The Department of Anthropology is proud to announce the creation of The Alumni and Friends Expendable Fund for Archaeology. The purpose of this fund is to target the needs of MSU archaeology students at the undergraduate and graduate levels and enhance the visibility of MSU’s archaeology program at home and abroad. Through the funds accumulated by donations from our alumni and friends we will be able to offer student assistance for professional development in the forms of scholarships for fieldwork, research, travel and fellowships. By enhancing the recruitment of a diverse archaeological student cohort and establishing an annual, invited lecture series in archaeology, this fund will serve to strengthen and carry on the strong tradition of archaeology at MSU.
Our first event sponsored by the fund brought Dr. Donna Yates, lecturer in Antiquities Trafficking and
Art Crime at the University of Glasgow’s Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research to campus for a week. During this time, she visited archaeology classes, met with faculty and students, gave a public lecture, and offered a graduate workshop. Over 90 people attended her lecture from campuses and cities across the state and over two dozen watched it streaming online. The fund provided the lecture with the foundational funding to secure co-sponsors for the event. Needless to say, it was an enormous success and we are excited to be in the planning stages for our next annual lecture.
Graduate Student Kate Frederick lining her experimental cache pits, part of her dissertation fieldwork.
This spring, research proposals from two graduate students, Susan Kooiman and Kate Frederick, were selected for awards from this fund. The support will enable them to expand and enhance their dissertation research projects. Kooiman will use the funds to analyze diet from lipids, isotopes, and microbotanicals extracted from pottery at the Cloudman site. Frederick will use her award this summer as she maps and conducts test excavations of possible cache pits just south of Cheboygan, Michigan.
This fund is a concerted effort by our archaeology alumni to offer enhanced opportunities to current MSU archaeology students as they start their careers, become alumni, and continue the well-established heritage of archaeology in the Department of Anthropology at MSU. Contributions to the fund may be sent directly to the Department with the note “Archaeology Alumni and Friends donation” or click here to donate now.
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