(Last month, I was asked to write a letter to a fifth grade student that is interested in archaeology. The student is African American and has not been doing well in school. The Society for Black Archaeologists asked all of its members to write a letter of encouragement that, hopefully, […]
Feast or Famine is a frequently acknowledged part of being a CRM archaeologist. Because many of our companies are so poorly managed, they live and die by close-ended, temporary cultural resources contracts. The company goes into the toilet if the management is unable to land contracts. When the project flow […]
This morning, I read just about the most frightening story a young PhD student/aspiring academician could read. In case you didn’t know, Stefan Grimm, a toxicology professor at Imperial College London, ended his life in September, 2014 at the age of 51. What drove this prodigious professor to kill himself? […]
Depending on your sources, between 49 and 66% of all college professors are adjuncts. Full-time, untenured faculty composes 19 percent of professors, which means, at most, only a third of professors are on the tenure track. As a PhD student, I’ve been steadily encouraged to keep up hope about becoming […]
[NOTE: This post is not about my friend Chris Webster. He is alive and well] Chris, my good friend of 20 years, died today. He was 36 years old and leaves behind a wife and two kids in preschool. Dying that young shouldn’t have happened. Leaving behind a wonderful wife […]
Recently, I published a blog post that tackled the issue of what I called the poverty mentality in archaeology. Most of the people that read that piece had no problem with it. Some of the readers, however, did not agree with my perspective and were not impressed by my message. […]
This week, the blogosphere has been abuzz with talk of this new form of fashionisto the lumbersexual or metrojack. First highlighted in a recent GearJunkie article, the lumbersexual has been defined as an urbane male that wears the traditional costume of a lumberjack. Characteristics include flannel shirts, expensive work boots, […]
How many times have you heard this? “I’d love to go to Hawaii for a vacation but that’s the kind of thing only rich people do.” “Archaeology is cool but I should have gone to law or med school instead of grad school for anthropology.” “Rich people are scum. I […]
This weekend, the unthinkable happened. I got a 60% on an assignment in one of my historic preservation graduate seminars. I haven’t done this poorly on an assignment since 9th grade geometry. How the hell did this happen?
This last weekend, my family and I volunteered at another public archaeology event spearheaded by a prominent Arizona historical society. It was the final field session of the project I discussed in my post that discussed how to involve minorities in archaeology by introducing them to the science at an […]
