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Conflicts between ethics stances among the various parties to research are common in anthropological practice and NAPA’s position is that researchers should communicate the nature of such conflicts and mutually arrive at comfortable resolutions that honor the respec-tive parties.

Today we are seeking new ways to practice anthropology and to apply its theories and methods to new problems. NAPA is in a strong position to focus debate about the proposed ethics code revisions’ suitability to new contexts of practice and to reexamine assumptions about anthropology’s methods. We strongly urge all practitioners to attend the AAA Business Meeting in San Francisco to remain fully informed about and engaged with this issue. A summary of the NAPA Position Statement can be viewed at www.practicinganthropology.org/docs/news-letters/2008-07-15.pdf. This column has been prepared with contributions from members of the NAPA Governing Council. Inga E Treitler is chair of the NAPA Ethics Committee (inga.treitler@gmail.com). Mary Odell Butler is NAPA President Elect (maryobutler@comcast.net).

Send comments, questions, news and column ideas to Christine Miller (cmiller@scad.edu).

National Association of Student AnthropologistsJenny Chio, Contributing editor

so You want to Be a Professor…

By Matthew D Smith (SUNY-Buffalo)

What do graduate students need from their departments? You may think I’m being rhetor-ical and don’t expect an answer. I’m not. And, I do. What do graduate students need from their departments? If your department chair, dean, provost or president asked you this ques-tion, what would be your reply? Put down the paper, turn off the computer screen, mute the mobile phone, switch the Blackberry to silent, take the phone off the hook, move aside the latest batch of undergraduate exams, take a sip of that room temperature coffee and think about my question. Go ahead. I’ll be here when you get back.

Anthropology departments vary from one to another by size, location or subfield, but overall, PhD-issuing anthropology programs are remarkably alike. Students encounter in their first year the basics of anthropolog-ical theory, history and methodology. The following years will see the graduate student embark on their own research, climaxing in a dissertation and hopeful graduation ceremony. Let us assume the student, now with diploma in hand and prefix in title, finds a job at a college or university.

Are You Ready?Is that newly crowned academic fully prepared for their career? In a Chronicle of Higher Education

article (“Filling a Gap in the Doctoral Process” October 21, 2005), Ward identified a gap in the doctoral education of many future faculty: a heavy emphasis on preparing for roles as researchers with modest attention to develop-ment as classroom teachers and near absence of formal preparation to become a member of a faculty. In another article (“The Power of Academic Citizenship” February 3, 2006), Greenberg issued a call for including “the subject of higher education per se” in doctoral programs. One of the truly ironic weaknesses of many doctoral programs is the recurrent failure to effectively prepare the next generation of academics to be academics.

Doctoral students are learning little about the history of the academy, its current challenges as a business, or the roles and responsibilities of faculty as individuals and as a collective body. In recent years, I have served as an adjunct lecturer and faculty member at SUNY-Potsdam, and as a pre-doctoral fellow in the department of Performance and Communication Arts at St Lawrence University, while completing a PhD at SUNY-Buffalo. These opportunities granted me the opportunity to reflect on my concurrent statuses as a graduate student and as a full-time faculty member.

As a pre-doctoral fellow, I find myself in a liminal space: one part student, one part faculty. As a student, I am expected to conduct my research and write my dissertation. As a faculty member, I teach courses, attend faculty functions, present at conferences and submit my research and writing progress to the host institution annually. During these years, I discovered a hole in my graduate training. I was comfortable in my role as student, but my graduate program did not train me in current teaching theory, faculty culture or the role of university administration.

Preparing Future FacultyAlso recognizing this void are Rita Sommers-Flanagan and Donald P Christian, two University of Montana professors part of a program calling itself the Preparing Future Faculty (PFF) initia-tive (www.preparing-faculty.org). They have set out to “assist students in better understanding the responsibilities and challenges that faculty face and to encourage consideration of diverse career options” (Thought & Action 23). One topic addresses the challenges in student-faculty interaction. Being within an age decade of my students places me in a very precarious position. My age brings with it several nega-tive presumptions, including that of “inept instructor.” Remember how you treated your substitute teacher in high school? I combat this label by being approachable, professional, ener-getic, well-prepared and rehearsed.

