On Thursday, March 10th UConn Early College Experience, and the UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator from Anthropology, Dr. Alexia Smith and Dr. Noga Shemer, Assistant Professor-in-Residence of Anthropology at UConn met with certified ECE Anthropology Instructors for their annual professional development conference.

This workshop focused on practical strategies for teaching anthropology today. The focus was on some of the recent changes within the field, “hot topics,” participation agreements, accessibility issues, and engagement modalities.

Dr. Alexia Smith serves as an Associate Professor of Anthropology, the Director of Undergraduate Studies for Anthropology, and the ECE Anthropology coordinator. She regularly teaches Anth 1500 Great Discoveries in Archaeology which includes ongoing discussions of cultural heritage.

Dr. Noga Shemer served as a guest facilitator for the workshop. Dr. Shemer is an Assistant Professor-in-Residence of Anthropology at UConn, where she also serves as an Affiliate faculty member of El Instituto (Institute of Latina/o, Caribbean, and Latin American Studies) and as an Assistant Director of Faculty Development at the Center for Excellence in Teaching and Learning. She is a cultural anthropologist who has many years’ experience teaching Anth 1000W, a writing intensive version of Peoples and Cultures of the World, Anth 2000W Social Anthropology, Anth 3152 Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism, Anth 3029 Caribbean Cultures, and Anth 3251 Psychological Anthropology. She provides workshops across the university focusing on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the classroom and has published journal articles focusing on her use of person-centered ethnographies to build empathy.

The group explored “Teaching Anthropology Today” through guided discussions, interspersed with mini-presentations/responses from Dr. Shemer. The workshop concluded with a more open-ended discussion regarding teaching experiences and questions from the instructors.

UConn Anthropology courses offered through Early College Experience.

On Friday, November 12th UConn Early College Experience, and the UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Anthropology Associate Professor, Alexia Smith met with certified Anthropology Instructors for their annual professional development conference. Dr. Smith was joined by UConn Assistant Professor, Eleanor Ouimet also from the Anthropology Department to discuss project based learning in anthropology and teaching anthropology today.

UConn Anthropology courses offered through ECE.

On Friday, December 4th UConn Early College Experience and UConn ECE Faculty Coordinator for Anthropology Associate Professor Dr. Alexia Smith met with ECE Anthropology Instructors for their annual professional development conference. Instructors received two books in preparation for the meeting.

• White Fragility by Robin Diangelo
• Eating Culture by Gillian Crowther

The group had a productive conversation about the two books and discussed strategies for teaching race and racism today as well as ways to use ethnographic observations of food as a platform for discussing broad anthropological concepts.

UConn Anthropology courses offered through UConn ECE.