsored, two-year effort to catalog and computerize those portions of the collection that have never been published. In so doing, they seek to evaluate Martin's extraordinary legacy in the context of North American archaeology and anthropology.
Martin, along with Emil W. Haury, Frank H.H. Roberts, Alfred V. Kidder, and Earl H. Morris, stands as a pillar in the development of Southwestern archaeology. The Field Museum hired Martin as an Assistant Curator in 1929 and he became Chief Curator of Archaeology in 1935. He retained that position until his retirement in 1964, after which he served as Curator Emeritus. He died in 1974. Martin's legacy in North American archaeology comes to us today in two forms: his enormous impact on the field during his own lifetime and the continuing utility of the great corpus of data and artifacts he was responsible for collecting over his long career. Martin directed excavations at 69 Anasazi and Mogollon archaeological sites in Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico. He published more than 200 popular and scholarly contributions. Numerous students and young scholars participated in his excavations, and at least 50 of them went on to become professional archaeologists. The centennial of Martin's birth occurs in 1999, and archaeologists will examine Martin's legacy and evaluate his collections at the 64th Annual Meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) to be held in Chicago the afternoon of March 25th, 1999. The Museum, in conjunction with the SAA and the University of Illinois - Chicago, will host a reception in Martin's honor the evening of Thursday, March 25th, at which time archaeologists will have a chance to review results of the current project.
Martin's collections at the Museum continue to be a source of data for active research. Archaeologists have turned to the Martin collections in recent years to gain insights on the development of agriculture in the Southwest, prehistoric trade patterns, ceramic production, and more. Advanced graduate students from a number of universities are making increased use of the collections for theses and dissertations as well. Unfortunately, while Martin had a stellar publication record, portions of the collection were never properly cataloged or published. When Martin died, the institutional memory of this portion of the collection died with him. The uncatalogued artifacts therefore remained largely inaccessible to study by interested scholars.
As of early fall, 1998, Martin Project staff can count several significant accomplishments. Over 96,000 artifacts from 35 sites have been cataloged and original research documents and archives have been compiled and analyzed. A World Wide Web page has been created (go to www.fmnh.org/candr/anthro/martin/martin - intro.htm) in which progress reports are filed and which will contain, at project's completion, the artifact database, site photographs, maps and text, and progress reports.
Before the current project, the Paul S. Martin Collection was a significant if incompletely understood collection of prehistoric southwestern artifacts. Today, we have a much better understanding of the artifact collection and the social and intellectual milieu in which the collection was created. When the project is complete in August of 1999, the Martin Collection will arguably be the best documented and most easily accessible, via the Internet, archaeological collection in North America. Students and scholars interested in examining artifacts within the Martin collection, or interested in contributing to the Martin Project, are encouraged to contact Steve at the addresses listed below.
Dr. Stephen E. Nash'86
Paul S. Martin Project Director
Department of Anthropology
Field Museum of Natural History
Roosevelt Road at Lake Shore Drive
Chicago IL 60605.
snash@finnh.org
312-922-9410 x445
FACULTY NEWS
Janelle Taylor presented a paper at last December's American Anthropological Association meetings in Philadelphia, as part of a panel she co-organized with Danielle Wozniak (Western Michigan U) and Linda Layne (Rensselaer Polytechnic) on "Kinship and Consumption." The three co-organizers are now
working together on an edited volume of papers from the panel, under the tentative title "Motherhood as Consumption."
Gautam Ghosh presented a paper at last December’s American Anthropological Association meetings in Philadelphia, entitled: "Time Limits: Nation-State, Migration and Temporality in the 1947 Partition of India."
Katya Gibel Azoulay -
Publications:
Review of Jon Michael Spencer, The New Colored People: The Mixed-Race Movement In America. New York: New York University Press, 1997. African American Review 33, 1:151-153 (1999).
Review of Crispin Sartwell, Act Like You Know: African-American Autobiography and White Identity. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.Biography 22, 3 (Summer 1999).
"(White) Women and (Racial) Diversity in the Academy: Reflections on Intentions and Interventions. The Review of Education/Pedagogy/Cultural Studies 20, 3, 211-227.
Public Presentations:
1. University of Iowa: Global Theories and the Future of Area Studies [invited], 25 September 1998
"Trespassing on the Wings of Theory"--Focus on ways in which theory informs my work and the manner in which crossing disciplinary boundaries inheres a sense of empowerment precisely because these boundaries are regulated, governed and controlled by gatekeepers, rules and regulations. Movements in such abstract terms are
mirrored in concrete life experiences in which familial, spatial and community-based identities function as bonds and boundaries.
