135 4 48MB
English Pages [202] Year 1988
aNTHROpolocy fo TOMORROW: | : : IW @
CREATING PRACTITIONER-ORIENTEC
applied anthropology programs
- , edited by ROBERT T. TROTTER II
, number 24 a special publication of the American Anthropological Association in collaboration with the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
Published by the American Anthropological Association
1703 New Hampshire Avenue, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20009
Kathleen Cosimano : Production Editor
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Anthropology for tomorrow : creating practitioner-oriented applied anthropology programs / edited by Robert T. Trotter H.
p. cm.
A special publication of the American Anthropological Association, in collaboration with the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology. ISBN 0-913167-25-8 (pbk.) |. Applied anthropology—Study and teaching (Higher)—United States. 2. Applied anthropology—Vocational guidance—United States. I. Trotter, Robert T. Il. American Anthropological Association. III. National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (U.S.)
306’ .07'1173 88-10375
GN397.7.U6A58 1988
Copyright © 1988 by the American Anthropological Association All rights reserved.
| ISBN 0-913167-25-8
CONTENTS
Part 1: Program Types
1 / Introduction Robert T. Trotter I
8 / Types of Programs John van Willigen
Part 2: Curriculum Considerations
20 / Introduction 22 / Applied Anthropology Programs for Undergraduates Susan Emley Keefe
31 / Best Moves: Curriculum Development Issues in Program Evolution John J. Wood
37 / Critical Core Curriculum Issues Carole E. Hill
47 / Involving Practitioners in Applied Anthropology Programs Erve Chambers and Shirley Fiske
Part 3: Placement Issues
57 / Introduction ~ 59 / General Placement Issues Alvin W. Wolfe
68 / Developing Purposeful Internship Programs _ Stanley Hyland, Linda A. Bennett, Thomas W. Collins, Ruthbeth
Finerman
76 / Profiles of Practice: Anthropological Careers in Business, Government, and Private Sector Associations Elizabeth K. Briody
Contents continued on next page
Part 4: External Affairs
90 / Introduction 93 / Administrative Considerations Gilbert Kushner
112 / Creating an Applied Anthropology Research Institute in a University Carlos G. Vélez-Ibanez
128 / The Academic-Industrial Connection: Building Linkages in the Field of Anthropology Marietta L. Baba
Part 5: Ethics and Future Directions
161 / Introduction 163 / Ethics and Applied Anthropology Linda M. Whiteford and Maria D. Vesperi
170 / Scientists or Survivors?: The Future of Applied Anthropology under Maximum Uncertainty Robert A. Hackenberg
186 / Conclusions Robert T. Trotter II
191 / Contributors
Types
PART 1 Program
INTRODUCTION | Robert T. Trotter Il There is a starburst effect that forms part of the creative energy that anthropology pumps into the social and behavioral sciences. It comes from the tendency of
anthropologists to explore previously unrecorded lifestyles, or previously uncharted areas of human societies. The creativity is produced, in.part, from having our colleagues going off in all directions at once. Some people see this effect as a liability. I remember one of the first conversations I had with our college dean, when I joined the Northern Arizona Univer-
sity faculty as Chair of the department. The dean expressed the concern that, while everyone was productive, they all seemed to be doing their own thing. He did not see a single body of work that everyone was plugging away on; he found no coherent theme within the department. The other social sciences in our college seem more thematically organized, so I agreed with him, but interpreted the condition differently. To me, this starburst (or fireworks) effect is the normal condition of productive anthropology depart-
ments. It indicates a willingness to innovate, to explore new issues, and to re- | explore old issues from a new perspective. It is a creative generator that makes the impact of anthropology far greater than our numbers alone would predict. In | my opinion, as I indicated to our dean, we should do everything we can to preserve it.
To safeguard this creative energy in the discipline means preserving and promoting many different types of departments, each with separate but complementary missions and goals. In this book we are promoting one such department with significant potential: practitioner-oriented applied anthropology programs. Practitioner-oriented programs do not represent the only direction for the future of anthropology. If they did we would lose our creative edge. But they do represent a direction that has proven effective for a number of departments. Practitioner-oriented programs began appearing in the 1970s. Borrowing from the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology (NAPA) membership information brochure: By ‘‘Practicing Anthropologists’’ we mean professionally trained individuals who are employed or retained to apply their specialized knowledge, skills, and experience to problem solving in any of the human dimensions (past, present, and future). Practicing Anthropologists include both full- and part-time practitioners (such as academically-based anthropologists) who accept assignments and provide professional services to social service organizations, governmental agencies, business and industrial firms, and other clients. l
2 Robert T. Trotter II This book will assist individuals and departmental groups to create and maintain programs that educate and train practicing anthropologists. Practitioner-oriented programs include training for both domestic and international practice. Both types of anthropological endeavor have demonstrated staying power, creativity, and an admirable track record for the employment of their
graduates. Both faculty and graduates of practitioner-oriented programs have made important contributions back into the discipline.
The authors of this book feel that the new practitioner programs can be repli- , cated in other departments of anthropology. In that vein, we offer the collective wisdom of our experience. Each of the authors has participated directly in the _ _ development of one or more successful, applied anthropology programs. They have acted as administrators, developed curricula, participated as students, provided consultant services, and acted as mentors and internship hosts to students in various programs. All see the education and training of students for profes-_. sional employment as one of the highest priorities for the discipline, whether that _employment be inside, or outside, of academic institutions.
Practitioner-oriented programs rarely appear by chance. They are planned, and are only viable where the faculty understands the issues of training practitioners— as opposed to the more familiar process of training graduates for traditional academic careers. The successful programs appear to have several things in common. These common elements include a high percentage of productive faculty; a very
solid core of theory and method; some form of practical experience (such as an internship); lots of networks with local (or international) institutions and businesses; and a strong predilection for treating students as positive resources to the
department. Each of these issues is developed further in various chapters in the | book. However the last theme, positive treatment of students, needs to be emphasized a bit further. Practitioners are a diverse lot. Even where their training program has a specific focus (such as medical, urban, Cultural Resource Management or development),
each student tends to take a somewhat individualized track within a program. | Most then follow a wide diversity of career tracks once they are outside the institution. Therefore, successful programs tend to treat students as individuals, rather than treating them as ‘‘the graduate class of ’88.’’ Fortunately, this individualized
departments. oo approach to training is typical of most anthropology programs, so the base for
creating a successful practitioner-oriented program is already present within most _
This book provides some models of the skills that our students need to acquire in practitioner-oriented educational programs. Going beyond the holistic orientation of anthropology and its theoretical framework, these skills directly assist students to achieve successful applied careers. We are not debating the value of traditional anthropological education; we are strongly supporting it. Throughout the book the assumption is made that students in our programs must have the high- | est quality education possible. Properly educated practitioners have all of the traditional knowledge a program can provide. What we are stressing is that it is also
necessary that they gain some additional skills to make them more competitive in , the current job market. We are proposing model programs that deliberately help graduates translate their anthropological skills into action. In order to teach these critical skills, a program must have a faculty with the appropriate experiences, and who can transfer those experiences to students. This
Introduction : 3 book explains how to accomplish this by creating an appropriate curriculum, by reaching outside of the department for faculty development opportunities, by creating cooperative relationships between local practitioners and the department, and by developing relationships between the department and other businesses and ‘institutions. The book also demonstrates how these outreach programs can benefit the discipline as a whole. The new programs we are proposing, like the new forms of practice, are not for everyone. They are not designed to replace traditional anthropology departments, but to provide an alternative of equal quality enabling some anthropologists to move quickly and easily into new endeavors. Their. purpose its to continue the
starburst effect, filling the void in new directions. :
The book is designed to create discussion of some evolutionary/revolutionary issues of applied program development. As committed practicing anthropolo- _
: gists, we are providing this book as a blueprint for change within the discipline. We also recognize that the interactions of traditional and practitioner-oriented anthropology have the potential to keep the discipline lively and healthy for a long
time to come. :
, Structure and Conient of the Book The book contains a blending of academic and practitioner knowledge and skills. It presents viewpoints and identifies skills that must be taken into account to design a viable program. It is important to understand and accommodate this — diversity of style, to develop a successful program in your department. The book presents five separate themes: (1) Program Types, (2) Curriculum Considerations, (3) Placement Issues, (4) External Affairs, and (5) Ethics and
Future Directions. |
Part 1 (Program Types) contains two chapters, this introduction and an article by John van Willigen that discusses planning applied anthropology programs. Van Willigen begins with a short history of the impact application has had on the development of the discipline, and then moves to the variables that have affected the growth of applied anthropology programs in the recent past. He summarizes | a set of guidelines for program development, beginning with an assessment of individual faculty strengths, and moving to broader environmental factors both within the university and in the “outside world.’’ He points out some of the risk factors involved in both program planning and development. His comments on the increasing ‘‘specialization’’ of programs, with vital references to program typologies, are a theme that will be developed throughout this book. His support of specialty programs is echoed and elaborated in other chapters, such as those by Hill and Kushner, and his warning about the lack of adaptive flexibility in specialization is elaborated in the chapter by Wood, which provides the counterpoint | recommendation for more generic programs. He also sounds futuristic themes that _ are touched on in various chapters, and then much more fully developed in Hackenberg’s chapter on the future of applied anthropology. Since the bulk of this book is a treatise on how to create a successful applied program (and how to avoid the pitfalls that other programs have encountered), we felt that a survey chapter would provide the reader with an important frame of reference for the chapters that fol-
low. , |
Part 2 (Curriculum Considerations) contains four chapters that revolve around the educational core that a department or unit wanting to build a practitioner-
4 Robert T. Trotter LI oriented training program must create. Key issues include the level of the program (undergraduate and graduate), the basic curriculum, and the issue of involving full-time practitioners in the program. , The problem of what level of program to create should not be taken lightly, nor should it be assumed that applied programs can only be successful at the graduate level. Not every university can afford to create a Master’s or Ph.D.-level applied program. The alternative is to create a high quality undergraduate applied program, as indicated by Susan Keefe’s lead chapter. This chapter is divided into two sections. The first covers the general issues that impact on undergraduate programs, and contrasts free-standing undergraduate applied programs with those in graduate departments, where the program is most likely to be subsumed under the graduate requirements. The second part analyzes the success and failure of 10 free-standing undergraduate programs. These two sections -provide insights into the necessary faculty resources, the need for internship opportunities, and the importance of faculty commitment to the program: these are the basic elements es-