It is my hope that the PFF initiative catches on in other universities and colleges. If such a course existed at my host program, I would be among the first to sign up. In such an initiative, current academics have a real opportunity to shape the future of their profession and provide their students with much needed insight into their

chosen career. Anthropology profes-sionals, in particular, have an enor-mous advantage in preparing future faculty because we already have disci-plinary experience in decoding, analyzing and discussing systems. Perhaps it is time we turned our gaze on academe in the interest of formal research, instruction and acquisition of profes-sorial skills.

Do you have an issue or idea for this column? All student anthropologists are welcome to contribute! Contact Jenny Chio (jenny.t.chio@gmail.com) for more information.

Society for Anthropological Sciences Stephen Lyon, Contributing editor

As the autumn approaches (please excuse the northern hemisphericentrism) we have short days and cold weather to look forward to. For those who find that a dreary prospect, I offer some good news from SAS. We have a new slate of elected representatives to pester with sugges-tions for section activities and initiatives. The section membership has expanded throughout the year. We hope that this trend continues to increase, so if you haven’t joined SAS and are about to renew your AAA membership, please consider ticking the SAS section box! Also in this column we offer a brief description of Ted Cloak’s interesting and potentially useful tool for disseminating his ideas about perceptual control theory and the evolution of culture.

sAs election Results 2008Members were asked to vote online for the slate of officers to represent the section’s inter-ests and spearhead future activities. The new board follows on the footsteps of some decid-edly hardworking and eminent people. Before welcoming them SAS would like to publicly and formally thank the outgoing board members for their unfailing commitment not only to the section, but to promoting the kind of anthropological research that attracted so many of us. John Gatewood (Lehigh U) continues as president for the coming year, but Peter Peregrine (Lawrence U) was elected pres-ident-elect and will take over beginning 2009 for a period of two years. Jon Poehlman (RTI International) continues as secretary through the end of 2009. Murray Leaf (U Texas-Dallas) will continue to act as treasurer through 2010. There are three SAS Executive Board member positions. Patricia Draper (U Nebraska-Lincoln) will continue through 2008, when she will be replaced by Deborah Winslow (who will continue through 2011). William Dressler (U Alabama) continues through 2009 and Margo-Lea Hurwicz (U Missouri-St Louis) through 2010. There are two overlap-ping student representative positions. Roslyn Negron’s (U Massachusetts-Boston) term ends at the end of 2008, when her position will

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be filled by Christina Pomianek (U Missouri-Columbia) through 2010. Kristin Klingaman (Durham U) will act as student representative through 2009.

Featured Audiovisual Resource on cultural evolutionMany will know of Ted Cloak’s (U New Mexico, retired) studies of cultural evolution and his work with Richard Dawkins. Using William Power’s Perceptual Control Theory (PCT), Cloak suggests that we may finally be at a point where it is possible to develop a concep-tually usable (and even more audaciously, unifying!) theory of the naturalistic underpin-nings of cultural anthropology. Cloak argues that in the past we lacked a theory of cultural transmission that was comparable to natural selection, but PCT provides the means for identifying the “elemental units of culture and cultural evolution.” Cloak has embraced avail-able information and communication technol-ogies and developed an audiovisual resource for disseminating these arguments, which can be downloaded from the web (www.tedcloak.com).The downloadable resource comes in a variety of formats, available as an automatic PowerPoint lecture and a movie (in multiple sizes and file types). Please note that the files are all fairly large. The presentation takes the form of a recorded lecture with visual aides and lasts about 45 minutes. Cloak is keen to stimulate discussion around his use of PCT and cultural evolution, and to refine both the arguments and the audiovisual resource, so I encourage everyone interested in such debates to download the resource and try it out.

AAA Annual MeetingIn the next issue of AN the column will be dedicated to providing some details of the section sponsored and reviewed sessions at the forthcoming AAA meeting in San Francisco. Please check the website www.aaanet.org to see the preliminary program, now available.

Please send your comments, questions and news to Stephen Lyon at s.m.lyon@durham.ac.uk.

