USC DEPARTMENT OF ANTHROPOLOGY

ANTHROPOLOGY MAJOR/MINOR E-NEWSLETTER

2002 (6) Sept. 17, 2002

Department News . . . . . 1

Campus Events . . . . . 1-2

Meetings and Opportunities . . . . . 2-3

ASA News . . . . . 3-4

Help . . . . . 4

Career Corner . . . . . 4-6

A Day in the Life Of . . . . . 6-7

Anthropology Student Association (ASA)

Welcome to new and returning students & Anthropology study abroad opportunities

Sept. 17, Tuesday, 3:30 pm in Hamilton 318

Interested non-members or non-anthro majors/minors are welcome, too.

Dr. Chris Toumey will talk on "Cultures of Interpretation: Issues and Visions in the Anthropology of Science".

Sept. 24, Tuesday, 12:30 pmn in Preston Seminar Room, Preston Residential College.

Meet the anthropology professors and find out what they do!

Sept. 26, Thursday, 3:30 pm in Hamilton 318

Monday Night Labs

DO ARCHAEOLOGY. Open Monday Night Labs in 110 Hamilton from 4:00-7:00 pm on Sept. 16, 23, and 30. Walk-ins welcome, no need to phone ahead. Come whenever, stay as long as you like. No experience necessary. Wash artifacts from the 2002 field school at the Mulberry site in Camden, SC.

September 25-28, 2002, "Listening to Orphan Films: Sound / Music / Voice."
An international collective of scholars, archivists and artists will be at USC for our third sesquiannual 'orphan film' symposium. http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium/program.html
Dan Streible invites your assistance in preparing and putting on this symposium. Please let him know if you are interested. There are tasks small and large: shepherding guest speakers, airport pickups, prepping meeting spaces, reserving equipment, monitoring
tables, mailing, posting promotional materials, making signs, contacting partners, photocopying, preparing media and web materials, assembling registration kits, stroking bureaucracies, etc. The more hands on deck before and during the symposium the better. (Students can sign up for a 3-credit course to work with the symposium; open to grad and undergrad; honors and non-honors. SCCC466g, MWF @ 1:25pm.)
Dan Streible, Assoc. Professor of Film Studies, Dept. of Art, 1615 Senate Street
(803) 777-9158; fax 777-0535 http://www.sc.edu/filmsymposium

The following events are co-sponsored by the Latin American Studies Program and the Office of Multicultural Student Affairs. For more information about Hispanic Heritage Month at USC, see http://www.sa.sc.edu/omsa/.

September 27 David Lamb, "From Be-Bop to Hip-Hop: How Music Reflects Historical Connections between Latinos and African Americans". 7:00 p.m. Golden Spur, Russell House

David Lamb is the author of "DO PLATANOS GO WIT' COLLARD GREENS?" and has spent many years studying and teaching about relations between African-Americans and Latinos. He was hired by the New York City Alternative High School division to put together a curriculum designed to foster better relations between the groups. At John Jay College, David Lamb teaches a course entitled "Society & Hip Hop Culture," part of which focuses on how Hip Hop music reflects Black and Latino relations.

October 1 "Mexico Today"

Panel Discussion with Community Leaders from Mexico. 3:30 p.m. Gambrell Rm. 153

(reception to follow)

October 4-8 Latin American Film Festival, Nickelodeon Theatre

For details see: http://www.nickelodeon.org/

2002 Sigma Xi Forum, Annual Meeting and Student Research Conference
Moody Gardens Hotel, Galveston Island, Texas
www.sigmaxi.org

**The Sigma Xi Forum offers an opportunity to interact with policy-makers and international leaders in science workforce issues. Contributed presentations are still being accepted.
**The Student Research Conference is filling fast; encourage students to sign up soon. Undergraduates present research and attend workshops to explore career, communication and leadership issues. Cash prizes awarded.

2002 Forum: Changing the Face of Science and Engineering
Thursday and Friday, November 14-15, 2002
The forum will bring together workforce scholars and scientists to evaluate factors that are turning promising young students away from careers in research and to consider what can be done to attract and retain a diverse group of practitioners to science and engineering. Speakers will include Nobel laureate Mario Molina, National Science Board Chair Eamon Kelly, National Science Foundation Director Rita Colwell, National Intitute of Environmental Health Sciences Director Ken Olden and Quality Education for Minorities Network President, Shirley McBay. For more information http://www.sigmaxi.org/meetings/forum/upcoming.shtml

Student Research Conference
Saturday, November 16, 9 am - 7 pm (during the Sigma Xi Annual Meeting)
Excellent opportunity for undergraduate and high school students to present research at a national meeting. Conference is free for students and will include workshops, judged presentations with cash prizes, graduate school recruiters, an opportunity to meet Benoit Mandelbrot, known to many as "the father of fractal geometry," and a reception at the Rainforest Pyramid. Great opportunity for Graduate School recruiting and exhibiting. Reserve your booth today! More information is available at: http://www.sigmaxi.org/meetings/student/index.shtml