sential for program success. The three chapters that follow, on the other hand, assume that the new practi-
tioners-oriented programs will be based in departments in institutions granting | Master’s or Ph.D. degrees. John Wood’s chapter deals with the philosophy of curriculum and program development. He suggests that the process of program change must be grounded first in theoretical, and then in practical, considerations. These considerations include the necessity of balancing traditional anthropological education with some of the specific training needed to be a successful practitioner, and the practical considerations of developing programs with existing fac-
ulty strengths, where limited new positions are available. Then, using the need } for increased ethics training as an example, Wood proposes models for the integration of key issues into the curriculum. And, finally, his chapter provides an interesting counterargument against increased track specialization: a counterweight to virtually every other chapter in the book. Carole Hill, using Georgia State’s program as a case example, discusses core curriculum issues and provides a detailed description of potential core courses. This type of core will not be appropriate for every program, but it is an excellent starting point for discussion and decision-making for all programs. Hill’s chapter
emphasizes the need for an integrated curriculum, and the need for students to have a blending of practical experiences with good grounding in theory. The issues of teaching versus training are clearly delimited, asis the need fordeveloping ~~ a program that gives the students an advantage for employment when they graduate. The final chapter, by Shirley Fiske and Erve Chambers, presents a major issue
for the book; the involvement of successful practitioners in the training of future practicing anthropologists. Some of the most important role models for students in new applied anthropology programs are people making their living outside academics. This chapter describes ways that these practitioners can—and should— be involved in academic programs. It is written from the dual perspective of two successful anthropologists: an academic, and a practitioner who has worked with a successful applied program. Part 3 (Placement Issues) provides a detailed treatment of how students can and
should be placed in internships, and how postgraduation placement issues should | be handled. —
Introduction 5 Al Wolfe’s chapter on placement identifies the issues confronting applied programs when placing students in internships and in professional positions upon graduation. He proposes a multiple placement strategy through internships, colloquia, applied research institutes, formal outreach programs, and professional ‘networks. He notes the traditional “‘targets’’ for anthropological placements (public institutions and the nonprofit sector), but provides some strategic suggestions for entry into the business sector, as well. In all of this, he boldly presents placement as a primary responsibility of applied departments, without in any way diminishing the continuing responsibility of individual students for advantageously learning how to present themselves, and their knowledge and skills, in the modern
job market. |
The following chapter, by Hyland, Bennett, Collins, and Finerman, is a com-mentary on internships. Internships are the sine qua non of successful practitioneroriented programs. This chapter establishes an excellent model of internship care, nurturing, and development. The authors provide two polar extreme scenarios for two student internship experiences, and through these explore the elements that they feel are central, both to the successful placement of students, and to the longterm success of an applied anthropology program. The chapter also introduces a
succinct briefing on a key issue that is discussed in most applied programs: the decision of whether students will culminate their internship and their training pro-
gram with a thesis, with the equivalent of an internship report, or some combination of the two. The resolution of this question depends on the purpose of the exercise, including the degree to which the internship and other training should be generalized to the discipline as a whole, and the extent to which the exercise provides a capstone experience in summarizing praxis in a manner that parallels that which will be most likely used after graduation. These are decisions that depend on the configuration of the program faculty, the philosophy of the program, and the requirements imposed by the university. _ The final chapter, by Elizabeth Briody, takes a case-study approach to postgraduate careers of eight successful, full-time practitioners. These cases provide an end point for understanding one of the significant goals of an applied program:
successful career placement. Fifty-one percent of the anthropologists who responded to the 1987 American Anthropological Association survey of recent graduates stated that they had gained nonacademic employment. They also stated that they were better paid and happier with their opportunities to use their anthropological education than their academically employed contemporaries. Through examples, Briody illustrates the diversity of routes anthropologists have followed to gain employment, describes the skills required for these positions, discusses their current job responsibilities, and provides a history of the reasons for the job changes that they have experienced. The chapter provides a number of insights
, from successful careers that can bé woven back into discussion of appropriate curriculum development in an applied department—insights that will help continue this type of success story. In terms of structuring strong applied programs, these individuals collectively recommend that we should: (1) above all else, train people to be excellent anthropologists and provide them with the skills to apply what they have learned; (2) encourage students to take courses outside of anthropology, especially those that can assist them in the job market; (3) structure training and/or work experiences in management, evaluation, and computing; (4) provide the maximum possible training in the traditional anthropological skills of
6 Robert T. Trotter Il observation and communication; and (5) teach the students how to sell both themselves and anthropology. The three chapters in Part 4 (External Affairs) illuminate survival procedures and considerations for dealing with administrations, working with businesses (for
fun and funding), and for developing research institutes. _ : Gil Kushner has created a basic survival manual for applied programs, but most especially for program administrators. He summarizes the considerations and processes needed to keep a program viable within the structure of an academic insti-
tution. The topics covered range from tenure considerations to budget support, from faculty assignments to interdepartmental relationships, and from working with the local community to obtaining extra-departmental recognition. His chapter shows that a program will only be successful if intra-institutional considerations receive as much attention as curriculum development and faculty expertise. Carlos Vélez-Ibanez’s chapter takes the next logical step: providing a model. for a research institute. These types of institutes provide research/training oppor_ tunities for applied anthropology graduate students (and faculty). They tap into funding opportunities that go beyond the traditional sources of funding used by anthropologists. And, increasingly, they are seen by university administrations as =—sone more mechanism for overcoming some of the budgetary constraints that plague most universities. Given this environment, Vélez-Ibafez supports the de- | velopment of focused institutes whose mission is clearly defined, and that maintain a thematic control over the research undertaken and the funding opportunities that are responded to by the staff. He also supports the belief that the institute,
ultimately, is known by its scholarly reputation. Therefore, its applied ventures . must be carried out not only in service to the funding agency, but they must advance the theoretical and methodological frontiers of the discipline as well. Given this philosophical premise, he provides a thematic outline of the issues that must be attended to in the development and the administration of an applied research institute. These themes range from recommendations on organizational structure (a circular network as opposed to a top-down system), accountability measures for both individuals and the institute, constraints on program development and expansion, resource needs (Space, micro-computers, and communications), ratios of hard-to-soft support, and the critical importance of having good secretarial support. The chapter also provides a modal personality configuration for the research-
ers in an applied setting, such as an institute. Not everyone who is an accom-—plished scholar belongs in an arena that demands creativity with teamwork, as well as the ability to bring a project to fruition both on time and on budget. Taken © as a whole, the critical themes that account for a viable institute are identified and discussed in this chapter. Finally, Marietta Baba’s chapter provides a model for further expansion of ex-
ternal relationships, providing a typology of tried and true business/university co- , operative enterprises, along with some new models that have been created over the past few years. Business linkages have certain elements in common that are different from linkages with federal and state programs, or general social serviceoriented programs. This chapter first identifies the types of connections that exist globally, and then provides a model for business-university connections that take
advantrage of the knowledge and techniques found in the social sciences. Baba illustrates the factors that are common to the development of such external link-
Introduction | 7 ages, and provides some suggestions for program development that take advantages of these opportunities. Part 5 (Ethics and Future Directions) has three chapters that provide a discussion of potential philosophical directions, especially for practitioner-oriented pro‘grams. Whiteford and Vesperi’s chapter on the teaching of ethics in applied programs is timely for the present and builds towards the future. All of the successful practitioner-oriented programs have ethics training as a major component. Sometimes it is built into a single course, other times it is woven into the entire core curriculum, and occasionally both methods are used. However the subject is covered, it is a central issue in training individuals for future employment. Beginning with a definition and consideration of the concept of “‘normative ethics,’’ Whiteford _and Vesperi discuss the need for training future practitioners to clarify their own -- values through the analysis of ethical dilemmas, and to prepare them to recognize and work through the inevitable ethical conflicts that they will encounter. The authors note a general weakness of ethical sanctions in anthropology, and provide some reasons for this condition. They see ethical training as at least one antidote to ‘‘the confusion and pain often experienced as applied anthropologists wrestle with problems of normative decision making.’’ The chapter ends with a series of six goals and objectives that can be built into the study of ethics in applied programs. This chapter is followed by Hackenberg’s attempt to forecast the future of applied anthropology. This chapter is included because we feel that the structure of a high quality applied program should not be configured solely by the past and the present; some account of probable futures needs to be included. Hackenberg combines past and future in his narrative. He sees much of the present as problematic, with a need to modify the discipline if the future is to hold much promise. The bottom line for the chapter, however, is that there is great potential for successful anthropological applications and for the continued existence and perhaps even prosperity for applied anthropology if present trends are taken into account. The final article is the conclusion, summarizing the major themes presented in the previous chapters and providing a blueprint for discussion of issues central to the development of applied programs. It identifies some contrasting philosophies and methods for program development, such as focused tracks versus individualized programs or the position a department takes on a four-field requirement as a part of an applied program. The chapter identifies the need to discuss the respon, sibility the department bears for pre- and postgraduation placement. And it shows some of the variability inherent in program development. All of the authors hope that the reader will find a broad diversity of vision, practical-advice, viewpoint, and practice in this book. This diversity reflects the multiple paths to success for the types of programs we are promoting. We hope ~ that the book will be used, not just read, and that it will help additional anthropology departments sculpture exciting new programs that contribute significantly to the future of the anthropological endeavor.