2. Presidential Inauguration Symposium, Grinnell College [invited], 10 October 1998
"Cultivating a Culture of Diversity: The Challenge of 'Race'"
3. University of Central Florida [invited]
(3a) 19 October
"Black-Jewish Relations and the Politics of Racial Categories" --Approaching the topic of Black-Jewish relations in the United States by focusing on people who are the product of Black-Jewish relations, the
presentation interrogates Census categories in general and the concept of a multiracial category in particular. This shifts from a focus on competing interest groups to an emphasis on complementary communities of meaning who share similar existential and political concerns on issues of assimilation,
history and memory.
(3b) 20 October
"The Political Implication of Diversity in Higher Education" -- Presentation to The Honors College, UCF. Discussion of racial diversity in curricular decisions and interdisciplinary perspectives.
4. Queensboro Public Library, New York [invited] 14 November 1998
Author Talk in series, "Places We Call Home." (Focus on ethnic assimilation and identity).
5. American Anthropological Association, 97th Meeting, Philadelphia
(2-6December) [all presentations were by invitation]-- 3 December Invited Session: Different Differences: Race, Nation and Identity in Recent Books by Black Anthropologists (Association of Black Anthropologists). Participation as author/discussant)
-- 6 December Hybridity and Colonial Desire (sponsored by American Ethnological Society), Discussant
6. Association of Jewish Studies, Boston (19-21 December) 20 December [invited]
Session: The Legacy of Franz Boas for A Multicultural Analysis of Jews and Issues in Race
Vicki Bentley-Condit -
Publications:
1999 Bentley-Condit, V.; Smith, E.O. Female dominance and female social relationships in yellow baboons (Papio hamadryas cynocephalus). American Journal of Primatology, 47:321-334.
1998 Bentley-Condit, V. Book Review: The Evolving Female, A Life-history Perspective. International Journal of Primatology 19:199-201.
1998 Bentley-Condit, V.; Smith, E.O. Captive olive baboon and feral yellow baboon mother-infant proximity during infants' first three months. AmericanJournal of Primatology 45:169.
Papers Presented:
1998 Bentley-Condit, V.; Smith, E.O. Captive olive baboon and feral yellow baboon mother-infant proximity during infants' first three months. Presented at the American Society of Primatologists Meeting, Georgetown, TX.
Kathy Kamp -
Kamp, Kathryn A., Nicole Timmerman, Greg Lind, Jules Graybill, and Ian Natowsky
John Whittaker -
"Replicas, Fakes, and Art: The Twentieth Century Stone Age and Its Effects On Archaeology." American Antiquity, 64(2):9-20
Kamp, Kathryn, A. and John C. Whittaker -
Interpretative monograph on our continuing archaeological field school excavations in Arizona, culminating 4 seasons of excavations and more than 10 years of analysis, research, and synthesis, which involved more than 50 Grinnell students. This is the major professional publication; in company with Kamp's more popular textbook treatment and several articles, we have now completely published our most important site to both the professional and the popular markets.
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ALAS, POOR ERIC... Some of the students in Prof. Bentley-Condit's Primate Ecology and Social Organization class (fall 1998) volunteered their time and efforts to re-assemble Eric, an adult male chimpanzee skeleton. Following assemblage, Eric's bones were all labeled so that he could be used in future classes. After a fatal heart attack, Eric was donated to the anthropology department by the Southwest Foundation for Biomedical Research, San Antonio, TX, where Prof. Bentley-Condit is conducting behavioral research with olive baboons. Pictured from left to right are: Liz Burton, Ben Jenkins, Jodie LaPoint, Jocelyn Wyatt, and Marion Rawson.
