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Anthropology and Museum Studies

Handbook Student Outcomes

Learning and Expected Outcomes for Anthropology Majors:

  • Know the basic concepts that unify the discipline, underlie the unity of humanity, and explain human biocultural variation. Students will be able to demonstrate understanding of concepts of cultural relativism, culture, ethnocentrism, ecology, evolution, holism, and human universals and variation.
  • Demonstrate knowledge of the history of anthropology as a holistic discipline and the specific history of at least one subfield of the discipline.
  • Be able to identify and understand anthropological theories in terms of the interrelationships between sub fields and their relationships to other disciplines.
  • Be able to understand human diversity by comparing cultures, areas, and traditions, given a knowledge base about individual cultures.
  • Integrate knowledge of language, culture, geography, environment, and primate biology and evolution in order to understand the human past and present.
  • Show knowledge of particular processes of change as understood in sub fields of anthropology.
  • Apply anthropological concepts, methods, knowledge and skills to one's daily behavior and lifetime career, to national and global issues, and to the expansion of public awareness and appreciation of anthropology.
  • Understand the ethics of the discipline as they apply to conservation and preservation, field research, dissemination of information, and representation of self and others.
  • Demonstrate a working knowledge of research methods in anthropology, including data acquisition, analysis, interpretation, and statistics in the context of the scientific method.
  • Apply intellectual and technical skills to acquire and express anthropological knowledge. Specific skills are: reading and writing technical work, professional presentations, respectful face-to-face discourse, analytical and critical thinking and problem solving, and information literacy.

Expected Outcomes at Completion of any Bachelor's Degree in Anthropology:

  • You will demonstrate an understanding of the concepts of culture, cultural variability, evolutionary change, ethnocentrism, cultural relativism, and holism as basic to the anthropological study of humans.
  • You will be able to explain how the goals of anthropology serve to unify anthropology's four sub fields, and be able to identify the goals and distinctive characteristics of each sub field.
  • You will be able to employ appropriate concepts, methods, and techniques in the analysis of data characteristic of at least one of anthropology's sub fields by describing and discussing:
    • Ethnographic methods of study, description and analysis, especially participant-observation, emic and etic perspectives.
    • Archaeological data gathering and interpretation giving appropriate examples.
    • The processes of structural and historical linguistic analysis and the relationship between language and culture.
    • The history of hominid evolution and modern biological variation in terms of the responsible mechanisms, using examples of each.
  • You will demonstrate knowledge and understanding of the range and variety of human patterns of belief, behavior, and biocultural adaptations past and present.
  • The student will be able to explain the value of anthropology as part of one's preparation for life in the early 21st century.