National Association for the Practice of Anthropology
I have co-chaired NAPA’s Professional Development and Programming Committee with Cathleen Crain since 2021. In addition to planning NAPA sponsored panels, papers, and workshops at the annual meetings for the American Anthropological Association and the Society for Applied Anthropology, the committee is in the process of developing a training program to provide ongoing professional development to Professional, Practicing, and Applied (PPA) Anthropologists.
As a cornerstone of this work, our committee just finalized the Anthropological Professional Standards. Beyond an ethics statement, these professional standards are designed to help guide PPA anthropologists in how to conduct “good” anthropology in the multitude of contexts we find ourselves practicing outside of academia. These standards will ground all future training materials the committee produces.
2019 American Anthropology Master’s Career Survey
The 2019 American Anthropology Master’s Career Survey was a student-run initiative to replicate the 2009 AAA/CoPAPIA Anthropology MA Career Survey. The survey team consisted of nine first year master’s students in Applied Anthropology at the University of North Texas. I co-chaired this team along with Shannon Cronin.
In conjunction with the data from the original 2009 AAA/CoPAPIA Anthropology MA Career Survey, the goal of the survey and subsequent reports is to understand 1) how master’s degree alumni have crafted careers; 2) what retrospective advice they have for departmental programs, and 3) whether they continue to identify with the profession.
Our team collected a non-random sample of 850 valid survey responses from the primary respondent group: those holding a master’s degree in anthropology who received this degree in 2018 or earlier from a North American institution. These efforts were sponsored by the National Association for the Practice of Anthropology.
Erica Hawvermale 