• Economic Development/Workforce Demand
  

  The Department of Anthropology requests a replacement tenure-track Assistant Professor line in Cultural Anthropology to maintain, without interruption, the one existing line remaining in the department. Cultural Anthropology is an essential component of Anthropology, which also includes Archaeology and Biological Anthropology, in the holistic study of human societies and behavior through time and across space. Cultural Anthropologists study cultural diversity both in non-western societies and in our own. Their research provides qualitative and quantitative information about many inter-related aspects of culture including belief systems, social-political organization, non-western economies, and the impact of modern development on traditional cultures. Cultural anthropology expertise is especially important with today’s global businesses and military expansion, and in settings where ethnic differences may impede effective communication, such as in health care, criminal justice, social services delivery, and conflict management.
  A replacement cultural anthropologist is essential to maintain our undergraduate and graduate programs along with our strong focus in applied anthropology, medical anthropology, and community engagement. Permission to advertise in the Fall 2014 will allow us effectively search and hire the ideal candidate by Fall 2015 without interruption to our undergraduate and graduate programs.

• Florida Board of Governors Areas of Strategic Emphasis      
  

  Anthropology was listed as an Area of Strategic Emphasis by the BOG due to its important Global Reach up until February 2014. It was then delisted.

• Accreditation Requirements
  

  N/A

• Community/Visibility
  

  The Division of Anthropology and Archaeology is already considered a successful niche program at UWF and has the potential to continue to grow through its experiential learning and community outreach approaches. The Division excels in its visibility in the community, nationally, and internationally. The archaeology part of the program reaches statewide in its community engagement and outreach activities, experiential learning, and research. The disciplinary home of Archaeology is in Anthropology, which also includes Cultural Anthropology and Biological Anthropology at UWF. These three sub-disciplines work together to provide our students and the community with positive experiences and leadership opportunities that focus on understanding human cultural diversity. A cultural anthropologist will allow to maintain the sub-disciplinary integration among the units of Anthropology, and expand our links with other relevant UWF programs concerned with global multiculturalism, medicine and health care, forensic sciences, mental health, and social services.

Enrollment Growth:
The number of Cultural Anthropology majors reflects an upward trend at both the undergraduate and graduate levels based on the data provided below. Cultural anthropology courses are required for all tracks in the Anthropology curriculum as for the students in the BA in Maritime Studies program.

Gen Ed:
A replacement cultural anthropologist is essential for the department to respond to the recently proposed state of Florida general education courses. We anticipate the need to offer additional sections of ANT 2000 Introduction to Anthropology to meet student demand both online and on campus.

Multicultural/Diversity Education:
One of the more important cultural anthropology courses we offer is ANT 3212 Peoples and Cultures of the World. The course lays the groundwork for critical thinking about cultures and lifeways other than our own. The course allows students to operate with greater understanding of other perspectives in a complex and changing world. This course is not only a requirement for all anthropology majors (not just cultural anthropology track majors), but also for the international studies major offered by the Department of Government. It also fulfills the current multicultural requirement. As such, ANT 3212 is the highest enrolled cultural anthropology course. Having a full time cultural anthropologist will ensure that we are always able to offer sufficient sections of this important course. ANT 3212 is also essential in attracting majors to Anthropology, and we are reluctant to use only adjuncts and non-tenure track faculty to teach it. We hope that when the university redefines the diversity requirement that ANT 3212 will be included.

Experiential Learning:
Experiential learning is stressed in the cultural anthropology track, as it is throughout the anthropology major, through both coursework and other experiences. Currently, students gain significant hands on learning through the ANT 4808 Applied Anthropology course. Beginning the summer of 2012, we offered more experiential learning opportunities through an intensive dual-listed field course in “Ethnographic Methods.” Maintaining a full time cultural anthropologist will enable us to continue regular offerings of these courses.

