Dear friends and donors,
Greetings from U‑M Anthropology! I am pleased to share some of the highlights that marked this past year and ask for your continued support of our efforts.
Our stellar faculty and staff continue to offer the best four field anthropological training available anywhere in the world at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and serve as a resource for our communities on campus, in the state of Michigan, and beyond. In September 2023, we launched our first Michigan Anthropology Four-Field Symposium. Addressing the topic of Kinship: Humans and Beyond, it featured scholars from each of the subfields and covered fascinating topics related to human relations, animal relations, and human-animal relations. It attracted a capacity audience in the Michigan Union Rogel Ballroom plus more via live stream. Our second Four-Field Symposium will take place in October 2024 on the topic of Sustainable Life: Culture, Values and Practice.
Our relaunched undergraduate major is already yielding an increase in the number of students declaring anthropology as their major. Especially popular are our new submajors in archaeology; culture & media; environment & conservation; medical anthropology; politics, law, and economy; and power, identity, and inequality. We continue to work hard to offer supportive mentoring for all our students (undergraduate and graduate), attract more diverse student cohorts, and foster a climate that values, includes and enables everyone to thrive academically and personally.
Making a gift today will have an important impact. Our two student-led initiatives, AUGMENT (Anthropology Undergraduate-Graduate Mentoring), which pairs anthropology graduate students with underrepresented undergraduate students, and MISAA (Michigan International Student Anthropology Association), which supports our international students, are entering their 5th year and accomplishing amazing things. They need more resources, however, to extend their reach. Your support also advances the engaged, public-facing work pursued by our faculty and students and improves our ability to recruit and retain students and faculty from underrepresented groups. A gift from you, small or large, will help us fund new initiatives and replenish old ones.
Let me end once again by saying that I hope this message finds you and your loved ones safe. I also hope there will be occasions over the coming years to meet you, hear about your experiences with our department, and discover how you are applying your anthropological training. Please email me with your suggestions and news at: [email protected], and Go Blue!
All best wishes,
Kelly M. Askew, Chair
Niara Sudarkasa Collegiate Professor of Anthropology and Afroamerican & African Studies