TYPES OF PROGRAMS John van Willigen Training anthropologists and others for practical purposes has had a significant impact on the discipline since it emerged in the late 19th century. The academic discipline of anthropology probably would not exist as such without the impetus of policy makers’ need for anthropologists and their knowledge. The earliest de_ partments and professorships were established with the justification of providing a kind of applied training. The goal of this training was to better prepare late 19th
century colonial administrators, particularly in Great Britain (see Fortes 1953). - 7 This justification also extended to much early research. Many of the classic ethnographies of what became British social anthropology were funded for reasons of policy. These studies represent what was needed by policymakers at the time: basic, holistic, objective accounts of people living in colonial territories. Now, of course, these works are seen as basic research monographs. A typical example would be Seligman’s Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan (1932), based on work
done before World War I. The applied component of the discipline has always | served to lead the basic discipline into new areas including urban anthropology, medical anthropology, nutritional anthropology, legal anthropology, anthropological studies of social movements, and population studies. This stretching out into new areas of research is consistent with the trends toward specialization in applied training. We can conclude that anthropology is a product of application, and that application is an important part of the intellectual growth of the discipline, its students and its teachers. While providing training for administrators was important in the early formation of the discipline, providing specialized training for anthropologists as applied anthropologists is much more recent. The earliest formal programs date from the late 1960s. The University of Kentucky’s program in applied social anthropology was authorized in 1968. The more specialized anthropology and education program at Teachers College, Columbia University was established in 1967. By current standards these programs date from the dawn of time. Since then, there has been a dramatic increase in the number of programs that address application. The rapid increase in their program numbers dates from the late 1970s, as do those of the earliest cultural resource management programs, the first of which was South Carolina’s Public Service Archeology program, started in 1979. A great deal of change in applied anthropology training has occurred since the first programs emerged in the 1960s. The number of applied training programs has increased tenfold (Leacock, Gonzalez and Kushner 1974; van Willigen 1985). Sixty-five departments offering programs are referred to in Becoming a Practicing
Anthropologist: A Guide to Careers and Training Programs in Applied Anthro- . pology (van Willigen 1986b), and the number of programs is even larger if separate tracks and degrees in broader programs are included. 8
Types of Programs 9 Although each year brings more programs, there is also attrition. Perhaps the most interesting cases of attrition are the University of Chicago and Cornell University, who (in my mind) were vying for preeminence in applied anthropology in the early 1950s through the work of Sol Tax in action anthropology and Allan - Holmberg in research and development anthropology.
The Structure and Focus of Current Training Programs Training programs vary in a number of ways. First, they vary in terms of academic level. In the United States there are applied anthropology training programs at all collegiate levels; undergraduate, graduate, Ph.D., and postdoctoral. There seems to have been an early growth of master’s programs; Ph.D., B.A. and post- graduate programs tended to come later.
7 Second, there has been an increasing trend toward specialization in these training programs. Programs reflect interests in a number of different content areas, such as applied anthropology, cultural resources management (CRM, also called public service or public archaeology), development anthropology, educational anthropology, and medical anthropology. Many programs combine tracks. The University of Kentucky offers specialization in medical and development anthropology at the Ph.D. level, and in cultural resource management at the master’s level. A similar pattern exists at Connecticut. Memphis State combines urban and medical anthropology and public archaeology at the M.A. level. Other departments have focused on one area—this is especially apparent in medical anthro- pology. Such programs are offered at California, San Francisco, Michigan State, Case Western Reserve, and Southern Methodist. Also exemplifying this pattern are the development anthropology programs at Boston University and SUNY— Binghamton; the educational anthropology program at Teachers College, Columbia, and the urban applied anthropology program at City College. A third variation is whether the training program is an offering of an anthropology department, a special program in other departments or schools (for example, nursing, public health, architecture, or social work), or is a multidisciplinary program. Multidisciplinary programs usually have names such as social relations, international development, and interdisciplinary studies. Examples of such programs include those at Lehigh University, Washington State, and Oregon ‘State.
A fourth variation reflects the formality and extensiveness of a program. Here
| we can think of various levels such as program, track, concentration, and, perhaps, emphases. Some departments offer comprehensive training that involves most of the department’s faculty and courses, while other departments may have only a few individuals who express their knowledge of application in course offerings. Some programs are less formal, tending to operate on the basis of ap-_-prenticeship. McGill University, for example, offers substantial training opportunities without a formal program, by drawing on the substantial applied experience of many of the faculty. In addition to these four dimensions, programs vary in how they deal with curriculum, provide practical experience, and involve practitioners. There are many sources of diversity. A recent innovative variant in curriculum is the University of Maryland’s Master of Applied Anthropology Program, which does not include a core in general anthropology and is entirely oriented toward application and
10 John van Willigen practice. The University of South Florida explored innovations in the use of internships through a training grant from the federal government. Northern Arizona has aggressively involved practitioners in its program through its National Practitioner Advisory Board. In this chapter’s examination of existing programs, medical anthropology and educational anthropology programs are included, whether or not they seem to directly address application. Neither of these fields is, by definition, applied, but both are linked to applied anthropology because research in these areas has developed through subsidies from policy research consumers. This pattern is characteristic of most new research topics in anthropology. A distinction that clarifies the discussion of whether educational or medical an-
thropology is applied, is what Straus referred to as an ‘‘of,’’ or “‘in,’’ focus (1957). In reference to medical sociology, Straus made the point that one could speak of doing medical sociology “‘of’’ medicine, wherein the content of medical _
systems and health beliefs is studied as a basic research topic. Alternatively, one could do medical sociology “‘in’’ medicine, where the goals of healing and prevention would be served through social science. In general, however, all of the
programs that we are discussing are attempting to teach various anthropologies = -. ‘‘in’’ the world, rather than ‘‘of’’ the world.
Guidelines for Planning a Program | There are a number of structural alternatives that must be addressed as planning
proceeds. These are (1) topical specialization (for example, applied, develop-
ment, CRM, medical), (2) departmental or multi-departmental (1.e., interdisci- ) plinary), (3) academic level (B.A., M.A., Ph.D., or postdoctoral) and, (4) program scale (program, track, and concentration). Planning must consider these, as well as other, dimensions. These general structural considerations relate to both departmental resources and the total environment for planning.
As a first step in the planning process it is necessary to review the scope of : contemporary practice. A very useful and quick way to do this is to read Erve Chamber’s recent review article, ‘‘Applied Anthropology in the Post-Vietnam Era: Anticipations and Ironies’’ (1987). This can be supplemented with review of contemporary case books (Eddy and Partridge 1987; Stull and Schensul 1987; Green 1986; Wulff and Fiske 1987; Messerschmidt 1981), discussions of topical
1986a).
areas of practice (Baer 1987; Davis, McConchie, and Stevenson 1987; Paine ee 1985; Baba 1986), and available textbooks (Chambers 1985; van Willigen Jt is important to review the content of existing programs. Information about many programs is available in the Guide to Training Programs in the Applications of Anthropology, published by the Society for Applied Anthropology (van Wil-
ligen 1985, 1987). This publication includes information about degrees offered, , program goals and focus, degree requirements, internship and practicum availa-
bility, current enrollments, and participating faculty. The Guide will be published |
biennially. Information about programs not listed in the Guide may be obtained | by consulting the American Anthropological Association’s Guide to Departments of Anthropology. Current programs are also discussed in a Bulletin published by
the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology entitled, ‘‘Becoming a Practicing Anthropologist: A Guide to Careers and Training Programs in Applied
Types of Programs 11 WEAVER’S SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS FOR TRAINING
, APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGISTS _ A. Research Training
I. General social science research competence | a. Competence in theory (views of social systems/behavior and rationales for various
disciplinary perspectives) |
b. Competence in methodology (i.e., techniques and their justifications) 2. Knowledge of research in related fields, or those in which one will work (e.g., med-
ical, educational policy) |
3. Training in quantitative techniques
B. Anthropological training 1. Strong background in anthropological theory (especially social change) and ethno-
oe graphic literature ,
_ 2. Comprehensive (four-fields or traditional) anthropological training; or 3. Specialized (narrow-base) training in applied anthropology C. Cross-disciplinary topical expertise
1. Knowledge of ‘‘complex’’ society °
2. Knowledge in area of future application (e.g., medical, education, government) D. Hands-on experience |. Ethnographic experience a. Fieldwork in exotic societies b. Fieldwork in applied settings
2. Practical experience in government setting (internships) | E. Other professional skills
1. Time-effective research | |
2. Participate in cooperative (interdisciplinary) research
3. Use of secondary data |
F. Personal Skills
1. Willingness to make value judgements and take positions 2. Ability to assume new roles and utilize professional skills in these roles (flexibility) G. Communication skills 1. General skill in writing
2. Write proposals | :
3. Interact with agency representatives 4. Communicate with a variety of clients
a Source: Weaver 1985, based on Vivelo 1980 and van Willigen 1979.
Anthropology’’ (van Willigen 1986b). That volume addresses questions students
should ask when selecting a program. Most of these questions can be used as
guidelines for planning a program. — , - Careful analysis of faculty skills and related student needs can provide a means whereby programs can be functionally integrated. All this requires a high level of
collective consciousness on the part of faculty and students, and more intense management on the part of department administration. Program development rarely begins from scratch: it almost always involves transforming departments with general academic orientations into ones with more specific applied orientations. What are the implications of this? Most important is to realize that: (1) your program will be heavily shaped by the nature of the de-
12 John van Willigen partment’s on-board faculty; (2) complementary resources on campus must be identified and used; and (3) program planning should always involve a plan for faculty development. In addition, planning must start with faculty self-assessment rather than market analysis, unless you are creating an entirely new department. Self-assessment can be based on consideration of the skills needed in application and is most logically geared toward the skills that must be taught to students. The assessment process could start with a study of the literature on training
recommendations, beginning with ‘‘Recommendations for Training and Education for Careers in Applied Anthropology: A Literature Review’’ (van Willigen 1979), supplemented with articles by Vivelo (1980), Weaver (1985), and van Willigen (Stern and van Willigen 1982). Weaver provides an excellent summary listing of the recommendations, reproduced here.
Checklist for Self-Assessment of Faculty Skills and Knowledge This set of information categories was used to develop a checklist for self-assessment. Many of these skills and knowledge areas can be rated using the list of categories below. These categories can probably be thought of in terms of a scale, so that if a skill justifies a “‘one,’’ itis also appropriate to rate the skill as a “‘two,”’ oe ‘‘three,’’ or ‘‘four.’’ Where it appears illogical to use this rating, a short narrative paragraph describing skills may be used. One way of proceeding is to review this _ checklist in a faculty meeting to determine its usefulness, and have individual . faculty members evaluate their skills. Following this review, the form’s content could be discussed with the faculty member. The completed assessments could
then be collated. The rating categories are listed below, and the skill and knowledge areas are outlined in the box on page 13.
gram. 7
area. :
Rating Categories |
J. Consistently use the skill or knowledge in personal research or action proUl. Teach this skill or knowledge in personal instructional repertoire.
knowledge.
III. Have received instruction or have done focused reading on this skill or IV. Capable of providing instructive general critiques of students’ work in this
The evaluation of faculty resources should focus on these dimensions. This means going much beyond identifying those faculty who have ‘‘applied experience’’ and those who do not. It demonstrates that there are many faculty skills useful to applied programs that do not necessarily involve direct experience in application. These must be identified and fostered. Some examples include the ability to effectively use secondary data, such as census records, and the ability to use statistical analysis packages. In recruiting new faculty, in assessing current faculty resources, and in designing faculty development programs, the capacity to adequately teach research methods, to assist in student research design, and to serve as an exemplary researcher must all continually be emphasized. Research skills are the foundation of application (Bernard 1982).