In addition to course work, the cultural anthropology track stresses experiential learning through a required internship in the community and/or a small scale ethnographic research project. Supervision of these internships and projects is time intensive for faculty, and it will be absolutely necessary to replace the full time faculty member in cultural anthropology to continue offering these crucial experiences to students over the long run.

Graduate Program
A cultural anthropologist is essential to the continued success of our graduate programs where experiential learning is especially important in the curriculum. Approximately 1/3 of the completed MAs in Anthropology have been in Cultural Anthropology since the program began. Cultural Anthropology faculty members also serve on committees for Archaeology and Biological Anthropology students in the Anthropology and Historical Archaeology MA programs. They also participate on MA and PhD committees in related programs such as Community Health Education and the Ed D. where they provide expertise in multiculturalism, anthropological theory, and qualitative methods. A Cultural Anthropologist is essential for maintaining active involvement in these cross-disciplinary advising and research activities.

Strategic Planning in Anthropology over the years has led us to conclude that our undergraduate and graduate academic programs require at least two tenure-track positions in each Anthropology sub-discipline (Cultural Anthropology, Biological Anthropology, and Archaeology). Recent planning revealed that growth in our academic programs will require three tenure-track faculty lines in each sub-discipline. We currently have 3 department faculty lines in Archaeology, 2 in Biological Anthropology, and only 1 in Cultural Anthropology, due to the retirement of our second Cultural Anthropologist in Spring 2012. It is essential to the well-being of our undergraduate and graduate programs in Anthropology that we replace the tenured faculty member in Cultural Anthropology with a tenure-track anthropologist who will undertake professional instruction, advisement and mentoring, research, and service to the community. We will also be requesting a “new line” Instructor to replace the second Cultural Anthropologist in the department.

Instructional workload will include three courses per semester at the Lower Division, Upper Division, and Graduate level. The department has a projected course schedule that covers the complicated arrangement of courses need to cover required courses and electives in several Anthropology programs. Some courses are offered every three semesters and others annually in order to meet student needs and keep courses filled. Instructional duties will also include supervising internships and theses. Advisement of both undergraduate and graduate students will be required, as well as scholarly activities, and service to a variety of communities. It is anticipated that the replacement cultural anthropologist will teach a wide variety of required cultural anthropology courses, including Contemporary Cultural Anthropology Theory, Research Design in Anthropology, Disease and Culture, area courses (e.g. Cultures of Mexico, Cultures of Latin America, North American Indians), Aesthetics and Critical Theory, History of Anthropology, Applied Anthropology, and Language and Culture.

We have carefully scheduled the course-load of the one remaining cultural anthropologist to cover the required courses in the program for the upcoming year. We are also using advanced graduate students (and completed MAs) to teach some undergraduate courses. A replacement line is absolutely necessary to maintain not only the cultural program, but the overall Anthropology program at the undergraduate and graduate levels.

N/A. Anthropology enrollments have fluctuated over the past five years, although no track has fallen below 15 majors. The fluctuations may be attributable to a variety of factors such as large cohorts graduating at the same time, the retirement (and non-replacement) of a Cultural Anthropologist who regularly attracted large numbers of students to his Anthropology courses, and the Florida Governor’s attack on Anthropology, which began in Fall 2011.

N/A

Evaluation of tabular data below:

The high contribution of “adjunct” instruction listed below is attributable to the retirement of a former cultural anthropologist, Terry Prewitt, in Spring 2012. No replacement for Prewitt was approved, as his line had already been used for a “replacement” Biological Anthropologist. Adjuncts have been used to maintain the needed cultural anthropology course offerings.
Low-enrollment courses numbers are attributable to the fact that a number of our lab courses are limited to 17 students in a section based on lab space and materials (this includes 8 sections of Osteology laboratories alone for 2013). In addition, some graduate courses are dual listed with undergraduate courses, and may be identified as low-enrolled in the tables.

* Does not include non-degree specializations (indicated with a † above)