THE
FACULTY
SENATE
Senate Document Number 0707F
Date of Senate Approval 11/29/07
-
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Statement
of Faculty Senate Action:
(see next page)
IDC # 2
The
Notification
of Intent to Plan a New Baccalaureate, Master’s, or C.A.S. Program
THE
PURPOSE OF ACADEMIC PROGRAM PLANNING: Planning a new academic degree program
provides an opportunity for an institution to make the case for need and demand
and for its ability to offer a quality program.
This notification, and the planning activity to follow, do not guarantee
that authorization to establish will be granted..
Date: October
1, 2007
Constituent
Institution:
CIP Discipline Specialty Title: Anthropology
CIP Discipline Specialty Number: 45.05 Level: B
M C.A.S.
Exact Title of the Proposed Program _Anthropology_________
Exact Degree Abbreviation (e.g. B.S.,
B.A., M.A., M.S., C.A.S.): B.S.
Does the proposed program constitute a
substantive change as defined by SACS? Yes__ No_x_
a)
Is it at a more advanced level than those previously authorized? Yes__ No_x_
b)
Is the proposed program in a new discipline division? Yes____ No __x__
Approximate date for
submitting the Request to Establish proposal (must be within one year of date
of submission of notification of intent to plan): January 01, 2008
Proposed date to establish degree: month August year 2008
(Date can be no sooner than six months
after the date of notification of intent to plan and must allow at least three
months for review of the request to establish, once submitted.)
1.
Describe the proposed new degree program. The description should
include:
a) a
brief description of the program and a statement of educational objectives
Anthropology
seeks to document and understand the varieties of human experience. It does
this by attending comparatively to the local and individual, from studying the
economics of a ritual festival in a remote village in
Building
on the anthropology concentration in the sociology major (implemented in 2004),
the sociology department is proposing an anthropology major, to be housed in a
joint sociology and anthropology department. Since the hire of a tenure-track
anthropologist in 1990, the sociology department has been committed to offering
anthropology courses. With the addition of a second tenure-track anthropologist
in 2001, the sociology department
doubled our commitment to the teaching of anthropology. When the sociology
department undertook a fundamental revision of our curriculum, we formulated a
concentration in anthropology. Thus, the role of anthropology in the sociology
department evolved from unlinked courses to having a unique curriculum in
anthropology. That curriculum however is
situated in the discipline of sociology. The logic of the anthropology
concentration now (and likewise, the general sociology concentration) is to
bring both the groups of students together early in their UNC-Asheville careers
for a joint 200-level course about social and cultural inquiry that integrates
the two disciplines; have them split for the methods and senior research thesis
courses; and then, bring them together again for a final senior symposium, in
which students examine contemporary topics that are germane to both fields. In
proposing the anthropology major, we are not proposing any curricular changes.
Hence, in the new major, we propose to offer the same courses as the
anthropology concentration. We will add more electives and have anthropologists
teach the courses that are currently taught by sociology faculty, as we hope to
gradually hire more anthropologists.
We
foresee, if our new major is approved, adding three more tenure-track positions
over a period of three to ten years. First, we hope to replace Jim Pitts when
he retires at the end of the academic year 2008-09 with a cultural
anthropologist whose areas complement but do not overlap the current two cultural
anthropologists (e.g., a development anthropologist specializing in Peru or a
medical anthropologist specializing in India). We are now applying for a
place-holder position.[1]
We
are envisioning a joint department where the anthropology students could benefit
from the expertise of sociology faculty and vice versa. Anthropology is well
partnered with sociology in a single department (see the American Sociological
Association’s 2006 publication, Models
and Best Practices for Joint Sociology-Anthropology Departments).
Anthropology and sociology are sibling disciplines. Both disciplines study the
same social phenomena, but through a different lens. Anthropology’s distinct
interests in nonwestern, local, and thickly described ethnographic experiences
– the study of particular individuals in particular places – makes anthropology
a distinct discipline that attracts a distinct group of students as majors.
Making
the change from a sociology major with a concentration in anthropology to a
major in anthropology is not going to affect resources but potentially will
make a difference in the pride of anthropology majors (whose diplomas will read
“anthropology”), the ease of admission to graduate programs in anthropology for
students, the enhancement of career opportunities for students with an
international focus, and the attractiveness of UNC-Asheville to potential
faculty (both anthropologists and non-anthropologists, because anthropology is
a key discipline in the liberal arts).
The
educational objectives for the proposed anthropology major are articulated with
the ones for the sociology major. In the proposed anthropology major’s
curriculum, students will be actively engaged in learning about human beings
from all places and all times, as well as the constructed and constrained
nature of all social and cultural realities. Students will be encouraged to
develop the critical thinking and communication skills necessary to apply these
insights to productive and meaningful professional and personal lives in their
communities. The specific educational objectives of the proposed anthropology
major are stated below. The department, through the study of anthropology,
encourages students to:
·
Explore the
richness of all social life—both the familiar and the unfamiliar—through
cross-cultural and comparative study.
·
Appreciate other
ways of life and different systems of meaning, belief and knowledge.
·
Understand the
concepts of cultural relativity and ethnocentrism.
·
Understand and be
able to apply the ethnographic model.
· Appreciate the importance of language as demonstrated through clear, competent and creative written and oral communication.
