Florida governor Rick Scott recently lashed out against anthropologists, the latest whipping boy of the social sciences. "If I'm going to take money from a citizen to put into education then I'm going to take money to create jobs," Scott said. "So I want that money to go to degree where people can get jobs in this state. Is it a vital interest of the state to have more anthropologists? I don't think so." Later, in a radio interview, Scott reaffirmed his beef with anthropologists, stating: "It's a great degree if people want to get it. But we don't need them here." Setting aside the fact that his own daughter was an anthropology major, perhaps Scott needs to be schooled on what modern-day anthropologists actually do. In many cases, our research involves not only understanding other cultures but also enhancing productivity, improving efficiency, and yes, strengthening the economy as well.
Students at the University of South Florida, which has one of the strongest applied anthropology programs in the country, created a presentation designed to show Scott what they are already doing to improve life in Florida, most of them even before finishing their degrees. In just a few of the examples shown, they are helping to increase state park revenues, to aide in crime scene reconstruction, and to create preventive health care programs that save taxpayers money by reducing the number of emergency room visits.
As a professor of anthropology at Rollins College, a liberal arts college in Florida, I spend a lot of time talking to students who need to offer their parents concrete evidence of how anthropology can help them get a job someday. Many parents still seem to hold the stereotype that the only career options for anthropologists involve traipsing around remote jungles taking peyote with the natives, or perhaps following the Grateful Dead. But to them, and to Rick Scott, I point out that our department's recent graduates have gone on to hold prestigious Fulbright fellowships, go to Columbia law school, open successful local businesses, and attend graduate programs in business, public health, human resources and, of course, anthropology.
Rather than suggesting that we don't need any more anthropologists here in Florida, we could look at how some highly successful corporations have utilized anthropologists to make more money. Intel, for instance, hired anthropologist Genevieve Bell to study how people around the world use technology, helping Intel snag access to coveted but previously untapped markets. Microsoft, IBM, Hewlett-Packard, and Xerox have also hired anthropologists for similar reasons. The anthropology major teaches not only rigorous critical thinking but also how people adapt to uncertainty, skills that should be valued in our current economic situation, with a state unemployment rate of 10.7%, 1.6% higher than the nationwide average.
It seems like the larger issue, though, is not just with anthropology majors but with the liberal arts more generally. Scott, like a state senator who recently attacked political science and psychology, seems to believe that only business, science, and technology can bring jobs to the state. As America scrambles to cling to its number one position in the midst of an economic slump, we've heard the call from many quarters to dismantle liberal arts educations in favor of science and technology. This is ironic in an era in which China and India are seeking to enhance their more technical educational systems with a liberal arts perspective. And it is also short sighted. Despite China's current world economic dominance, its own leaders have complained that the Chinese educational system fails to produce innovative, creative thinkers. One third of its recent graduates are unemployed, a fact many attribute to the lack of creativity and critical thinking that a purely rote, technological education fails to foster. To remedy this, China has begun adopting a liberal arts model in its newer universities. In India, for similar reasons, industrialists are investing millions of dollars into private liberal arts educations. G.V Suresh, a former anthropology major and head of HR and India operations for SonicWALL, a global Internet security company, calls the future for anthropology majors bright, saying in a major Indian newspaper that "sometimes candidates with [an] Anthropology background are preferred over MBAs." So, if Governor Scott wants to send the anthropologists out of state, along with other liberal arts majors, India and China may have a place for them.
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The reality of those faculties is they waste public dollars producing scholarship the sole intent of which is most often to impress other aloof anthropologists. Despite their altruistic-sounding projects, anthropology students like those featured in the USF Prezi are aspiring occupants of "ethereal ivory tower positions." Anthropological "research", even when "applied", in reality most often serves only the parochial career interests of academics and those aspiring to the same.
Critics also correctly identify another reality of anthropology departments: pedagogy in anthropology courses is often tantamount to sophistical opining devoid of any real solutions.
To realign scarce resources for greater social value than anthropology departments provide would be good public policy. It would ultimately serve anthropology too. Such a shift would send an informative signal to students wondering about the real-world usefulness of different fields of study. It would save many young people from illusions that self-righteous hypocritical social criticism is itself a marketable skill. And it would encourage anthropology department faculties themselves to undertake reflection about their own roles in university education, knowledge-generation and meaningful solutions for the 21st century.
http://www.change.org/petitions/gov-rick-scott-hands-off-higher-education-in-florida
Thank you for your support.
As to the programs themselves, there isn't an anthropology degree program in the country that doesn't require students taking classes in genetics, statistics and biology. In other words, those "hard" courses engineering and chemistry students take. So the idea of a lack of academic rigor is simply absurd.
But this isn't about academic rigor or the usefulness of the education gleaned from anthropology. The problem is that anthropology asks students to examine the world and the nature of "truth" through a different lens. Anthropology is inconvenient for the Right, just as it is for the Left. Unfortunately for the likes of Gov. Scott, without these seemingly useless approaches to understanding the world, we wouldn't have a democracy or a republican form of government. We wouldn't have had the great leaps forward in thought. Which is precisely what these sorts want. They seek a population that blindly accepts the status quo and doesn't blink when told the world is only 5000 years old. It is about fostering drones and turning the university into a glorified form of trade
http://dougsarchaeology.wordpress.com/2011/10/11/70000-people-in-the-us-have-archaeology-based-degrees/
There are approximately 70,000 people in the US with Anthropology-related degrees and according to www.studentscholarships.org there are only 6,000 people employed in the field of anthropology in the US, we have an enormous disconnect between how people are educated and what they do. Further, since over 50% of the total cost of getting a student an undergrad degree at UGA is born by the taxpayers (www.gppf.org - then look for the report "Georgia’s Higher Education System: Success or Failure?") then what you major in is of great importance to the taxpayers of Georgia. All of the virtues you list as coming from a degree in anthropology could just as easily come from any of several more traditional undergraduate degrees. Further, given the clear underemployment rate of your particular degree, and the cost to the taxpayers of Georgia for getting you that degree, we question whether or not it is worth our money. I would rather you had a good solid degree in civil engineering, which would give you all the skills you mention plus give you some excellent technical skills that would be directly applicable to the state of Georgia.
Then let's consider why he has chosen anthropology as the liberal arts field to vilify. Unresolved issues with his anthropology-major daughter? Or perhaps resentment of Dr. Alan Wolfe, an influential Florida anthropologist who serves on the Florida Health and Services Board? http://fhhsb.org/
It's always interesting to get curious about the origin of of a persona's irrational anger and contempt...
Could you please offer more examples of jobs? (Beyond the state parks, efficiency positions, etc. The more specific you are, the more ammunition we have against the governor.
So ... Florida colleges should only train the kinds of people that will work in FL? Wow. How short-sighted is that? What state did that man go to college in? Is he working there now? Have the feeling the answer is no.
Hey, Rick, people educated and trained in Florida work all over the country and all over the world. All of them are needed, at some time, somewhere. They will go where the jobs are. And it is up to the individual to decide what field they want to go in to, understanding that they may have to relocate from Florida. It's the same life decision that basically everyone has to make. Yes, they should know their job hiring statistics, but it is their decision, not yours or anyone else's.