In addition to the capacity to teach skills and knowledge, the faculty need to consider how their individual values relate to the goals of the applied program. It
Types of Programs 13 Skill and Knowledge Areas I. Research Methodology Skills A. Data Collection Techniques
Jo: General interviewing techniques Ethnosemantic elicitation Photography (videography, etc.)
Questionnaire and interview schedule design oe | Behavioral observation ' ; Life history collection
: Survey methods . | Mapping
Sampling Documents analysis Census data
. Others: _ B. Research Design :
Evaluation i
Basic design alternatives (case study, control groups) Policy research designs Social impact assessment
Technology development research Needs assessments Cultural resource assessment
. C. Data Analysis
Field note coding and sorting — Use of statistical software packages
II. Communication Skills
A. Writing for Various Audiences . Public
Research community | Agency
B. Group Communication Processes (e.g., brainstorming) _ C. Public Speaking
A. Budget | Experience with diverse audiences Media use
Il. Administrative Functions
Preparing budget requests
Monitoring accounting functions | B. Personnel | es ; Recruiting and hiring | |
Evaluating . —_
Training .
Motivating
C. Establishing Group Goals and Mission
IV. Action Strategy Designs |
Action Anthropology —| - C.B.Community Development A. Advocacy Anthropology
.. E. Cultural Brokerage D. Research and Development Anthropology
’ F. Others V. Knowledge of Cognate Discipline (e.g. medical sociology, agricultural economics) VI. Knowledge of Technical Field (e.g., agronomy, law)
VII. Experience in Nonacademic Work Settings: |
A. Government Agencies : : B. Firms .. C. Private: Voluntary Organizations
D. Self-employment Z
14 John van Willigen is necessary to know whether they can embrace the goals as their own, or whether they regard application as wrong, or beneath them. If they will not embrace the goals, watch out! This is an important reason for having discussions that will clarify values and clearly identify what applied anthropologists do. The basic task is not to somehow make “‘top-down,’’ culturally inappropriate; efforts to “‘modernize’’ work in spite of what critics might say. The best clues to faculty’s positions on these issues is the reference group that they use for recognition: if it includes people with applied orientations, you are better off. It is always important to remember that application has low prestige value for many scholars, who may even regard application as wrong. Some people will simply not allow themselves to be identified as applied anthropologists. Dealing with this can make planning difficult, because they will drift away from the goals of the program and not share fully in the responsibility. While the relative prestige value of applied experience
is increasing and, thus, changing the nature of this problem, most universities place a lower value on applied work for tenure, promotion and merit evauation | than they do on “‘pure’’ scholarship. Therefore, those taking the responsibility more fully are made to pay a price.
Faculty values are as important a consideration in the process of planning a program and its specialization, as are skills and knowledge. Critical to a program ; are people who accept its goals, rather than just tolerate its applied component. It _ is therefore advisable to have a voting majority at various ranks. Powerful and influential faculty can be substituted for numbers to considerable extent. Potential opposition to the idea of applied anthropology training must be flushed out and
discussed. |
The capacity of faculty to support a program is based not only on their training
and experience, but also on incentives for faculty development. In planning a program, or evaluating one in existence, try to identify what incentives there are for faculty development and the resources available to support their development.
Sabbaticals can be geared to equipping faculty with appropriate experiences. Travel money can be allocated to support development of faculty skills and knowledge. Time can be released to develop courses relevant to the program’s goals.
If I were staffing a program in the applications of anthropology today I would
look for graduates of existing applied anthropology training programs. In addition to their special knowledge, they usually place a higher value on applied work, and
will have a greater personal satisfaction in working on an applied anthropology program. At the same time, drawing this distinction too strongly in program planning and operations is dangerous because it can create an applied anthropology
clique, which may limit participation of all those with skills and knowledge that , can be integrated into the program. Program development should reflect student demand, placement opportunities, university mission, and existing complementary programs on campus, as well as faculty skill, experiences and aspirations. Good programs create demand.
Specialization Issues Departments vary in the extent to which the applied focus structures the pro-
gram. Some programs are established only to provide applied training; others of- : fer applied training as an alternative; and still others do not have special programs,
Types of Programs ~ 45 but rely more heavily on the interests and inclinations of the faculty. Effective training may be available in all of these contexts, although special programs and tracks have important advantages. First there is more clarity in program specifications. Students may be less subject to precipitous program changes. Without programmatic support, training usually takes the form of apprenticeship, rather
than a pervasive programmatic commitment.
The historic pattern of the development of training programs is to become more specialized. This is probably easily justified for a number of reasons. First, speclalization serves as a focus for faculty interests, development and recruiting. It is very difficult to develop the requisite expertise within a department without some specialization. Even in very large departments with four-field coverage and a limited amount of regional representation, focus can soften and be lost. Shared interests can help maintain faculty intensity by making mutual intellectual support
more frequent. Programs with very general orientations work, but they may result in curtailing faculty development and productivity. Faculty in such programs will tend to work in a wider variety of knowledge areas, rather than concentrating on a narrower subject area and developing a focused expertise. A viable adjustment is for the program and its faculty to focus on a specific region in a multifaceted
way. Faculty and program expertise require a focus. ,
Specialization in educational, medical, development and cultural resources management is well developed. Anthropologists practice in many other areas, however. The following list was derived from reviewing materials submitted to the Applied Anthropology Documentation Project (see box below). It indicates the extent of contemporary specialization of practicing anthropologists. Although there is this evidence for breadth in the field, it is apparent from materials submitted to the Applied Anthroplogy Documentation Collection that there is a great deal of activity in development and health. Education is also important. The other areas are relatively limited. This list may suggest areas within which
your program might specialize. , ,
SOME CONTEMPORARY AREAS OF SPECIALIZATION OF |
PRACTICING ANTHROPOLOGISTS }
| Agricultural Development Humans Relations Training |
Alcohol and Drug Abuse _ Labor Relations | Broadcasting _ Management Criminal Justice Marketing Economic Development | _ Military Affairs
Education Nutritional Assessment and Education |
| Energy Development Occupational Health LO Environment Protection Population | Fisheries Management Public Information
Geriatric Services Rural Development
Government and Public Technology Transfer
Administration Transportation Development |
Health and Medicine Water Resources Development Housing Development Urban Development
16 John van Willigen Specialization increases risk. The most adaptable program may be the most generalized. There are a number of sources of risk. Perhaps the most obvious are changes in student demand. Some programs are exposed to risk because they rely on specific federal funding programs to support faculty research programs and student traineeships. Between changing policy priorities and forced budget balancing, these programs can be very hard hit. The cooperative relationships established with other programs on campus can also be a source of risk. Such programs
can easily withdraw their support.
Specialization can also result in an in-group and an out-group. These who relate to the specialization may have an opportunity to work with better students; have better choices in terms of courses taught; have visiting lecturers in their networks, and so forth. It is necessary to plan and manage a program to incorporate all the faculty. This is not easy because, as mentioned above, many applied programs have been developed from existing programs that may have had a distinctively. ‘“non-applied’’ history. However, it can be effectively done, as the programs at the master’s level at the University of South Florida, the University of Maryland, and Northern Arizona University demonstrate.
Formal program plans have little effect if the faculty has insufficient experi- me ence, commitment, and will to manage the needs of the program. It is important to reemphasize that programs must be planned in terms of the capabilities of fa- culties, and with a realistic assessment of the incentives operating on a given campus. These considerations are important both to faculty and students, and are treated further in the chapter entitled ‘‘ Administrative Considerations.’’
Planning for Program Development . Planning for program development must focus on the different aspects of the total environment. Total environment means (1) other “‘nearby’’ departments, (2) university administration, (3) the communities that need your services, and (4) the networks of the faculty to other departments, anthropologists, and community organizations. Consideration should be given to the nature and strengths of departments where there is already collaboration, however informal. We have found that great benefit can be obtained by identification of teaching resources and research methods in conceptually ““nearby’’ departments such as sociology and po- , litical science. You should evaluate your curriculum resources in big, multi-department clusters, rather than just your own department. You may find that these
other departments are interested in making use of what your department has to offer in ethnographic practice. I firmly believe in the utility of developing crosslisted clusters of courses from various disciplines, whether or not you are developing an applied program. Clearly, this advice applies to the medical, educational, and general applied programs. In CRM the search might focus on collaboration with geology, cartography, history, and architecture. In addition to methods courses, sharing of resources can also occur in area or regional courses. While relationships with other departments should be cultivated, attention to any professional schools with which you can collaborate is also important. I think that it is important to have access to either a medical, nursing, public health, or allied health school if you are talking about medical anthropology. At Kentucky, for example, we work primarily with the Colleges of Medicine and Agriculture. In
both cases, the links are through social science departments within these colleges, , rather than through clinical or other programs.
Types of Programs 17 In addition to searching for curriculum resources, it will also be useful to consult with other departments about any of their experiences in applied training programs. It is important to develop an understanding of how different departments succeed in their administrative relationships with the university, especially within the framework of tenure and promotion. For sustained success, it is necessary to be realistic about these issues from the outset. In most academic settings, personal sacrifice is necessary for these kinds of programs to work. The sacrifice will occur in two areas. First, the value of your basic product (that is, technical reports instead of journal articles) in the rewards system at the review levels above the department will fall. This may cause extraordinary problems for junior faculty. Second, because your research program will be more geared to program needs you will lose some individual autonomy, something on which academics place a very high value. While the sacrifices may be inevitable, program development will
dents.
' provide rewards. These can include intensified commitment to the goals of the collective, increased research opportunities, and more success in placing stuIn planning your program you will need to review community resources. First, think about what your service community is. For many programs it is the local community. There are many local needs that can be addressed by anthropologists. Of course, the size and cultural diversity of the local community is a factor. Another factor is the number of anthropologists locally employed. It is wise to consider developing joint appointments for these people if possible. Your program must develop means of bringing students in contact with practitioners of any dis-
cipline. Competition with other universities and practitioners (such as social work, planning, health education) can be a factor. The service community need not be the local community; it could be an international domain of application. But, there are tremendous advantages to a local focus. The process of thinking about local needs can be used to select a program focus.