(That's Eric on the table!) |
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ANDELSON ON LEAVE IN COSTA RICA
But this does not mean Jon Andelson is doing research in Costa Rica. That would make too much sense. Rather, he is there finishing his book length study, a cultural history of the Community of True Inspiration (currently known as the Amana Colonies) from their beginnings in 1714 until today. So why Costa Rica? No snow! The real reason, though, is that Karin Stein, Jon's wife, comes from Costa Rica, where her parents, brother, and sister still live. "The book could be written anywhere," Jon says, "and it's always better to leave town." (Is that why this is called "a leave"?) Spending the time in Costa Rica is giving Karin a chance to be back home and do research and recording of Latin American folk music. The Andelson-Stein's three children are enrolled in an international school and are learning Spanish with new friends from Korea, Sweden, and Mexico. The family is living in "voluntary simplicity" in a two room apartment in the suburb of San Ramon de Tres Rios, east of San Jose, the Costa Rican capital. The apartment is one kilometer from the girls' school and just across the street from a "Super D' Todo," a small grocery store that makes McNally's look like Dahl's in Des Moines, where they get all their groceries, including homemade tamales and empanadas and all the carambola fruit and platanos (plantains) they can eat. The other treat is that the landlord raises Andalusian horses as a hobby, and the grounds around the apartment are occupied by several magnificent animals.
Jon comments about Costa Rica: "I would like to have seen this country twenty-five or thirty years ago, before the deforestation began in earnest (Costa Rica is today at least 70 percent deforested), before the crime increase that has resulted in every door and window in San Jose having bars or grating, and many homes having high protective fences with rip wire along the top, before the onslaught of tourism (today the country's leading source of foreign exchange), before the air in the Central Valley became so polluted, and before the erosion of local culture by television and the rest of the world market. Still, the country offers much to its citizens and to the foreign traveller: breathtaking natural diversity, an excellent national park and reserve system, excellent public health measures and a fine health care system, a good infrastructure, a reasonably good system of public education, a country with no army, and warm and hospitable people."
The other day Jon visited the ACM office in town and saw most of the Grinnell students participating on the program this semester, including Rachel Knudson, Malcolm Sturgiss, Lisa Hetzel, Vicki Blank, Melissa Marks, Kristina Prescott, Joseph Hanson, all of whom expressed great satisfaction with the program and were eagerly looking forward to beginning their own research projects.
A Culture of Confusion: Grinnell's Messages About Careers
Oma McLaughlin '99, Maggie Taylor '99, Jocelyn Wyatt '99
Our research last semester, through the Office of Institutional Research, focused on the messages sent out by Grinnell regarding students' future career plans. We conducted interviews, asking students to articulate Grinnell's messages about specific careers. We consolidated respondents' answers into a list of possible career and post-graduate plans. This list became a survey that we distributed to 200 students, attempting to maintain a relatively equal balance of males and females and distribution among class years and majors. After analyzing the data reported on these surveys, we also looked at alumni data to determine what Grinnellians are hearing and what they're doing with the messages they've received.
Varying forms of social activism and of continuing education are widely encouraged. The top encouraged message overall was "further your education," and five of the top nine encouraged messages dealt with activism. Students report hearing messages such as "work towards the betterment of humanity," "take a stance in community and world events," and "be an activist." "Have a career in business," "make money a priority in choosing a career," and "work for a big corporation" were the only activities thought to be more discouraged than encouraged by Grinnell overall. One reason for this negative attitude toward business may be a narrow vision of what working in business entails. Economics majors are the only major to hear that having a career in business is more encouraged overall. Art and music majors feel it is more encouraged to make money a priority.
K-12 education and artistic careers seem to carry mixed messages. It seemed that students within these majors felt discouraged to pursue them as careers, while people outside the areas felt that these careers are encouraged by Grinnell in general.
For many messages, first years seem to have a more clear-cut opinion on what Grinnell is saying about that message. Seniors, on the other hand, are a lot more divided on some messages. Where first years heard a message as either strongly encouraged or discouraged, seniors were hearing it both encouraged and discouraged, making the message an ambiguous one for them.
This leads us to theorize: When first years hear these messages, they may not be fully introduced to diverse viewpoints regarding these messages. They hear one side of a message more strongly than another. Seniors, however, have more opportunities to meet a variety of people, take different classes, and participate in discussions involving both sides of the messages, thus exposing themselves to the full extent of Grinnell culture and its opinions.
A comparison of which activities women and men thought were most encouraged did not show any major differences. As the alumni data indicates, however, males are more likely to take a job in business. And careers in public and human service and volunteer work are female dominated. The top five alumni occupations for all alumni, as well as for alumni graduating in the last ten years, are business, K-12 education, health professions, legal professions, and writing/publishing/communications. It is interesting that the top two alumni occupations, business and education, are either seen as discouraged or controversial at Grinnell. Either Grinnellians change their vision once they leave, or they used to receive messages different from those received by current students.
