Dear Alumni:
It’s a good thing anthropologists know that humans are incredibly adaptive, because this 2020 year has put our resilience to the test, particularly in the face of losses.
Two of our beloved emeriti faculty, Dr. Perry Gnivecki and Dr. Carl Jantzen, passed away. In addition, Associate professor Dr. Mary Jane Berman retired in May of 2020. As for many of you, this has been a difficult year for us.
Our students and faculty demonstrated resilience, rising to every challenge 2020 posed. Students actively engaged in the hybrid, hi-flex, and remote learning in classes the faculty redesigned, as we all adapted to the dynamic constraints of the pandemic.
In addition, we continued to teach students the anthropological perspectives you as alumni learned, disrupting ethnocentrism and criticizing systemic racism and structural violence, while enhancing student understanding of the processes of inclusion and equity, so that they too are ready to contribute to making a more just world that is safe for human differences.
Thank you for your continued support of the Department of Anthropology. This fall we welcomed our first Linda Marchant Academic Scholar, Izzy Besan-Jankovich, with a scholarship funded by Rob and Nancy Tolley for academic excellence, and we are so grateful to be able to offer this scholarship once every four years for a student’s study of anthropology.
Whether you can contribute financially or in terms of time in talking with current students and helping them prepare for and navigate the post-Miami world, your every contribution is welcome. I invite you to reach out to me with your ideas.
For now, I wish you and your loved ones, a safe, peace-filled, and restorative winter season as we all hope for an easier 2021.
Love and Honor,