Most programs require internships and practica, and top priority should be placed on developing a placement list for them. Doing this will bring you into contact with local resources and give you an indication of some needs. Let me : suggest that you visualize a general departmental goal of meeting a set of community needs and perhaps decreasing your focus on the academic goals. As you work on achieving this goal you will find that your program will emerge with a good design, a rapidly developing track record, and appropriate student placements. In other words, do not design a program as such, but ‘‘simply’’ and ‘‘intensively’’ start addressing community needs—and have this pull the department
along. As things develop, more formality of structure may be called for. You might start by offering a course in which students participate in community action and research projects. Sustained participation will provide both training for students and faculty development. This outward look will loosen inappropriately strong ties to the discipline and reduce the tendency to design activities to fit conceptions of the discipline, rather than what is happening in the outside world. When you get involved in application you cannot afford to use the involvement to prove something about anthropology. The questions are always: What’s the problem? What’s the solution? Do I have the competence to carry out the solution in an ethical and effective manner? The question is never: Is it anthropology? Whether something is or is not anthropology
18 John van Willigen is relevant to program planning. As more and more applied programs emerge, their growing influence will change how anthropology is defined and perceived.
First, anthropological research methodology will diversify at the technical level. More anthropologists will use and control survey methods and associated data analysis techniques. The relevance of using methodological distinctions to contrast different social science disciplines will reduce to zero. Second, anthropological specialization will increasingly focus on general areas of policy con-
cern. This process is well established and is manifested in the highly developed . medical, educational, and development anthropologies. Others are emerging, including gerontological anthropology, marine anthropology, and nutritional anthropology. The distinction between application and basic research in these areas is very weak, much weaker than in the past. In these areas there is clustering of basic and applied researchers of various disciplines around policy problems. It 1s likely that in the process of developing a program you will build some clusters of
your own. |
References Cited
American Anthropological Association , can Anthropological Association. 1985 Guide to Departments of Anthropology, 1985-86. 24th Edition. Washington, DC: Ameri-
don and H. Breach. ) || Bernard, Russell Baer, Hans, ed. 1987 Case Studies in Medical Anthropology: A Teaching and Reference Source. New York: Gor-
1982 Issues in Training in Applied Anthropology. /n Training Programs in Applied Anthropology. Gwen Stern and John van Willigen, eds. Practicing Anthropology 4(3 and 4):15. Chambers, Erve 1985 Applied Anthropology: A Practical Guide. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall. 1987 Applied Anthropology in the Post-Vietnam Era: Anticipations and Ironies. Annual Review of Anthropology 16:309-337. Davis, Nancy Y., R. P. McConchie, and D. R. Stevenson 1987 Research and Consulting as a Business. NAPA Bulletin 4. Washington; DC: National As- : sociation for the Practice of Anthropology.
Eddy, Elizabeth, and William Partridge, eds. 1987 Applied Anthropology in America: Past Contributions and Future Directions. 2nd edition.
NY: Columbia University Press. : Fortes, Meyer
Kushner, G. .
1953 Social Anthropology at Cambridge Since 1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ae
Green, Edward C., ed. 1986 Practicing Development Anthropology. Boulder: Westview.
1980 Comment on Training Programs for Practicing Anthropology. Practicing Anthropology 2(3):26-27.
Leacock, E., N. L. Gonzalez, and G. Kushner, eds.
1974 Training Programs for New Opportunities in Applied Anthropology. Washington, DC:
American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology. :
Messerschmidt, Donald A., ed. 1981 Anthropologists at Home in North America: Methods and Issues in the Study of One’s Own Society. NY: Cambridge University Press.
Paine, Robert, ed. .
1985 Advocacy and Anthropology: First Encounters. St. John’s, Newfoundland: Institute of Social and Economic Research, Memorial University of Newfoundland. Seligman, C. G. 1932 Pagan Tribes of the Nilotic Sudan. London.
Types of Programs 19 Stern, Gwen, and John van Willigen | and 4):5-17. | Straus, Robert | 1982 Training Programs in Applied Anthropology. Special Issue of Practicing Anthropology 4(3
1957 The Nature and Status of Medical Sociology. American Sociological Review 22:200—204.
-Stull, Donald D., and Jean J. Schensul, eds. 1987 Collaborative Research and Social Change. Boulder: Westview. van Willigen, John 1979 Recommendations for Training and Education for Careers in Applied Anthropology: A Lit-
erature Review. Human Organization 38(4):41 1-416. . :
: 1985 Guide to Training Programs in the Applications of Anthropology. College Park, MD: Society for Applied Anthropology. 1986a Applied Anthropology: An Introduction. South Hadley, MA: Bergin and Garvey. 1986b Becoming a Practicing Anthropologist: A Guide to Careers and Training Programs in Applied Anthropology. Bulletin of the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology. _ Washington, DC: National Association for the Practice of Anthropology.
.... 1987 Guide to Training Programs in the Applications of Anthropology. Knoxville, TN: Society
Vivelo, Frank R. for Applied Anthropology. ”
Weaver, Thomas . | 44(3):197-205. ; 1980 Anthropology, Applied Research and Nonacademic Careers: Observations and Recommendations, With a Personal Case History. Human Organization 39(4):344—365.
1985 Anthropology as a Policy Science: Part II, Development and Training. Human Organization
Wulff, Robert M., and Shirley J. Fiske, eds. 1987 Anthropological Praxis, Translating Knowledge into Action. Boulder: Westview.
PART 2 Curriculum Considerations
INTRODUCTION | Susan Keefe’s article provides a useful introduction to this section on the curriculum development process. Building an integrated curriculum must take place for the initiation and maintenance of a successful practitioner-oriented applied program. Keefe demonstrates that viable programs can be developed at the undergraduate level if differences in the intensity and the resources for the program (compared with graduate-level programs) are taken into account. She provides a
summary of the program elements that are necessary for success; these include faculty commitment, program responsiveness to student needs, an awareness of : local resources, and the availability of student internships. Her survey of ten un- dergraduate programs provides both examples of success that can be repeated
elsewhere, and examples for the avoidance of failures. | John Wood’s chapter offers a philosophical framework for two key processes— curriculum and program development—that must occur when a department begins to create a practitioner-oriented program. His chapter has special significance for the ‘‘change agent,’’ who has taken on the task of guiding the department’s
change of emphasis or direction. In the section on curriculum development, stressing that anthropological applications depend on well-articulated theory to provide the framework for directed change, he presents a philosophy of curriculum structure that acts as a counterargument against the increasing track specialization of applied programs; suggesting, as in biological adaptation, that a program with generalized function and form may be more adaptive for the long run than extreme specialization. In the section on program development, Wood gives a generic outline that describes the actual steps used to create the highly successful program at Northern Arizona University, from restructuring of departmental mis- _
sion statements, to assessment of faculty strengths, and the use of external exper- _ tise. Using the self-study processes described in this chapter (combined, as Wood
suggests, with the content questions in van Willigen’s chapter), department chairs, program coordinators, and other “‘change agents’’ have a thought-provoking set of questions and issues to guide the development of new applied programs. Carole Hill, using the case example approach found throughout this book, pro-
20
| vides a chapter that is a summary of curriculum issues that need to be addressed
by a department creating an applied program, or contemplating revising an existing program to make it more practitioner-oriented. Beginning with a history of the applied M.A. degree program at Georgia State, she shows how their curriculum evolved, based on the need for students to have practical, out-of-classroom experiences that do more than simply train technicians. Hill deals with the whole
‘‘translation issue’’; how students can learn to apply anthropological concepts to , practical needs by understanding not just the content, but the intent behind
Curriculum Considerations 2] courses. Hill further establishes justification for selectively dropping the four-field
, approach at the graduate level of applied training. Finally, she introduces a brief summary of the personal skills necessary for successful anthropological practice. Not everyone is comfortable with, or capable of developing these skills to a degree that will lead to success. This suggests that some form of screening is necessary to help students choose between applied and non-applied careers. The final chapter, by Shirly Fiske and Erve Chambers, on involving practitioners in applied programs, develops a theme present throughout this book. There is great strength in having people experienced in practice involved in the development and conduct of applied anthropology training programs. This chapter explores two key issues. The first is the educational model that dominates applied training programs. The authors contrast a liberal arts model that emphasizes theories of knowledge acquisition, with a professional model emphasizing theories -. of knowledge utilization and dissemination. They support the professional model for applied training. Given this preference, they then go on to provide a description of the advantages and disadvantages of involving practitioners in a program. They describe the types of involvement that can be developed. These include acting as mentor-experts, lecturing in classes, acting as advisors and evaluators, supervising internships, serving as part-time faculty, and offering the support of local practitioner organizations. They strongly urge the involvement of practitioners, and their practical suggestions on how to do so will be invaluable for both program development and program improvement.
APPLIED ANTHROPOLOGY FOR UNDERGRADUATES Susan Emley Keefe This chapter addresses applied anthropology programs developed for under- | graduates at universities without a graduate program in anthropology. These programs are unique in many respects. Graduate-level programs tend to be far more. intensive for students and faculty, as well as more extensive in course offerings - and available resources. When both graduate and undergraduate applied programs _
are offered, the primary attention of the department tends to be directed toward . the graduate program, while the undergraduate program tends to be treated asa -—-—™ subunit of the graduate-level program. In departments without a graduate program, several general characteristics emerge that affect the development of specialized programs for undergraduate majors. These departments often combine two or more disciplines, one of which is anthropology. Typically, there are fewer than 10 anthropology faculty. The university and the department must operate with fewer resources, given a basic mission that stresses teaching rather than research. The faculty’s time is devoted primarily to teaching service courses. This allows little time for maintaining specialized applied anthropology courses in addition to the traditional curriculum provided for majors. Finally, these universities may be located in non-metropolitan areas, where there are fewer local internship and professional job opportunities
for students. ,
Certainly there are constraints to the development of undergraduate applied programs given these circumstances. However, there may also be advantages.
Small faculties have the opportunity to develop good rapport with their majors, | and may be able to recruit more easily and advise undergraduates in the applied track. Small departments also have dynamic advantages such as high flexibility . and quick response to change, allowing them to take advantage of opportunities => as they arise—for example, in deciding to create a new course or develop a new internship. Moreover, in a small department, two or three faculty can have enough influence to bring about the adoption of an applied program despite opposition by more traditionally-oriented faculty. This chapter describes applied anthropology B.A. programs in American uni- , versities. Most of the material comes from a survey the author conducted of pro- 7 grams identified as formal or informal applied B.A. programs in the Guide to
22 |
Departments of Anthropology 1955—S6, particularly the Special Programs section
of the departmental descriptions. Nineteen anthropology departments offering only the undergraduate degree were identified as having a formal or informal applied anthropology program. Ten departments, including the author’s own, returned a questionnaire describing their program.' Nine of these currently have formal applied anthropology B.A. programs (see Table 1). One of those not re-
Applied Anthropology for Undergraduates 23 sponding also appears to have a formal program. The remaining eight departments appear to offer field and laboratory training exclusively in CRM and/or have developed research/service projects or internship opportunities.