Mississippi Delta Seminar
By Katya Gibel Azoulay
In February I submitted a proposal for a capstone travel seminar to Mississippi under the auspices of the Africana Studies Concentration. Shortly thereafter, it was accepted and supported through Fund for Excellence. On the first Sunday of Spring break, a group of 8 students,4 faculty, one administrator and two consultants (our local contacts to the people with whom we met) set out for the Mississippi Delta. This four day Africana Studies Concentration travel seminar visited Clarksdale, Canton and Jackson MS as well as Memphis, TN -- Beale St. and the National Civil Rights Museum.
Everyone was profoundly moved by our guest lecturers, all of whom are featured in the essays which made up the course pack in preparation for the trip. In advance, we also viewed several documentaries and feature films -- but reading and seeing movies cannot compare to actually visiting and talking with the people. More than anything, we came away with an intense awareness of the extent to which in Mississippi -- and undoubtedly this is true throughout the South -- the history and memory of the past inform the present and continue to be topics of discussion as well as a significant influence on current events. Anthropology majors with an interest in the culture, economics, history and politics of the U.S. South will find the study of Mississippi to be fascinating. With our visit, I think I can say that we now have connections to specific people on whose hospitality we can rely.
In Clarksdale, we met with two veterans of local desegregation activities, black businessman Bennie Gooden and plantation (now called "farms") owner Andrew Carr. Mr. Carr and his wife hosted us in their home. We also visited the Delta Blues Museum where examining the race lines imposed by segregation in the music industry invites thematic questions about the legacy of class exploitation as well as the similarities and differences between southern apartheid and northern segregation.
In Canton, a town renowned for its brutality during the Civil Rights Movement (CRM) described by Anne Moody in Coming Of Age in Mississippi (1968) and more recently the site for the Hollywood film Time to Kill, we were hosted by Mayor Alice Scott and her staff. From there we moved to Jackson where we met the formidable former Senator Henry Kirksee and Ed King, the chaplain of Tougaloo College during the heyday of the CRM. Rev King, a native white Mississippian, was brutalized on several occasions by the police and carries the scar of having been shot in the face. We visited Tougaloo College where we met with Joe Lee, the college president, and Jackson State University (the site of the random police shooting of the female dormitories in 1970 where two students were killed). Both Tougaloo and Jackson State are historically Black colleges and we found an interest in encouraging faculty exchanges and student internships at their respective research centers.
Each of the speakers praised our visit, for we represented a unique effort. There are few, if any, college-sponsored travel seminars to the south in general and to Mississippi in particular. All also emphasized the fact that thirty years ago an interracial group like ours would have been stopped at the border of Mississippi and harassed, arrested or had our lives threatened; or that Mississippi was a microcosm of America -- or alternatively -- a model from which American could learn. Of course, reading texts about the South in general or Mississippi in particular cannot compare to the visceral experience of a visit, especially when the geographical point of departure is a region with a very small Black population. One significant demographic and political difference between Iowa and Mississippi is that the former actively discouraged Blacks from entering the territory when it was established as a "free" State in 1846, while the latter had a large Black slave population.
One of the highlights of the trip was a visit to the new Yazoo Federal Prison where the warden permanently squashed our stereotypes of wardens: an attractive, petit woman who presides over this all male, medium-security penitentiary. We were given a tour of the work areas, the recreation room, the cells which have no doors. We lunched on the same food that the prisoners eat (although in the cafeteria of staff). Very interesting, although no one departed with a desire to return as a resident!
The trip was a tremendous learning experience and we were fortunate to have the help of Grinnell alum, the Honorable Judge Henry Wingate. JudgeWingate and his staff arranged our meetings in Jackson and accompanied us for two days. In addition, the contacts of Homer Hill, a native of Clarksdale and MSIR Andre Robinson (dir. and producer of documentary, Waking in Mississippi) provided the indispensible contacts for our meetings in Clarksdale and Canton.
During the Africana Studies Conference, 22 April (which has 34 presentations and 6 sessions AND features an African Buffet Reception), there will be a photo exhibit and the screening of a video by April Dobbins which represent a collective creative effort on the part of the students who participated in the Mississippi Delta Travel Seminar.
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WILL THE REAL PROFESSOR JOHN WHITTAKER PLEASE SIT DOWN?
Which one is Professor Whittaker and which one is a student dressed exactly like Professor Whittaker?
Answer: Professor John Whittaker is on the right, Alex Rosenthal on the left.
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