S E C T I O N N E W S April 2003 Anthropology News

mon Islands, Western Pacific. Any donations pre- viously sent to Sister Lilian Takua Maeva will also reach the new head of the operation.

I f you have anything relating to CSAS that you would like published in this column, please contact me at rsgraffraahrn.com or U Chicago, Anthropology De- partment, l l 26 E 59th Street, Chicago IL 60637; (h) 818/993-7441.

Council on Anthropology and Education KEVIN MICHAEL FOSTER, CONrRIBUTlNG EDITOR History books tell us that the economy rises and falls in cycles. Others posit the ways in which a US President can wreck a previously flourishing economy. Either way, campus fiscal officers tell us that as universities feel the impact of a faltering economy, faculty lines go unfilled and job offers dwindle. Universities across the nation are in just such a state, causing anxiety in the lives of our most recent graduates. Compoundmg the uncer- tainty of a tight labor market is the certainty of loan repayment schedules that stretch for decades. Several of the newly employed are painfully aware that their student loan and home mortgage payments are roughly equivalent. And what of those who have yet to hit the job market or to land that perfect job? This month, doctoral student Holly Maluk Plastaras (Emory U) reflects upon these concerns as she reviews a recent CAE panel on-life after graduate school.

Life After Graduate School

By Holly Maluk Plastaras In the midst of writing my dissertation, I have been reading Jay MacLeod’s (1987/1995) ethnog- raphy Ain’t No Makin’ It: Aspirations and Attain- ment in a Low-Income Neighborhood. Using a social reproduction theory framework, MacLeod argues that most low-income teens have little incentive to work hard in school. From observing the lives of their parents, older siblings, and peers, the “Hallway Hangers” recognize that a high school diploma alone is unlikely to significantly im- prove their job opportunities, future earning potential or job security. MacLeod argues that low-income teens who do not believe in the promise of meritocracy seek the shortest and quickest route into the workforce out of real and perceived economic necessity.

Reading MacLeod‘s book, I thought about my own concerns as a graduate student. Given the financial burden of making it through graduate school, I often wonder what the job market in anthropology will offer. Since holding a PhD doesn’t guarantee a well-paid job, what can we do to increase the likelihood that the rewards (both personal and financial) will be worth the time and emotional energy invested in graduate school? Some of my questions were answered at the 2002 AAA Annual Meeting in New Orleans, during a CAE session called “Life After Graduate School.”

CAE at the AAA Annual Meeting: New Minority Scholar Travel Stipend Award winner Tamara Gathright discusses her poster, “Saving Grace or Saving Face? Teacher Ideology and the Over- Referral of African-American Students to Special Education,“ with Aurolyn Luykx at the Invited Poster Session, “Research by New Scholars in the Anthropology of Education.” Photo by Lisa RoSen

The junior faculty panelists were Lisa Rosen (Center for School Improvement, U of Chicago), Ted Hamman (Education Alliance, Brown U), Bryan Brayboy (U of Utah) and Tim Mahoney (CSU Stanislaus). These scholars offered pointers for those who are about to enter the job market.

Negotiate your salary. The word on the street is that women typically do not negotiate their salaries as well as men. If this is true, it means our salaries will continue to be at least a tier below that of our male counterparts even as our salaries increase. To both women and men, remember that you will not get paid what you “deserve.” Instead, you will get paid what you negotiate.

When negotiating a job contract, ask for everything in writing. When the responsibilities of your current position change, get it in writing.

If your dream job involves a joint appoint- ment in two different academic departments, be careful what you wish for! You’ll be asked to serve on committees in all departments with which you are affiliated, but your primary department may forget these other obligations, services and classes taught when you come up for tenure unless you remind them (Remind them!).

Listening to the panelists discuss their job mar- ket experiences, it was also clear that maintaining a balance between work and other priorities in our lives remains an important concern beyond graduate school. Unfortunately, our mentors may not always be the best role models for achieving this balance. A panelist recalled observing his professors when he was still a graduate student, noting with humor, ‘They would be walking down the hall, and you could see them thinking, ‘Why am I wasting my time walking down this hall?!” I can identify with this feeling, because there is something about the expectations and obligations of graduate school that make mun- dane tasks such as grocery shopping seem like a waste of precious time. Some of the scholars on the panel spoke of deliberately seeking working

environments that did not foster this kind of pressure.

After the panel, there was one ques- 1 tion I wished I had asked: Will a faculty salary be enough to pay back our student loans before retirement?

Send news items, nnriouncements or other column contributions to Krviri Foster, Southem Illinois U- Carbondale {kmfostK@siu.edu). Join the CAE listserv by sending an email request to Jan Nespor (nespor@vt.edu).

Council for Museum Anthropology REBECCA J DOBKINS, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Resolving the Curation Crisis: Needs and Opportunities One of the outcomes of the CMA’s Invited Ses- sion at the 2002 AAA Annual Meeting (“100 Years of Museum Anthropology: Adaptation and Survival in the 20th Century”) was the formation of an ad-hoc group to address what many term the “curation crisis” in American archaeology and museum anthropology. One of the first steps this group is taking is to host a forum at the April 2003 Society for American Archaeology meetings.

The curation of archaeological materials is widely perceived as being in a crisis mode in the US for several reasons. Existing storage facilities in many states have reached maximum capacity, even though there is an ongoing-and increas- hg-need for new storage to preserve newly excavated materials. Various professional archae- ological and related organizations have been dis- cussing and studying the problems over recent years. The forum at the SAA promises to bring together representatives of these organizations, and all interested members of SAA, to pool infor- mation and discuss alternative solutions. A goal of the forum is to formulate a statement of needs and opportunities that can be presented to Con- gress, federal and state agencies, Native American tribes, foundations, museums and existing cura- tion facilities and other interested groups that can help provide funding and organizational leadership to resolve the crisis.

The Forum is sponsored by the SAA Curation Committee, the Council for Museum Anthropol- ogy, the Archeology Division of the American Anthropological Association, and the Society for Historical Archaeology. The forum’s co-organizers and co-chairs are S Terry Childs, CMA President Man Lyn Salvador and Don D Fowler. Please con- tact me or Mari Lyn Salvador (mlsalK3unm.edu) with your suggestions and questions for action on this issue. Future columns will report on progress on this issue.

I welcome your contributions! Please contact me: Rebecca Dobkins, rdobkins@willamette.edu, Willa- mette U, Department of Anthropology, 900 State St, Salem, OR 97301; tel503/37@6639; fax 503/370- 6720. Visit the CMA website at: www.nrnnh.si.edu/ cma.

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