Forum Call for Poster Presentations Deadline extended to October 15, 2002. Contributed poster presentations or displays will be accepted through October 15, 2002. Presentations will be reviewed by the forum organizing committee for relevance to the forum topic. Authors whose submissions are accepted for presentation at the forum will be notified immediately. http://www.sigmaxi.org/meetings/forum/up.call.shtml

Moody Gardens Hotel & Attractions (http://www.moodygardens.com/attractions.html) features a 10 story Rainforest Pyramid offering an incredible tropical environment, with the largest bat exhibit in the southwest. See spectacular images on a six-story IMAX screen. Need a vacation? Bring the whole family to Galveston Island (http://www.galveston.com/). The Moody Gardens Hotel has agreed to honor the Sigma Xi group room rate 3 days before and 3 days after the Forum and Annual Meeting. Combine business and pleasure; extend your stay. Take a short 30-minute trip to Space Center Houston (http://www.spacecenter.org/centerinfo.html), plan an off-shore fishing expedition (http://www.galveston.com/islandfishing/), go bird watching (http://www.galveston.com/beachparks/bigreef.shtml), or just relax on the beach.

The Supreme Court Fellow Commission is accepting applications for the 2003-2004 Supreme Court Fellows Program. The Program seeks outstanding individuals from a variety of disciplinary backgrounds who are interested in the administration of justice and making a contribution to the judiciary.

Candidates may obtain information about the fellowship program from:

http://www.fellows.supremecourtus.gov or by writing to the Supreme Court Fellows Program, Supreme Court of the United States, Room 5, Washington, D.C. 20543.

First meeting Tuesday, Sept. 17 at 3:30 pm in Hamilton 318.

Check out the ASA bulletin board in the hallway to the right of the Anthropology office.

ASA officers for 2002-2003:

President: Mitch Lynch

Vice President: Amie Spade

Treasurer: Rose Puntillo

Secretary: Lara Bratcher

Faculty Advisor: Dr. Ken Kelly

For more information: anthro@gwm.sc.edu

Event announcement: Dinner and Movie "Amelie"

Sept. 27, Friday, 7:00 pm in Hamilton 318

Enjoy good ethnic foods, a French film, and other anthro students. Everyone who will be attending is asked to sign up to bring something ethnic/fun on the ASA bulletin board in the hall outside the Anthro office. For more info or ideas: anthro@gwm.sc.edu

Dr. Joanna Casey writes: A colleague of mine in the Geology department is sending out a shipment of books to Ghana and has invited me to send books to the Department of Archaeology at the University of Ghana. If any of you have books that you would like to contribute, they will all be gratefully received. The university needs books for research and especially for teaching. Students share the few copies of very much out of date textbooks that are in the library.

Although it is a department of archaeology, there is a strong emphasis on ethnoarchaeology and history. Therefore any books on any aspect of Anthropology will be particularly appropriate, but I am sure that they would appreciate virtually anything. Copies of introductory texts - even those that are an edition or two out of date would also be appreciated for introductory classes.

Evidently there is no limit on the amount that we can send. The shipment is expected to go out in October.

Let Dr. Casey know if you have anything you would like to donate.

caseyj@gwm.sc.edu Phone (803) 777 6700; Fax (803) 777 0259

Submitted by: Vicki M. Hamby, H. William Close (BA) Bldg. - 6th Floor

Phone (803) 777-3966; Fax (803) 777-7556; e-mail: vmhamby@gwm.sc.edu

web site: http://www.sc.edu/career/lacdp

Looking for a part-time, full-time, internship or co-op employment opportunity? See http://www.sc.edu/career and click on "Career Fair Blitz" for a list of participating employers and their position openings. Over 100 companies will be attending and are interested in speaking to students from all majors and class years! Students should dress professionally and bring multiple copies of their resumes. Resume critiques are encouraged and are available at the Career Center between 10am-4pm, M-F.

Need a job? Wondering what happened to CareerConnections and/or the Web Job Listings? CareerConnections and the Web Job Listings have merged into USC CareerLink. Use USC CareerLink to search for all types of positions (part-time, full-time, internships, co-ops, graduate assistantships - even on-campus recruiting positions). Create custom job searches, save search results to folders, post your resume in online resume books and more! For more information, see http://www.sc.edu/career and click on the USC CareerLink icon.

Looking for a full-time job? A national survey indicates that employers conduct more than 1/2 of their interviews for spring graduates during the fall semester! Each year the Career Center hosts approximately 200 employers who visit USC to conduct on-site interviews with USC seniors and graduate students. If you're interested in interviewing on campus for full-time job opportunities, don't miss out on important recruiting deadlines! Drop by the Career Center for more information soon!

Below are listed some of our newest resources for liberal arts students. Stop by the Career Center Library anytime between 8:30am-5pm, M-F and take a peek!

This book includes directories of book publishers and editors and of literary agents as well as advice to authors on various approaches to getting their work published.

This directory contains "information on the public affairs industry" including " current, accurate data on the key players in corporate communications, public relations, government affairs, philanthropy, policy making, political action, and environmental and regulatory affairs."

This directory is organized in alphabetical order by state and federal agency covering more than 75 program areas including Assistance/Services/Welfare to Work, Corrections, Education, Children's Health, Public Health, Housing, and Services to Families/Children/Adults to name just a few.

