Anthropology Student Open House

One of the exciting ways to get members of our college community interested in anthropology is offered by the career open house. I was able to hold such an open house a year or so ago. The event involved a number of disciplines, and the overall goal was to get at-risk high school students interested in the pursuit of academics. Our anthropology table featured books and materials related to the discipline as well as an Internet connection with our departmental webpage. Students had the opportunity to ask questions about the major as well as interact with our Internet resources. Events like these illustrate the importance of presenting anthropology to our community and potential future students in the discipline.

The Meaning of Life� Video

During one quarter of Cultural Anthropology I had structured the class projects to focus on the issue of the meaning of life. It was deliberately an abstract topic because I wanted to use openness as a means of stressing student creativity and anthropological analysis. For the project I received an extraordinary reflection in an original documentary film by two students, Pierre and Danica. The result was a cross-community comparison of two cities�South Lake Tahoe and Folsom, California. The students wrote the interview questions centered on the topic of the meaning of life, and then took original footage and edited the final work. It was a remarkable film, and I consistently use the video to stress the important contributions of my anthropology students.