Structuring Applied Anthropology B.A. Programs _ There appears to be a great range of possibilities in structuring applied anthropology B.A. programs. Those which currently exist take diverse shapes influenced by the nature of the faculty and the institutional home of the program. Departments developing applied B.A. programs are primarily single-discipline departments, but Anthropology/Sociology and Anthropology/Sociology/Social Work departments are also represented. Multidiscipline departments may have combined applied programs with tracks for each discipline sharing required core or cross-discipline courses. In some multidiscipline departments where there are -- only one or two anthropologists, anthropology students often take advantage of internships created primarily for majors in the other discipline(s), for example, sociology, while opting for anthropology faculty advisors. All of the departments responding to the survey are relatively small, with two to six full-time anthropologists. Some have a number of additional part-time anthropologists on the faculty. Part-time faculty allow these departments to offer relatively specialized courses complementing an applied program. Contract archaeologists, for example, may find it beneficial to affiliate with a university, and in exchange can offer CRM training to undergraduate majors. In most of the responding departments, half or more of the anthropology faculty
are involved in the applied program. In several, all of the faculty are part of the program. In multidisciplinary/multidepartmental programs, on the other hand, a single anthropologist may easily be incorporated without a commitment to the program by the anthropology faculty as a whole. The fields covered in the programs surveyed and the courses taught are representative of the diversity of applied anthropology. These include cultural resource
management, gerontology, medical anthropology, social impact assessment, community development, educational anthropology, industrial anthropology, ur- | ban planning, and forensic anthropology. Many programs include a general course in applied anthropology as well. Most of the formal applied programs surveyed require several core courses beyond those for the traditional major. Some of the programs involve one or more specialized tracks. Many programs require or recommend courses in other departments to complement their applied program. Most require, or strongly recommend, an internship/practicum as part of the program. A brief description of several programs will provide an idea of the possibilities in structuring the undergraduate concentration in applied anthropology. At the University of Wisconsin, Parkside, the faculty have developed an inte_- grated program in which all three anthropologists on staff participate. In addition
to the standard curriculum for the anthropology major, students opting for the Concentration in Applied Anthropology are required to take three core courses: Anthropology in the Contemporary World (sociocultural change), Social Impact Assessment, and Developmental Change (development and planning). Courses in other departments may be recommended, depending upon the individual student’s goals. A field school involving research with one of the faculty on a social-eco_ nomic assessment problem is not required, but is highly recommended.
24 Susan Emley Keefe
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Stoffle and van Willigen (1976) also conducted an evaluation of one of the
prime site location criteria—that local workers with rural-agrarian backgrounds would become better workers than those from urban-industrial backgrounds. A testing of this site location hypothesis was afforded by company records of workers’ performance. When these records were consulted, the researchers found that the hypothesis was supported. Former dairy farmers from the local area adjusted better than all other types of Kikkoman workers. Surprisingly, however, workers
from urban-industrial backgrounds also were performing well. This finding
The Academic-Industrial Connection 143 proved especially useful to the company and helped to justify the continued hiring
of workers with a wide range of employment histories and community backgrounds (see Stoffle and van Willigen 1976). This case example of institutional consulting emphasizes again the importance of a conscious plan and careful preparation for building industrial relations. Faculty members in this case selected their target research site and negotiated access without prior contacts in the business, but only after lengthy study and development of an attractive access proposal. Continuous contact-on site also helped to eliminate linkage barriers by building mutual trust and respect between university and corporate representatives, and by presenting opportunities for faculty to offer practical services that management could grow to appreciate over time.'®
Example Three: Personnel Interchange ~ Interorganizational contact of personnel is one of the most flexible and produc-
tive means of transferring information and resources between academia and industry. Personnel interchange encompasses a variety of structured relationships and more informal activities that bring together representatives of the two sectors for purposes of communication and collaboration. Some forms of personnel interchange include the appointment of industrial scientists as adjunct faculty in universities, the use of industrial or academic sabbaticals for faculty or industry scientists, and the co-authoring of scholarly or professional papers by representatives of both sectors. Professional and social relationships (including friendships) that grow out of such interaction help to establish mutual trust and respect between the sectors and often serve as the basis for more elaborate cooperative research or educational programs. Advisory boards or councils are one widely recognized and accepted form of personnel interchange. Such boards bring industrial and other professionals onto campus for direct face-to-face interaction with faculty. At Northern Arizona University (NAU), the Department of Anthropology initiated a program of personnel interchange by creating a National Practitioner Advisory Board. On the NAU board sit anthropologists representing state and federal agencies, private corpo-
rations and universities. Three board members are from industry, including one from IBM, one from General Motors, and a third from a medium-sized consulting firm on the west coast. A fourth board member is employed by a private, nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. These individuals are expected to play an active role in the academic life of the department (including attendance at special
meetings), in return for which they receive not money, but a chance to build a prototype practitioner training program. Expenses associated with such voluntary service (travel costs, for example) are borne jointly by the individual board members and their organizations, with some in-kind support (such as housing) provided by the Department of Anthropology.
_ The NAU Advisory Board is a multifunctional linkage mechanism. First, the board provides role models for applied anthropology students. Industrial practitioners on the board perform this function by discussing their own careers and the work they do, demonstrating to students that “‘they too can do it.’’ Board members also may counsel students on an individual basis, particularly as advanced students begin to seek nonacademic employment. A second function of the board is to provide role models for faculty development. According to Robert Trotter, Chair of Anthropology at NAU,
144 Marietta L. Baba Industrial anthropologists on our board show faculty how they can get involved in private consulting, both to their benefit and that of the department. Perhaps some may even change careers. While we certainly don’t want to lose anyone, faculty consulting or even making a career shift to industry could be a win-win situation for the faculty member and for the department. There are many models for satisfying faculty careers; one such model enables faculty to expand their horizons and enhance their salaries through industrial connections. We are also satisfied with such arrangements because faculty with industrial connections mean more role models for our students.
The Advisory Board also plays a role in the department’s internship and placement program. The master’s degree program in applied anthropology at NAU requires that students complete a field-oriented internship in a public or private sector setting beyond the university. This requirement is intended to prepare students for nonacademic employment, and hopefully to provide an early introduction to potential employers. Industrial representatives on the board can help to expand the department’s private sector field placement sites, both by agreeing to consider students for potential placement in their own organizations, and by identifying
private sector. | other firms and industrial mentors for the internship program. Further, board
- members expand the department’s national network for graduate placement in the
Finally, and most important, the Advisory Board has direct input to the applied anthropology curriculum at NAU. Board members meet together to analyze curricular components, and in joint sessions with department faculty they offer rec- | . ommendations for strengthening certain courses or programmatic requirements. Industrial representatives play a key role in curriculum development by suggesting ways and means to develop skills that are highly valued by corporate employers, such as quantitative analysis and communication capabilities. At its first
meeting, in Spring 1986, industrial anthropologists surprised the faculty by strongly recommending an expansion of the program’s theoretical component— a change that now is underway. This example underscores the potential benefit of working with corporate anthropologists to overcome linkage barriers. Private sector anthropologists are industrial *‘link points’’ that can anchor and strengthen departmental efforts to build more formal cooperative programs. The case also demonstrates an effective longterm strategy for increasing the number of anthropologists in industry; namely, the placement of students in industrial field sites where (hopefully) they will be offered employment after graduation and become ‘‘link points’’ themselves.
Example Four: Industrial Extension Service The history of extension service programs can be traced to the Morrill Act of 1862, which established land grant colleges for the purpose of linking higher education to industrial economic performance (Peters and Fusfeld 1983). The Act provided both for agricultural and engineering experiment stations (EES), the latter of which were expected to bring university-based technical services to small companies in rural areas. Although the first EES was established in 1903 at the University of Illinois, the EES movement failed to attract federal funding in the early part of this century. For financial and other reasons related to the nature of industrial development in the United States, industrial extension programs did not become as widespread or publicly visible as the agricultural extension model of university-industry relations. Land grant colleges in several states, however, do
The Academic-Industrial Connection 145 support service programs that extend the technical expertise of faculty to target industries, particularly those that are economically depressed or underdeveloped. One such program is sponsored by Cook College—the land grant arm of Rutgers University in New Jersey. There, with a faculty appointment in the Department of Human Ecology, anthropologist Bonnie McCay coordinates an economic development program involving representatives of the shellfishing industry, state planners and university scientists. The primary objective of this project is service to industry; McCay brings her own skills as an anthropologist and the talents of other university faculty to help support the revitalization of the shellfishing industry on the New Jersey coast. Because Cook College is a land grant school, McCay’s efforts in support of the shellfishers are recognized as part of her regular faculty duties, and are rewarded as such. The program described below is supported financially by Rutgers University, the state of New Jersey, and the federal Sea Grant Program, and also receives donated services from the shellfishing industry. This example demonstrates that academically-based anthropologists can contribute constructively to regional industrial development and play a leadership role in social change. 7
McCay joined the faculty at Rutgers in 1974, moving there from Columbia to help Andrew Vayda (her dissertation advisor) found an interdisciplinary Department of Human Ecology at Cook College. Once at Rutgers, McCay found that her educational background (including a Ph.D. in ecological anthropology and dissertation research on fishing cooperatives in Newfoundland) prepared her well for work with industry. She soon became involved in an ethnographic study of the hard clam (shellfishing) industry along the Atlantic coastline. As McCay worked with the clammers (who generally are single individuals or small businesspersons), she learned that their resource base in New Jersey was severely depleted due to environmental pollution and overfishing. Further, she noted that relations between the shellfishers and state government were poorly developed, meaning that state resources were not mobilized adequately to address industry problems. With the overall goal of building new and stronger ties between the clamming industry and state agencies, McCay invited representatives
of both sectors to join her at a meeting in New York concerning clammer prob- ] lems. At this meeting, she and a New Jersey clammer first learned about the concept of spawner sanctuaries—protected areas where clams can grow, reproduce and eventually repopulate adjacent waters. According to McCay, spawner sanctuaries reflect the logic of earlier indigenous clamming practices, whereby some portion of the shellfish stock is left undisturbed in order to ensure continuing repopulation of an area. The New York meeting convinced the clammers that New Jersey should establish a spawner sanctuary. McCay agreed, and she worked with her industrial contacts to sell this idea to state government. The initiative gained political momen-
- tum and attracted public support, culminating in three state grants totaling $35,000, plus additional support from the National Sea Grant Program (whose Program Director for Marine Policy and Social Science is anthropologist Shirley Fiske).'' These state and federal grants have several objectives, including selection of a site for the spawner sanctuary, population of this site with fecund clams, and evaluation of the project for future improvements in the sanctuary method of
industrial redevelopment. |
146 Marietta L. Baba McCay serves as central coordinator of the spawner sanctuary program, which has the potential to reinvigorate a declining industry in New Jersey. She also has managed to interest biologists in doing research that will help implement and evaluate spawner sanctuaries, and their future research may lead to new scientific information on clam genetics, reproduction and ecology. Further, as McCay observes, the project may contribute to anthropological knowledge by providing new insights into the process by which humans respond to a perceived environ_ mental problem. This example shows that industrial ties can flourish on campuses where industrial service is valued and supported. Although not uniquely a problem in the social sciences, academic value systems in some university environments act as a barrier to industrial relations, particularly where faculty members value basic research so highly that applied research and service are not rewarded in the promotion and tenure system. Land grant schools historically have fostered an alternative value system, founded on the assumption that academic institutions should contribute to economic growth. Under such conditions, it is likely that academics in all disciplines will encounter fewer barriers to the development of linkage pro-
grams. . Example Five: Cooperative Research Project
Cooperative research differs from traditional industrial research grants or contracts with universities because industrial personnel actively participate in project design and may be involved directly in data gathering and analysis. Often, cooperative projects are initiated at the “‘grassroots’’ level between scientists who have preexisting social or professional ties. According to research sponsored by the National Science Board, such grassroots initiatives often lead to more successful and productive research projects than those planned **from the top down’”’ (Peters and Fusfeld 1983). Moreover, cooperative research is supported by a number of federal agencies and state governments, based on the assumption that im-
ect.
