Committee Goals
While the campus wide and intradepartmental roots of racism and discrimination are intertwined, the particulars of the history of the department of anthropology and our present situation call us to continue to reflect on these criticisms and strive to address them to produce a just and inclusive community and scholarly environment.
To this end, the diversity committee meets monthly to discuss issues of diversity and confrontation of problems of racism and other forms of discrimination in the department and campus. The committee also serves to establish mechanisms for graduate students and faculty to communicate concerns and problems, especially around issues of race, to the department at large. Each semester, we implement specific goals to enhance community and foster diversity in our department. In past years, these goals have included: bringing in external speakers to educate our community about issues pertaining to diversity, developing a DVD to address best practices for teaching in a diverse classroom, holding a departmental workshop to address issues of race and community, holding a departmental workshop for educators to discuss best practices for teaching in a diverse classroom, developing a departmental diversity webpresence, participating in the Center for Democracy in a Multiracial Society conference, and participating in recruitment events and devising strategies to attract and retain underrepresented students and faculty.
DEPARTMENT COMMITMENTS
The Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign is committed to
- Recruit and retain a diverse departmental scholarly community of faculty and students.
- Foster inclusive academic spaces that allow for members of underrepresented communities to engage with the department, discipline, and institutions of higher education.
- Develop and transform departmental curriculum and teaching practices in ways that acknowledge and respect diversity in the classroom.
If you are interested in applying, please contact Joyce Dowell at joyce14@illinois.edu.
NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL REPORT
The National Research Council (NRC) report, released Tuesday, September 28, 2010, evaluated and ranked programs using a 5th and 95th percentile range.
The NRC evaluation was based on data collected on more than 5,000 programs in 62 fields at 212 universities during the 2005-2006 academic year. Information was obtained by the NRC through questionnaires sent to doctoral faculty, heads of doctoral programs, administrators and students.
Out of 82 programs studied, the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign received these rankings from the NRC report:
- 1st in percentage of students fully supported through the graduate program
- 1st in program outcomes
- 6th in minority students
- 7th in percentage of international students
- 8th in time to degree
- 20th in minority faculty
RESOURCES
Diversity DVD: About the DVD
In the absence of adequate resources on campus for assisting instructors in developing best teaching practices for diverse classrooms, the Department of Anthropology carried out background ethnographic research among its students and faculty to provide materials for workshops on teaching in diverse classrooms. With the collaboration of Inner Voices Social Theater group, real events and incidents were converted into performable scripts and re-enacted, recorded and compiled into a DVD suitable for such workshops. 
The DVD contains 8 vignettes, each one illustrative of problems that can arise in teaching environments enrolling students of diverse backgrounds and identities. The DVD is accompanied by a facilitator manual and bibliography of supporting articles and websites. These materials are being tested prior to the release of a final version. The final product is a DVD and facilitation manual will be available for circulation throughout campus as a resource for teaching in diverse classrooms. For more photos of the DVD production, click here. Find the teaching handbook that accompanies the DVD here.