Awards Committee -- Update

Patricia Gilman

Responding to the SAA Board of Directors request to revamp the awards procedures, the Committee on Awards (Patricia Gilman, chair; Marcia-Anne Dobres; and Kenneth Sassaman) met twice during the SAA meetings in Chicago to consider the awards presented by the Society. We now give many awards and there is limited time during the Annual Business Meeting for an appropriate presentation ceremony. Also, people have proposed several new awards which, if approved by the Committee on Awards and the board, might add to the length of the business meeting. One suggestion has been to rotate certain awards, rather than present them on an annual basis. We welcome comments and suggestions on this process from the membership. Our proposal will go before the board during its fall meeting.

We are pleased to announce the new Student Paper Award, which was proposed to SAA by the Student Affairs Committee (see page 26). We hope that it demonstrates the links of the Society to our student members.

The Committee on Awards is instituting near-universal deadlines for awards nominations. This year, most of the nomination deadlines will be January 5, 2000. Two of the exceptions are the Dissertation Award (October 15, 1999; see below) and the Book Award (December 1, 1999). Look for a complete listing of awards, their descriptions, requirements, and contacts for submitting nominations in the September 1999 issue of the SAA Bulletin. By then, we will have developed a nomination form to help make the process an easy one.

SAA members are strongly urged to participate in the award nomination process by bringing our attention to the outstanding research, contributions, and achievements of our colleagues. Through your help and recommendations we can give the awards to the most appropriate people. Certainly, each of you must know individuals who would be perfect for SAA to recognize and honor in this way. Please ensure they receive the recognition they deserve by nominating them for an award. ·

Patricia Gilman, chair of the SAA Committee on Awards, is at the University of Oklahoma in Norman, Oklahoma.

Student Affairs Committee

Call for Papers

65th Annual Meeting, Philadelphia 2000!

The Student Affairs Committee (SAC) is sponsoring a symposium, "The Road to Complexity: Emerging Social Systems." It is open to students currently pursuing degrees or courses of study in archaeology at any level, and whose research examines emerging social complexity. A tentative abstract is as follows:

No single history recounts the exact circumstances which inevitably lead to social complexity. This symposium examines some of the critical local factors present in societies on a trajectory towards complexity. Papers will focus on which social, economic, political or ideological processes change and which remain little altered along the road to complex society. Why do some administrative organizations centralize and others compartmentalize? Under what conditions do social hierarchies develop? What roles do trade and exchange networks play in the economic growth of social groups? How do ritual and religion factor into changing systems? Papers will represent a diversity of geographical and temporal perspectives and demonstrate that social complexity emerges out of a variety of settings.

If you are interesting in presenting in this symposium, submit a copy of an abstract according to SAA criteria, along with a copy of completed conference pre-registration (forms only) by July 30, 1999, to Gordon F. M. Rakita, Department of Anthropology, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131.

Abstracts will be anonymously reviewed by SAC members and a final panel of papers will be decided by August 15, 1999. For additional information, contact Gordon Rakita at rakita@unm.edu or Michelle Woodward at woodwarm@ucsu.colorado.edu.

SAA Awards Committee

Call for Nominations

Dissertation Award

Members (other than student members) of SAA may nominate a recent graduate whose dissertation they consider to be original, well written, and outstanding. A three-year membership in SAA is given to the individual whose dissertation is judged as the most outstanding.

Special requirements:

Nominations must be made by nonstudent SAA members and must be in the form of a nomination letter that makes a case for the dissertation. Self-nominations cannot be accepted.
Nomination letters should include a description of the special contributions of the dissertation and the nominee's current address.
Nominees must have defended their dissertations and received their Ph.D. degree within three years prior to September 1, 1999.
Nominees are to be informed at the time of nomination and are asked to submit a copy of the dissertation They must provide the committee with a copy of the dissertation by October 31, 1999.
Nominees do not have to be members of SAA.

Deadline for nomination: October 15, 1999

Contact: Dean Snow, SAA Dissertation Award Committee, Department of Anthropology, Pennsylvania State University, 409 Carpenter Bldg., University Park, PA 16802, (814) 865-2509, fax (814) 863-1474, email drs17@psu.edu.