Anthropology confronts the challenges of understanding biological and cultural variation in time and space. It does this via a holistic approach that both draws from and contributes to a myriad array of disciplines. The field is comprised of four major subfields, anthropological archaeology, biological (or physical) anthropology, ethnology (cultural or socio-cultural anthropology), and linguistic anthropology. A minor subfield, applied (or “activist”) anthropology, is gaining increasing recognition.
In keeping with the College of Charleston’s mission to operate as a comprehensive liberal arts institution, the Anthropology program offers its students a faculty committed to teach and train students, to offer courses (or modules) in each subfield, and to intrinsically connect our research to our teaching. We support original research and creativity in an atmosphere of intellectual freedom. At the appropriate levels, our undergraduates learn what each of the sub-fields entails and how each interacts and relates to the others. We encourage team-teaching and we experiment with new methodologies as they feed back into our research.
The special mandate of the field is to discover new and less harmful ways of perceiving, understanding and therefore validating the different experiences, histories and values of peoples and communities from around the world. With that mandate in mind, our mission statement is to advance, increase, and disseminate the insights of anthropology (both scientific and humanistic) through excellent teaching, writing and outreach. We do this by offering field schools, both domestic and international, courses that emphasize the discipline’s core concepts, and classes that relate to our faculty members’ specializations. We regularly associate, cooperate and collaborate with students, scholars and colleagues on local, regional, national, and international levels.
The Anthropology program recognizes the importance of multiculturalism and acknowledges its role and responsibility in promoting greater understanding of cultural diversity among faculty, students, and the university at large. We encourage students from historically underrepresented groups to apply to our program. We are committed to equal opportunity and affirmative action for our faculty, staff and students, regardless of “race,” religion, gender, age, sexual orientation, or focus of teaching and research.
Our goals and obligations are to reach and educate our primary constituencies, which include both majors and non-majors (the latter of whom take our courses as part of a liberal college education), and to appeal to the public at large. These latter aspects of our mission statement link us to the needs of the global community, whose human rights we acknowledge, support, and defend.
Revised, Monday, April 27, 2009