· Become responsible for their own education through participation in a community of learning with faculty mentors and student peers.
b) the
relationship of the proposed new program to the institutional mission and how
the program fits into the institution’s strategic plan
The
core of UNC-Asheville’s mission – both in the way we see ourselves and the way
we are understood by the UNC system – is the liberal arts. Our mission
statement says a liberal arts education is “liberating, promoting the free and
rigorous pursuit of truth, respect for different points of view and heritage, and an understanding that values play a role
in thought and action.”[2] The university’s mission is advanced in a
number of complementing ways, both in the variety of our majors and in the
general education, or Integrative Liberal Studies, curriculum.
Students – the students who choose to come to a public
liberal-arts university – are eager to understand the meaning of human
experience, to situate themselves within the range of human activity, and to
understand themselves against the diversity of human expression. Moreover, UNC-Asheville has a growing sense
of its obligation to prepare students for a diverse world of intersecting
differences. Anthropology invites – indeed, demands – that students consider
their humanity in the face of difference. It promotes the idea of cultural
relativity, that if we are to understand others we must do so on their terms,
not ours. The addition of an anthropology major would help UNC-Asheville better
prepare its students for understanding difference—on campus and
post-graduation.
c) the
relationship of the proposed new program to other existing programs at the
institution
A renewed interest in cultural differences has
excited many aspects of UNC-Asheville’s curriculum – from biology’s concern
with understanding cross-cultural human physical differences, to history’s turn
to the so-called “people without history,” to literature courses on South
American, Asian, and African fiction and poetry, to the humanities program’s
turn to understanding humanity outside of Europe. Our new program in Health and
Wellness has an expressed interest in thinking about health in social and
culture contexts.
The discipline of anthropology has a unique
four-field emphasis with specializations in cultural, biological,
archaeological, and linguistic. Currently, our two cultural anthropologists
teach courses that are cross-listed in the Africana, International, Religious
and Women’s Studies programs. The field of biological anthropology with its
focus on human variation, nutrition, and primatology has great potential to the
Biology, and Health and Wellness programs; the field of archaeology with its
focus the study of human culture through material remains has potential to add
to the Art History, Classics, History, and Chemistry programs; and the field of
anthropological linguistics has potential to add to the Literature and
Language, and Foreign Languages programs. As well, depending on the
specialization of future cultural anthropologists that the department might
hire, links to the Environmental Studies, Economics, and Political Science
programs may be possible. The current
two cultural anthropologists teach in the Integrated Liberal Studies (freshman
and transfer colloquia, five clusters, Writing, Information Literacy, and
Diversity Intensives), Honors and MLA programs, and they have given
well-received Humanities lectures.
d) special features or conditions that make the
institution a desirable, unique, or appropriate place to initiate such a degree
program:
Anthropology’s core interest is documenting and
understanding the variety of human experience in a complex and changing world.
That interest alone makes it a fitting major at any public liberal arts
university. It is especially appropriate at UNC-Asheville at this particular
time and place.
The city of
No other discipline than anthropology makes it
the core of its business to pay attention to human diversity. UNC-Asheville has
undertaken a new emphasis on diversity: from the strategic planning process
down through the university planning council to the Diversity Intensive
requirement in our Integrative Liberal Studies curriculum, the university wants
to see more diversity in population and curricula. A stronger program in anthropology,
attractive to an emerging class of majors, can help the campus move forward in
both its liberal arts and diversity initiatives.
2. List all other public and private
institutions of higher education in
According to the American
Sociological Association’s 2006 publication, Models and Best Practices for Joint Sociology-Anthropology Departments, “Among liberal arts institutions, 25 of
the top 50 liberal arts institutions have a joint sociology/anthropology
departments, and the bulk of those are in the Northeast….”
Eight public and three
private institutions in
|
Institution |
N Graduates |
|
Appalachian |
32 |
|
|
13 |
|
|
58 |
|
|
8 |
|
|
18 |
|
|
50 |
|
|
21 |
|
|
20 |
|
University of North Carolina-Wilmington |
23 |
|
|
13 |
|
|
12 |
|
Total Awarded |
268 |
3. Estimate the number of students that would be
enrolled in the program during the first year of operation: Full-Time
21 Part-Time
2
4. If there are plans to offer the program away
from campus during the first year of
operation:
a) briefly
describe these plans, including potential sites and possible method(s) of
delivering instruction.
b) indicate
any similar programs being offered off-campus in
c) estimate
the number of students that would be enrolled in the program during the first
year of operation: Full-Time______ Part-Time______
5. List
the names, titles, e-mail addresses and telephone numbers of the person(s)
responsible for planning the proposed program.
|
Name |
Titles |
Email addresses |
Tlephone |
|
|
Chair and Associate Professor |
|
828-251-6981 |
|
Melissa Himelein |
Professor |
828-251-6834 |
|
|
|
Professor |
828-251-6908 |
|
|
|
Associate Professor |
828-251-6977 |
This intent to
plan a new program has been reviewed and approved by the appropriate campus
committees and authorities.
Chancellor
[1] Contingent on anticipated growth, we would like to add next a biological anthropologist whose specialties enhance the Health and Wellness program (e.g., a nutritional anthropologist) and then, an archaeologist (specializing in the prehistory of the Cherokee perhaps).
[2]