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Chair's Message

Welcome! 

I am delighted to share some of the many recent things that have been happening with students, faculty, and alumni in our department. To learn what anthropology is and to get a sense of who we are as a department, pleas see our Mission and Goals statement or the About Anthropology page. In addition to the material in our most recent newsletter, there are several other exciting developments to report:

--In the 2021/22 school year we were very proud to award eight students with the PhD, four students the Masters degrees, and twenty six students with BA degrees (see our 2022 awards ceremony program).

--After a three-year hiatus, the archaeology field school started up again this summer. Taught by Dr. Elena Sesma with the help of TA James Keppeler, eight students spent six weeks investigating the history of the Bingham Davies house on Maxwell Street.

--Springtime saw UK anthropology PhD (2021) Takami Delisle lead an energetic faculty workshop on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.

--Fall of 2022 will feature the first is the Bluegrass Annual Discussions on Anthropology and Social Sciences, on October 29th. This is a student-run conference that has received guidance from our new Adjunct faculty member Geoffrey McCafferty, who contributed to the thriving Chacmool archaeology conference that ran for 50 years at the University of Calgary.

--Fall of 2022 also features a new series of talks: the Anthropology Brown Bag. Combined with departmental colloquia, there will be research presentations on a weekly basis, every Friday at noon.

--We welcome two new post-docs to the department this fall: Evan Taylor, a recent PhD from UMass-Amherst who will be teaching classes and assisting with NAGPRA compliance, and Amber Plemons, a recent PhD from Michigan State University who will be collaborating on research with anthropology professor Hugo Reyes-Centeno and Dr. James K. Hartfield (College of Dentistry).

Thanks for tuning in, and please stop by to say hello (I am in room 204a of Lafferty Hall) if you are find yourself on the UK campus.

Scott Hutson, Chair, August 2022