Society for Anthropology in Community CollegesLLoyd MiLLer, Contributing editor

sAcc events at AAA MeetingsFollowing are sessions and events that SACC has accepted and scheduled for the AAA San Francisco meeting, November 19-23, 2008:

1-126 Teaching Strategies and the Culture of College Success, Nov 20, 1:45-3:30 pm, Plaza A

2-148 SACC Board Meeting, Nov 21, 2:00-4:00 pm, Union Square 8

2-166 GateWay Community College Students Engage in the Genographic Project, Nov 21, 4:00-5:45 pm, Powell B

2-188 SACC Business Meeting, Nov 21, 6:15-7:30 pm, Continental Parlor 7

4-061 Five Fields Update, Nov 23, 10:15 am-12:00 pm, Lombard

Laura’s top Four Reasons to Join sAcc

By Laura González (Miramar C) Reprinted from Teaching Anthropology: SACC Notes 14(1)

The Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges is an interest section of the AAA, the largest organization of anthropologists in the US. It has brought faculty together for nearly 30 years to encourage dialogue and collabora-tion among teachers of anthropology across subdisciplines and institutional settings, and to promote excellence in the teaching of anthropology.

As a community college adjunct instructor for eight years, I never felt the need to join an interest section. After all, the AAA is an orga-nization of highly specialized academics. What benefit could I get from an interest section? What the official publications don’t tell you is that whether you are full-time or part-time faculty, joining SACC can be the best profes-sional decision you make. It has been for me. Here are some of the reasons why.

Reason #1: networking“Networking” has always been a nebulous and somewhat suspect idea to me. What is it exactly? Are there rules? Have I broken any of them? I was relieved to find out that networking comes naturally at conferences in a friendly environ-ment. It is the easy way you chat with your seatmate on the bus traveling to an archeolog-ical site. It is learning of a job opening in your district and preparing your résumé in advance. I applied for and was offered a position that I first heard about through SACC in 2006. Now, “networking” very clearly means “How to get a full-time job.”

Reason #2: conferencesThe rumor that SACC has great conferences is true! Unlike larger meetings, where the regis-tration fee only grants access into sessions and the vendor area, these smaller meet-ings feel like summer camp. Meals are regu-larly included, as are essentials like snacks and coffee. Tours are planned to locations of anthropological interest, led by local guides. In 2006, we visited Chichén Itzá in the Yucatán. In 2007 our meeting was in Monterey, where we toured California Missions. In 2008, our annual meeting took place in Washington DC, which included a behind-the-scenes tour of the Smithsonian. Tours are included in the cost of registration.

Reason #3: Giving PapersIt is well known that community college teachers don’t experience the same pres-sure as four-year faculty to present papers. Nevertheless, excellent papers are presented at conferences with immediate application to

community college anthropology teaching. While some of the presentations discuss indi-vidual or group research, many are geared specifically toward teaching strategies and the ideal role of the college in the community. A surprising number of SACC presenters are authors of our favorite textbooks in all four fields. For those of us just starting to present papers, a SACC conference is an excellent place to begin. The setting is informal, the environment supportive and the audience encouraging.

Reason #4: Resume-Building opportunitiesMany of us teaching in community colleges are in small anthropology departments. Some of us have the distinction of being the only anthropologist at our college. SACC member-ship provides opportunities for collaboration and professional growth that may be scarce in our own college settings. Present that first (or twentieth) paper. Collaborate on a project with SACC colleagues. Get involved and take on a board position. Like me, you will be glad you did.

Send communications and contributions to Lloyd Miller at lloyd.miller@mchsi.com.

Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness

LawrenCe b MCbride, Contributing editor

spring sAc Meeting Preview

By Mark A Schroll

“Bridging Nature and Human Nature” is the theme of SAC’s 2009 Annual Meeting, to be held April 1–5 at McMenamins’ historic Edgefield Resort at the entrance to the beau-tiful Columbia River Gorge in Portland, Oregon. This theme reconnects SAC with its origins, codified in Joseph Long’s Extrasensory Ecology: Parapsychology and Anthropology (1977), a theme echoed in Montague Ullman’s article, “Dreams, Species-Connectedness, and the Paranormal” (1990). Mentioning psi and ecology in the same breath initially sounds incongruous. However in John Muir and His Legacy: The American Conservation Movement (1981), Steven Fox points out that Muir’s journals written while camping in Yosemite refer to precognitive experiences and animistic visions.

SAC’s 2009 theme also resonates throughout Ian J Prattis’ (1997) Anthropology at the Edge: Essays on Culture, Symbol, and Consciousness and his call to make “poetry” the language of ethnomethodology. This too is the new methodology and language of psi/spirit that Edith Turner calls for in her (2006) article “Advances in the Study of Spirit Experience: Drawing Together Many Threads.” Turner’s