Victoria Swander

The Anthropology Club was born over the summer of 2014, after discovering fellow friend and Anthropology major Erica Hitchner shared my frustrations regarding the lack of engagement in anthropology on campus. We set out to provide ourselves and others with opportunities to experience different aspects of the discipline in a real-world setting. In addition, we felt by pooling our knowledge and resources with other students, we could all benefit. We also sought to promote the anthropology-based study abroad trip to Ecuador, as well as giving students attending this trip the chance to better know each other ahead of time. Anthropology professors (and Ecuador trip leaders) Josh Crosby and Heather Hall agreed enthusiastically to be our advisers. We filed the necessary paperwork as they promoted the club in their classes. By the time we held our first official meeting, we had a small but dedicated group of students excited to help our cause.

 

I greatly enjoyed the time I spent with this organization. Not only did it help me receive more experience managing a position of leadership, it enabled me to engage more closely with my academic interests beyond the classroom. Every meeting was informative yet full of laughter. Although we shared a common theme, our members were highly diverse in their backgrounds and individual interests. Everyone contributed something different, from an interest in identifying human remains at crime scenes to a desire to help improve impoverished communities in Morocco. Interacting with these students served to broaden my own understanding of anthropology. We spent a great deal of time discussing different academic/career paths and sharing resources with each other. We scheduled an informational session with our adviser, Josh, to describe his experience applying to graduate school. He led a Q&A highlighting how to be a competitive candidate, and the feedback we received from those in attendance was overwhelmingly positive. We organized a tour of the C.A. Pound Human Identification Laboratory at the University of Florida led by the lab’s program director, Dr. Michael Warren. We also enacted a book club, meeting regularly to discuss the people and methodologies we were reading about. These group discussions and activities connected me with others in a way that truly improved my educational experience.

 

In the Fall of 2014, I helped organize an event for the student body to promote linguistic anthropology under the theme of Mandarin Chinese. I invited the World Travelers and the Chinese Club, both of which I am also a member, to table and promote the study abroad trip to China. I also approached Chinese professors Linfang Yuan and Dr. Li Ren-Kaplan to be our guest speakers. To our delight, they were more than happy to help. They provided an outstanding presentation, introducing students to an overview of Mandarin, and even offering an interactive calligraphy demonstration. The best lesson I learned from this is how important it is to reach out to other student groups and faculty. Forming those connections others on campus leads to a greater level of achievement than is possible on your own. For this particular event, we were able to generate interest in the Chinese language courses, study abroad, and these three clubs. The combined group effort of everyone involved truly helped make this event a success, and reinforced to me the value in collaboration with others.