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Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century: Promoting A National Dialogue

The Issues

Stewardship, Diverse Pasts, Social Relevance, Ethics and Values, Written and Oral Communication, and Basic Archaeological Skills—these issues were the basis for the SAA's 1998 Wakulla Springs workshop on "Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century." They are at the very core of archaeology as the evolving, dynamic discipline that it is, and must remain, in order to understand, interpret, manage, and protect the past. The profession and the people who practice it, in all its diverse applications, are and have been influenced by shifting paradigms and changing levels of understanding. The discipline has and continues to change. In addition to research, archaeology is now being called upon to provide data to manage, in the public interest, the non-renewable historic, prehistoric, and submerged resources we call our nation's heritage. This brings with it additional responsibilities which require new and/or modified skills, knowledge, and abilities to meet these new challenges.

The discipline of archaeology is continually assessing itself in terms of education and training. For example in 1977 the Society for American Archaeology prepared the Airlie House Report—The Management of Archeological Resources (McGimsey and Davis 1977), based on a workshop held in 1974, to deal with the growth of archaeology due to various pieces of legislation and the need to identify individuals and institutions who could assist meeting these new legal responsibilities.

In 1989 and again in 1994 the SAA convened "Save the Past for the Future" working conferences to examine various issues facing the profession (SAA 1990; 1995). In 1995 the SAA forum on "Restructuring American Archaeology" and the resulting conference "Renewing our National Archaeological Program" examined increasing professional knowledge and expertise at all levels of archaeological resource management (Lipe and Redman 1996). At the 1989 Chacmool conference in Alberta, Canada a session was held on dealing with our professional responsibility to the public (Bender 1995). In 1997 a conference sponsored by the Professional Archaeologists of New York City examined changing career paths in archaeology and the training needed to meet these career opportunities (Schuldenrein 1998a; 1998b). These are some of the recent bench marks in our effort to re-examine our profession. To be sure there were others that took place at regional and departmental levels.

If one thing can be drawn from these efforts it is that archaeology has changed considerably in the latter part of the 20th Century, and that many students are not receiving the education and training needed to compete for and successfully perform the majority of jobs currently available to archaeologists entering the profession. A conclusion supported by the Society for Historical Archaeology, Canadian Archaeological Association, American Anthropological Association, Archaeological Institute of America, and the National Association of State Archaeologists all of which whole heartily endorsed the SAA's efforts to examine current curricula with respect to the changing discipline.

What has changed is that research, teaching, and publishing are only part of what archaeologists are called upon to do today. To meet these new demands and challenges undergraduate and graduate students need to be taught, and practicing archaeologists have a command of, historic preservation laws, ethics, cultural resource management strategies, resource evaluation, National Register evaluations, proposal writing, personnel management, and business practices (Blanton 1995). In addition there is a need for skills in public relations; writing for the public; working with land owners, developers, governmental officials, teachers and students in grades K-12; promoting cultural diversity; understanding current education methods and trends; protecting archaeological resources; site stabilization; and working with descendant communities and avocational archaeological groups (Fagan 1994; Lynott and Wylie 1995; McManamon 1991; SAA 1995; Smith et al. 1995; White and Weisman 1995; and others).

In preparation for the Wakulla Springs workshop the SAA surveyed all departments listed in the AAA Guide to Departments, in an effort to assess current curricula. One hundred and seventeen (34%) of the departments responded. Perhaps the most important result of this survey was that it identified a general interest in integrating applied archaeology into the curricula. When asked to identify obstacles to teaching applied archaeology the most common response, at both the graduate and undergraduate levels was "other courses take priority." This was clarified in a number of cases to reflect faculty size and the need to cover general anthropology courses. Following that response, departments reported "lack of faculty interest" followed by "lack of faculty training," "lack of student interest," and "inappropriate in their academic setting," as reasons for not teaching applied courses and/or material (Krass 1998).

The results of the SAA's student survey, taken through the Student Affairs Committee, indicates that almost 2/3 of the students responding were preparing for jobs as university professors while 1/3 were working towards employment in the governmental or private sectors. A few were hedging their bets and preparing for both. It is not surprising that the majority of those seeking positions in the academy were those enrolled in Ph.D. programs while the majority of non-academic job seekers were M.A. degree candidates.

Given that the majority of the respondents were preparing for academic positions, it is interesting to note that 2/3 of them saw the need for incorporating applied archaeology into the curriculum. Ph.D. and M.A. degree seeking students agreed that the vast majority of them would not find employment as university professors and that they would, at least during some part of their careers, find employment in the applied field in private and/or governmental sectors and needed the skills to compete for and be successful at those jobs.

Based on the results of the Wakulla Springs workshop the SAA established the Task Force on Curriculum. A list of Task Force members is included in this posting. Feel free to contact them and/or the Wakulla Springs participants directly. Major accomplishments of the Task Force to date have included preparing articles which have appeared in three issues of the SAA Bulletin (16-5, 17-1, 17-2), establishing this electronic bulletin board to foster a national dialogue on Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century, and preparing proposals to help redesign introductory level courses using modern teaching techniques to develop student's analytical skills while incorporating the profession's newly articulated ethical principles.

The proposals call for archaeologists at several institutions to help design these courses. Faculty members would work together with pedagogical experts to learn about outcome-based course construction, alternative ways of organizing learning, and advances in teaching technologies. Professional evaluators will help them build evaluation into their plans. Through a series of workshops, courses would then be developed, taught, and evaluated. Course descriptions, syllabi, and resource materials would then be made available in printed and electronic form. If your institution is interested in participating in this project, contact Susan J. Bender.

Based on the information from the Wakulla Springs workshop, the 1999 forum at the SAA Chicago meetings, and the comments and recommendations from the national dialogue on the electronic bulletin board, the Task Force on Curriculum will prepare a Special Report on Teaching Archaeology in the 21st Century that will be distributed to all SAA members.

Based on the various efforts to examine archaeology and prepare ourselves, and our students, for the 21st Century we are at a point where we must collectively decide where the profession is heading and chart that course into the new millennium and beyond. What has been discussed may sound, to some, as only an issue for those practicing archaeology in the governmental and private sectors. Nothing could be further from the truth. The very nature of public financing of all but a very minute segment of archaeology, our responsibilities to the archaeological resource base and public, the need to educate and train students in all aspects of the discipline while they are still at the academy, and the need for professional archaeologists to stay current, requires the dedication and participation of all segments of the archaeological community.