plementation (use) of research results is more likely if industrial partners coop- | erate in project planning and execution. The following example, drawn from the author’s personal experience, shows how personal and professional relationships may grow to become the core of a cooperative university-industry research proj-
Since 1985, the author has been involved in a collaborative research project with Elizabeth Briody, an anthropologist and Senior Research Scientist atGeneral = Motors Research (GMR) Laboratories in Detroit. The project includes basic and applied research of interest to the two investigators, and approved by General Motors (GM). The effort was initiated and designed at the ‘‘bench level’’ (that is, by the researchers themselves), and is expected to produce both internal research reports for GM, as well as co-authored scholarly publications. The incentives mo-
tivating this interaction include (for the author) an opportunity to work on significant industrial problems, and (for GM) an opportunity to expand their anthropological research capabilities without increasing their research staff. My association with GMR began at the 1984 Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association (AAA).'* There, at a reception for business and industrial anthropologists, I met L. Carroll DeWeese—a recruiter from GM whose wife is an anthropologist and former colleague at Wayne State University (WSU).
The Academic-Industrial Connection 147 DeWeese also was a group leader in GMR’s Societal Analysis department, and he had been working for more than a year to recruit an anthropologist for GMR. We discussed the difficulty DeWeese was experiencing in his efforts to locate an individual with appropriate quantitative skills, and I promised to help him with the recruitment effort. - Back in Detroit, DeWeese and I began a series of meetings designed to support GMR’s recruitment drive. We visited each others’ “‘campuses,’’ met and talked to each others’ colleagues, and shared information on possible candidates. The information exchange process proved to be interesting, and we decided that such communication between GMR and WSU anthropologists should continue after the recruitment process was complete. As part of our commitment, we agreed to co-chair a session at the 1985 AAA meeting, and to reserve a spot on the program for GM’s first anthropologist (a session entitled ‘‘Anthropological Research for Major Corporations,’’ sponsored by the National Association for the Practice of
~ Anthropology). | ;
During summer of 1985, DeWeese called to tell me that an anthropologist had been selected and had accepted an offer to join GM’s research staff. The individual, Elizabeth Briody, had just completed her Ph.D. at the University of Texas at Austin. Her dissertation. topic concerned household work strategies among Mexican-Americans residing in South Texas, and she had a background in population studies and statistics—ideal requirements for the Societal Analysis Department at GMR. I was introduced to Briody that summer, and we met on several occasions during the fall term to discuss her presentation at our upcoming AAA session. From these discussions emerged a series of small but significant linkages between GMR and WSU. For example, Briody became involved in co-authoring a paper on Mexican family-owned businesses with a WSU Ph.D. student. We also arranged for Briody to give a seminar on a portion of her dissertation research, after which she was invited to join the faculty as an adjunct assistant professor. The idea for a cooperative research project was conceived at the 1985 AAA meeting over coffee. Briody and I were discussing international joint ventures (IJ Vs)—new organizations formed by a partnership of two or more companies
based in different countries. The literature on IJVs suggests that they hold signif- | icant potential for cross-cultural collaboration and culturally informed technology transfer, but are organizationally fragile and have high rates of instability and dissolution (Franko 1971; Reynolds 1984). I was interested in studying the process
. of IJV formation in order to detect signs of cross-cultural (mis)communication that might lead to future instability. Briody also expressed interest in this subject, and about one month later a meeting to discuss IJVs was held at GMR. The meeting involved the head of Societal Analysis (Walter Albers), members of his management staff, Briody, myself, and Henry Tosi (professor of management at the University of Florida). We talked at length about the culture-based problems of IJVs, and the potential role of anthropologists in detecting these difficulties. From our meeting emerged an agreement that Briody and I would collaborate on a proj-
ect involving some aspect of international business. As events unfolded, however, a research effort evolved that was quite unlike that which Briody and I contemplated over coffee at the AAA meeting. As we talked with knowledgeable insiders at GM about the company’s overseas operations, we learned that there was considerable interest in the subject of expatriate selection and adaptation. For nearly a decade, the corporation had been working
148 Marietta L. Baba to develop policies and programs that would encourage talented individuals to accept overseas assignments. How were these policies perceived by actual and potential expatriates, managers wanted to know, and what could be done to further strengthen selection procedures and the overseas support system? Shifting our focus to one of the company’s main interests (a process that is quite common in collaborative research programs), Briody and | designed a pilot study that traces the career paths of expatriate managers and attempts to model the adaptation of expatriates and their families to work and life abroad. The objective of this effort is to obtain a better understanding of the process by which individuals decide to accept an overseas assignment, and to develop recommendations for improving methods of selection and training for international personnel (Briody and Baba 1986). This project now includes an advanced undergraduate student as
a research assistant. |
This case example of cooperative research shows that once collegial relations between academic and industrial scientists have been established and nurtured ~ successfully, they hold the potential to grow and elaborate to support many of the university’s basic functions. From a single professional contact at an academic reception there has emerged slowly a multistranded network of linkages—-we now |
count a total of seven ongoing links between WSU anthropologists and GMR, Oo including a team-taught graduate seminar on qualitative research methods. I be-
lieve that my experience, like that of other anthropologists described in these | cases, suggests the value of investing in linkage; that is, patiently commiting time, energy and resources to a process that will bear fruit far into the future.
Recommendations and Conclusions Case examples of university-industry linkage in anthropology confirm the national experience. Campus-corporate ties provide research opportunities for fac-
ulty and students, support curriculum development and regional economic growth, help to attract public and private sector funds, and generate public rec- | ognition and prestige for academic institutions. The cases reveal, however, that linkages do not ‘“‘just happen.’’ While random factors account for many good things and sometimes are blamed for failure, departments (or individual faculty) are advised generally to develop a conscious plan for industrial relations—a plan _ that takes into account special barriers or opportunities presented by the campus ‘‘culture,’’ as well as the department’s (or individual’s) objectives. Alinkage plan ss should visualize industrial ties at some point in the future, and detail the resources and actions that are required to achieve the vision. Sometimes, a plan will call for individuals to undertake some additional preparation prior to making business connections (for example, David decided to take an M.B.A. in international business). Or, the plan may require that the entire department expand its programmatic offerings (NAU, following the lead of South Florida and Maryland, developed field internship courses). Such preparation is necessary in order to learn the ‘‘language’’ of business, to aggregate knowledge that businesses seek, and to create link points within the department that will anchor the industrial connection. Based on case material, the author’s personal experience, and information obtained from colleagues (see Sheldon 1986), the following general recommendations are offered to academic departments contemplating an industrial connection as part of a larger strategic plan. These comments are not intended as a guide to
The Academic-Industrial Connection 149 the development of such a plan, but are suggestions that may supplement the planning process.
Evaluate the Campus Environment _ In some institutions, internal policies and/or peer review systems inhibit industrial relations. Promotion and tenure criteria that devalue applied research and service, the administrative assignment of heavy teaching loads, or lack of funding to support new and innovative initiatives—these are only a few of the barriers that faculty and departments may face as they try to build partnerships with industry. Academic departments should begin by analyzing the value system and environment of their own institutions. Such analysis not only should assess potential barriers to linkage, but should identify individuals, units or programmatic initiatives on campus that may house resources to support industrial relations. For example,
- it is helpful to identify campus “‘elders’’ who have had successful experiences working with industry, and enlist them as mentors both in overcoming barriers and pursuing the corporate connection. Or, it may be useful to bring in a prestigious academic leader from outside the institution to talk with internal power figures about the value of industrial linkage. Even in institutions that are not generally supportive of industrial research and service, there are often special offices or other units (sometimes lodged centrally in the office of vice president for research) that serve as boundary spanners to industry. Such units can provide help in negotiating institutional policy barriers, and may have financial or other resources that can be used to leverage industrial interest (money to support faculty release time or graduate students for work on industrial research projects).