This book was written by husband and wife law professors for their son, a first-year law student.

(A Holland File is a folder with detailed information on a specific job title)

#5 TOP EMPLOYERS OF LIBERAL ARTS GRADS

The following information comes from the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE) 2002 email newsletter (Spotlight Online). Below are the top 10 employers of liberal arts graduates from 2000 through 2002, and the average starting salary these employers offer.

* Top Employers of 2001 - 2002 Liberal Arts Grads

+ Educational Services: $29,051

+ Government (State/Local): $29,554

+ Legal Services: $31,667

+ Government (Federal): $31,014

+ Retail/Wholesale Trade: $26,715

+ Healthcare Services (Nonprofit): $23,570

+ Social Assistance: $24,830

+ Insurance: $32,656

+ Publishing: $28,469

+ Healthcare Services (For Profit): $29,064

(Source: Summer 2002 Salary Survey)

* Top Employers of 2000 - 2001 Liberal Arts Grads

+ Educational Services: $28,571

+ Retail/Wholesale Trade: $31,583

+ Government (State/Local): $28,608

+ Social Assistance: $24,344

+ Government (Federal): $31,237

+ Consulting Services: $42,227

+ Financial Services: 35,522

+ Legal Services: $32,080

+ Healthcare Services (Nonprofit): $27,088

+ Arts, Entertainment, Recreation: $29,493

(Source: Fall 2001 Salary Survey)

by Frank Talbot, Anthropology major graduated 2001

One of my all time favorite quotes is "the coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Francisco" by Mark Twain. Now I can say that the coldest winter I’ve ever spent was the past one when I lived in Tomsk, Russia. Tomsk is medium size city with a population of about 500,000. It is located smack in the middle of Siberia 200km north of Novosibirsk. I first arrived in Tomsk last September after graduating from USC. I don’t really know why I decided to move to Tomsk or Russia for that matter. In fact, I had never studied the Russian language and had only taken two classes on Russian culture. Nevertheless on September 10^th I found myself sitting on an Aeroflot plane leaving Washington, D.C. bound for the unknown.

On May 20^th, 2002, I returned to my home in Charleston with countless stories of my adventures in this unknown corner of the world that I had the privilege of calling home. Some of the highlights were mountain climbing and horseback riding in Altai, on the border with Mongolia, a 24-hour odyssey on part of the trans-Siberian railroad, and of course several vodka sessions that I choose not to discuss at this time. However, I have been asked to write about a typical day in my life while in Tomsk, thus, I have decided to write about the coldest day of my life (this day continued to change as the winter progressed).

It was the beginning of December and I woke up at the usual 8am (two hours before sunrise) and turned on the television to see the weather report and find out the current temperature. I was shocked to see in the top left corner of my TV the number

–40C. My shock turned to fear when I calculated that (oddly) –40C equaled –40F.

Thanking God that I didn’t have to go work on this particular day, I was perfectly content to spend the day at home with a warm cup of coffee. I went to my kitchen to make a nice big cup when I discovered that I was out of coffee and began to prepare for a quick dash to the store next to my apartment. On my way out of the building, I ran into my neighbor, a 71-year-old woman named Anya, who was cleaning the stairwell. Naturally, she asked me her usual twenty questions. How are you doing? Where are you going? How are your Russian lessons coming? Etc…When I told her that I was just running to the store, she asked me to pick up a packet of tea and kielbasa for her and bring it to her apartment. This meant a trip to the open-air market instead of the local store. This may sound strange for some people in our culture, but in Russia when a babushka (grandmother) tells you to do something you do it. No questions asked. I agreed, but before I could escape she made one of her frequent comments about my winter coat. It was impossible for her to comprehend, despite my several attempts to explain, that a coat could be warm even if it wasn’t lined with some sort of fur.

After I bought the goods from the market, enduring a painful finger freezing experience when I had to take my gloves off to pay the merchant, I returned to Anya’s apartment. When she opened the door I was immediately pulled into her apartment because in Russia it is commonly believed that speaking over a threshold will cause strife between those speaking. She insisted that I get undressed (this is a direct translation that really means take off your coat, but I still grin a little when I hear it) and have a cup of tea with her. Knowing that a cup of tea could easily turn into four hours of talking, I agreed but insisted that I could only stay for one cup and then I must leave. She grinned and said "Of course." Needless to say, I left her apartment around 1pm after several cups of tea and bread with jam. She showed me several pictures of her family some from the old days. We talked about several everyday things and she found it amusing when I complained about how cold it was.

Looking back now on my time in Tomsk, I can say that some of my most enjoyable memories involve tea and my neighbor, Anya. It wasn’t until a few weeks before I left Tomsk that I learned that Anya’s youngest grandson had left for the army (it’s mandatory in Russia) only two weeks before I arrived and that Anya felt obligated to play the role of a surrogate grandmother to me because as Anya would say "Every boy needs his granny to take care of him." Now I am preparing for my next adventure, which will take me to Ukraine as a peace corps volunteer. I only hope that I can find a babushka, like my Anya, there as well.