Identify Industrial Link Points University-industry relations always involve interpersonal contacts between individuals representing the two sectors. The absence of such contacts can present a serious barrier to building new cooperative programs. If contacts do not exist
already, a linkage plan must include a method to establish cross-sector commu- | nication. One method involves identifying anthropologists or other social scientists in local business firms, and inviting them to join the campus community in some appropriate context. Industrial scientists-often comment that they would
welcome an opportunity to establish professional relations with universities in their region. Anthropologists in industry, for example, value opportunities to teach seminars or university courses, advise students, and co-author papers with academic colleagues.'* Sometimes the initial invitation may involve only a social function—a campus reception or faculty party—but such social occasions offer excellent opportunities to. meet industrial scientists in a relaxed setting, and to explore informally the possibilities for future partnership.
- If local firms do not employ anthropologists or other social scientists, then it will be necessary to use other methods to identify potential link points. A second possible approach involves an assessment of corporate needs that anthropologists can address, followed by development and marketing of products and services to meet these needs. For example, corporations with international business operations sometimes use consultants or other outside resources to train their personnel for overseas assignments (Rodgers 1986). Anthropologists (together with faculty
150 Marietta L. Baba from other disciplines) can design and offer culture-area training seminars for managers assigned to overseas duty. Additional possibilities for university products or services include international market research, program evaluation, policy analysis, and translation services. Efforts to identify corporate needs and to develop useful products and services for industry often can be strengthened by involving colleagues from other academic departments.
Design an Appropriate Linkage Form Once the academic and industrial environments have been evaluated, it will be necessary to plan a linkage program whose structure-function features recognize the needs and constraints of both parties. While industrial representatives may be quite clear regarding their functional requirements (education, research or service), academics should bear in mind the remarkable structural variation that is possible among linkage forms, and design a link that best fits the opportunities and constraints of the university environment. It should be noted, for example, that the older, more traditional linkage types (see Table 1) are likely to be less complex structurally, and easier to initiate and conduct at the level of the single .
faculty member or the individual academic department.'* As cases in point, the , traditional linkage forms of consulting, fellowships, and research contracts often
involve simple reciprocal exchanges between a single professor or academic de- | partment and a single company, with dollars flowing from industry and information or people flowing from the university. Traditional linkage types also are likely to be governed by long-standing institutional policies and procedures which provide guidelines for conduct of the relationship (such as a faculty consulting policy). Newer models of linkage, on the other hand, generally are more complex, involve a larger number of organizational actors, and are more likely to require commitments and/or funding at the institutional level. Innovative linkage mechanisms such as partnership contracts, direct investment, and consulting practice plans, for example, may require new policy decisions by university officials and industry executives, as well as legal agreements specifying rights and duties of the cooperating parties. University environments which are not openly receptive to industrial connections may tolerate only the more traditional linkage forms, while newer and more complex types may flourish best in supportive environ-
ments where special resources and policy flexibility are available to faculty at the : departmental level. Academics also should note that traditional and innovative — | linkage forms require different time horizons for planning and implementation. _ Traditional models may be initiated more quickly, while newer forms can require many months or even years of planning and carry a greater risk of failure in im- | plementation.
Joint Venture with the Business School To overcome the problem presented by a lack of contacts in industry, departments also may wish to consider joint ventures with the business school (see Sherry 1986a). Business school faculty (many of whom hold graduate degrees in social science fields) often have excellent industrial connections. Not only do business schools offer applied social science courses to industrial managers, but business faculty frequently consult for industry or conduct sponsored research at
The Academic-Industrial Connection | 151 industrial sites. In addition, business schools place many of their graduates in industry—not as social scientists, but as managers—and these graduates can become influential contacts for the school. Faculty in the business school may be eager to add anthropological expertise to the research and teaching packages that
they offer to the business community. Anthropologists can develop special courses for the business school, team teach graduate seminars with business faculty, or join business faculty consulting groups working on international or organizational cultures projects. Such ventures with the business school present good opportunities to ‘‘learn the ropes’’ of business relations and to meet business and industrial ‘‘natives’’ who might not be accessible otherwise. Business faculty also may be among the mentors or advisors that support a department’s overall linkage effort. For example, a member of the Business School faculty at WSU (John Maurer, a former student of W. Lloyd Warner) advised and encouraged the WSU department’s initial efforts to establish a business anthropology survey "course for business majors. Offering a successful business anthropology course established the department’s credibility in the business school, and led to meetings with other members of the business school faculty (a process which has resulted in submission of two joint business-anthropology grant proposals, one of
which has been funded).'° .
Place Graduates in Industry Perhaps the most direct means of establishing strong industrial relations and surmounting linkage barriers is to place social science graduates in business firms. This method ensures link points in industry—alumni with social and professional ties to the academic department in which they earned their degrees. Many significant linkage programs around the country have grown out of social relations established during graduate school. Ties between professor and former student, or between students in the same graduate program, often provide a solid groundwork of personal trust and friendship upon which more formal interorganizational relations can be built in future years. The placement of graduates in industry may
be facilitated by adding applied degree programs or courses at the graduate level. Applied programs can include industrial internships or field practica (e.g., NAU, following South Florida and Maryland) that increase a student’s chances of obtaining full-time private sector employment after graduation. The design of such _ curricular components also provides a good opportunity to call upon industry for advice. Indeed, as noted previously, a key industrial motive for linkage is manpower access, and progressive corporations may be very interested in supporting the development of degree programs that prepare anthropologists for careers in marketing or international business. Finally, or perhaps first, academic colleagues should consider the university’s primary social mission (that is, education) as a foundation for all other modes of
- industrial connection. Among American institutions, only universities are charged with the task of offering curricula and conferring degrees in a spectrum of disciplines and professional fields—the other two parts of the university’s tripartite mission (research and service) are shared with various and different kinds of organizations. If we believe that the social disciplines hold knowledge that can inform our understanding of contemporary human phenomena, then it is imperative that we infuse our primary products—namely our degree program—with the
152 Marietta L. Baba tools that will permit such knowledge to be used for the good of industrial society (see Sherry 1986a). In our classrooms are the future leaders and managers of industry, of labor organizations, and of public agencies that will oversee and reg’ ulate industrial action. Considering the urgent need for better tools to manage and to lead, we should recast our curricula in a manner that equips these future social actors with the concepts and methods they will need to understand and intelligently shape the course of industrial organizations. The industrial relevance of university curricula (however relevance may be defined) is still the most essential
duction. :
and potent bond between centers of higher learning and those of industrial pro- ,
Notes Acknowledgments The author would like to express her thanks to colleagues Kenneth David, Rich- . ard Stoffle, Robert Trotter, Bonnie McCay, Shirley Fiske and Elizabeth Briody for their contributions. of time that made possible the case examples presented in this chapter. Thanks also are due to Ann . Sheldon for her insightful comments and suggestions regarding the body of the text, and to Delores Tennille for her assistance in the document preparation process. Parts of this chapter were presented
originally as a lecture at the Northern Arizona University department of anthropology in April 1986, _ and at the General Motors Technical Center in June 1986. Work reported herein was supported by a National Science Foundation Grant No. ISI-8313945.
'Schon (1967) defines technology as ‘‘any tool or technique, any physical equipment or method of . ; doing or making, by which human capability is extended’’ (quoted in Tornatzky et al. 1982:1). "Inactivity at the university-industry interface during the postwar era is reflected in the virtual absence of new linkage mechanisms appearing between 1950 and 1967 (see Table 1). In fact, the one new linkage mechanism created during this period was initiated by a federal agency (the Small Business Administration stimulated development of university-based small business management courses
in 1953/54; Willing 1982). |
>A prolonged slowdown in the growth of federal funding for university R&D after 1965, together with severe inflation during the 1970s, generated mounting competition for shrinking federal research dollars. The share of federal expenditures for R&D at American universities declined gradually from
73.5 percent in 1966, to 68.8 percent in 1973, and again to 64 percent in 1983 (National Science Foundation, 1985a). In anthropology, NSF funding (comprising 95 percent of federal support for university-based research) was $3.98 M in 1966, but only $4.16M ten years later—an average increase ) of about 0.5 percent per year in that decade (Greene 1985:12). Further, government regulations related to scientific and financial accountability and the use of human subjects increased both the complexity of the federal grant-getting process and the attractiveness of alternative funding sources (Praeger and Omenn 1980).
“The recessionary climate and changing demographic patterns in the 1970s brought a halt to academic expansion and caused large numbers of would-be professors in all fields to seek nonacademic _ employment. Reflecting this employment trend, the number of non-clinical Ph.D. behavioral scien- - tists employed in corporations doubled between 1972 and 1981 (Albers, 1985). In anthropology, total academic employment for the 1983-84 Ph.D. cohort fell to 50 percent, compared with 86 percent for
the 1971-72 cohort (American Anthropological Association 1984).
*Seeking preferential access to qualified graduates, and new ‘‘windows’’ on science and technology where in-house resources were limited, corporations increased the flow of dollars to universities
during the 1970s, building whole new areas of academic strength in some cases (Praeger and Omenn 1980). Annual industrial expenditures to universities increased every year between 1970 and 1982, doubling during that period (National Science Board 1983). °Technological innovation, as described on the first page of this chapter, produces both new products, as well as new processes that are used in the organization of production (Tornatzky et al. 1982). ’The term social scientist excludes clinical psychologists. In 1983, social scientists had the lowest employment rate (70 percent) and highest unemployment rate (5.0 percent) of any scientific or engineering field (National Science Foundation 1985b:18-19). ’Richard Stoffle is now associate research scientist at the Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan. John van Willigen is associate professor of anthropology at the University of Kentucky.
The Academic-Industrial Connection 153 '° According to Stoffle, the Kikkoman project represents a reciprocal development model (personal communication) of university-industry interaction, where all parties benefit as a result of information exchange. ''The. National Sea Grant Program is part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
in the U.S. Department of Commerce. _ '?At the time of the 1984 AAA Meetings, I was involved as co-director and researcher in an NSFsponsored study of university-industry linkages in Michigan. My work on this project taught me how valuable industrial contacts could be, and the actions I describe in these paragraphs were fully informed by the literature on university-industry relationships.
Baba 1986). .
'5In a telephone survey of 21 anthropologists employed in the private sector, only 10 had university connections but virtually all expressed an interest in establishing or expanding such relationships (see '*Traditional linkage mechanisms are defined as types of university-industry relations that are widespread in American universities, represent fairly routine activity in the university environment, and are governed by existing university policy and procedure (see Baba 1985). 'SA number of American colleges and universities now offer business-oriented anthropology courses. A recent mail survey of academic anthropologists conducted by John Sherry (1986b) at ~ Northwestern University shows that about one-half (51 percent) of 37 respondents address the relationship of business and anthropology through a separate course offering.
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