Last modified:
03/23/00

UIUC Proposal (1998)

A-1: PROJECT SUMMARY

NSF Ethnographic Research Training Grant support for the period 1993-1997 enabled the Department of Anthropology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) to significantly enhance its graduate training program in cultural anthropology. UIUC now offers its students a much wider range of methods training than it did in the early 1990s, many more opportunities to apply these methods in actual fieldwork, and a course sequence that enables the student to develop good analytical skills while they work with their own data.

We request Ethnographic Research Training Grant support to implement a new summer research mentoring program in which graduate students develop their methodological expertise by working one-on-one with UIUC faculty mentors in the field. Students will compete to join a faculty member in the field on the basis of shared methodological interests, rather than the convergence of geographical, topical, theoretical areas.

The proposed program builds on existing training strengths and addresses the limitations inherent in classroom-based training and individualized pre-dissertation field experiences. The major anticipated result will be a comprehensive ethnographic training program that can be easily tailored to the needs of individual students and successfully maintained and supported as part of our overall graduate program.

C-1: UIUC ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH TRAINING

Introduction

The anthropology graduate training program at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) currently includes more than 100 students. Our students come from leading undergraduate schools in the United States and from prominent international institutions. Roughly 80% of the applicants for admission to the UIUC Anthropology graduate program meet our published criteria for admission. Each year we offer admission to 15-20% of these applicants, most of whom tend to fall at the high end of the range of acceptability on our criteria. These students return to positions of professional responsibility throughout the world at the rate of 7-10 Ph.D.'s per year, although in the 1996-97 academic year we granted 15 doctoral degrees, the most in any one year since the department’s creation in the early 1960s.

The 1995 National Research Council ranking of graduate anthropology programs placed UIUC Anthropology as 9^th in effectiveness in teaching Ph.D. candidates and 14^th in scholarly quality, as measured by a nationwide faculty peers poll (Goldberger et al. 1995:Table P-2). A survey of leading Ph.D. programs in the United States, which was conducted by the American Anthropological Association, rated the UIUC department 1^st and 2^nd on two measures of percentage growth over ten years (1982-1992) in the number of Ph.D.'s employed in academic departments. This survey also rated UIUC Anthropology as 12^th in the country for number of Ph.D.'s employed by academic departments.

The UIUC Anthropology faculty distinguish our program by their scholarly accomplishments. We are continually successful in the most prestigious grant award competitions including Guggenheim, National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council and Fulbright-Hays. Faculty publications appear regularly from leading presses and in the top professional journals. Our program also provides internationally recognized intellectual leadership for the profession. Virtually every faculty member has served or is now serving as executive officer or board member of a professional association and/or journal. Our faculty include a recently elected Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Nettl), representatives to the American Association for the Advancement of Science (Whitten), and many with honorary international appointments and affiliations (e.g., Ambrose, Garber, Plath, Whitten). Over the past decade, UIUC's international visibility has also been enhanced by having the editorial offices of such leading disciplinary journals as the American Anthropologist and, most recently, Ethnomusicology, the major international journal for the anthropological study of music.

Our research and programmatic strengths center on an interlocking set of theoretically and topically defined research areas. Active research by our cultural anthropologists focus on issues of nationalism, diaspora, pluralism and ethnicity, kinship, conflict, ecology, material culture, symbolism and cognition. UIUC Anthropology research programs are active in many parts of the world, but our most enduring regional strengths are long-established projects in Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the United States.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION

Objectives

NSF Ethnographic Research Training Grant program support for the period 1993-1997 enabled UIUC Anthropology to significantly change and enhance its graduate training program in cultural anthropology. We now offer our students a much wider range of methods training that we did in the early 1990s, many more opportunities to apply these methods in actual fieldwork, and the choice of several courses that enable students to develop good analytical skills while they work with their own data.

This proposal seeks support for the renewal of this grant for a second 5-year period to implement a new summer research mentoring program in which graduate students develop their methodological expertise by working closely with UIUC faculty researchers in the field.

Results from Prior NSF Support

Between 1993-97, NSF Training Grant BNS 91-20267, coupled with University and Departmental resources, significantly changed ethnographic training at UIUC. This support enabled many more students to participate in pre-dissertation field research than would have otherwise been possible. It also stimulated the development of a rich sequence of courses to prepare students for fieldwork, to enable them to be more effective in the field, and to train them to identify and apply appropriate tools in the analysis and interpretation of their data.

When UIUC applied for the NSF training grant in 1992, the Department of Anthropology taught regularly four methods/analysis courses (Anth 318, 353, 364, and 365) and offered irregularly a one semester course (Anth 398L) to introduce students to qualitative and quantitative methods. UIUC students who received funding under the NSF training grant were required to take a minimum of four methods/analytical courses (at least one before going to the field, one course while in the field, and two courses after they returned to campus).

By mid-1998, we had implemented a new, flexible training sequence that offers students the opportunity to tailor their methods training to their own special needs and interests. This sequence includes several new courses (Anth 322 and Anth 325) and two seminars, one on dissertation writing (Anth 480) and one on proposal writing (not yet proposed as a regular course offering) (Figure C-1). An introductory statistics course (Anth 317) is pending approval and we will introduce a new course on linguistic field methods in Fall, 1999. Syllabi for the courses listed in Figure C-1 are given in the Appendix.

Figure C-1. Ethnographic Research Training Sequence.

The overall effects of NSF ethnographic research training support at UIUC are best expressed in terms of the numbers of students who have benefited from the training and research opportunities made possible by this program. Table C-1 gives a summary of the numbers of cultural anthropology students to whom we have been able to provide funding since 1993. Candidates for NSF funding had to qualify as described below in the "Current Training Program" section. Department/University awards were given to promising projects in cases where students lacked the specific requirements for the NSF program.

Table C-1: Cultural Anthropology Graduate Student Summer Research Support.

Year	Department/ University	NSF Training Grant
1993	6	2
1994	3	8
1995	1	5
1996	2	4
1997	1	5
Totals	13	24

Table C-1 shows that we received increasing numbers of NSF-qualified student proposals from 1993 on. It is a clear and unequivocal measure of the impact of the NSF training grant on students and their advisors. What this table cannot convey, however, is the extent to which the NSF training program seeded highly successful research trajectories after the pre-dissertation field experience. Among the 37 students listed in Table C-1, 5 of 12 (42%) students without the NSF training grant received subsequent awards, most of which were internal grants from University sources. However, 16 of 24 (67%) of the NSF trainees received subsequent support from a broad range of external foundations (e.g., Ford Foundation, Fulbright-Hays, Fulbright, Social Science Research Council, International Research and Exchanges Board) and highly competitive UIUC fellowships.

Too little time has passed for us to assess accurately the extent to which the NSF trainees compete for jobs more effectively than do the members of their graduate student cohort who did not participate in this program. We recently received University funding to conduct a survey of our graduate and undergraduate alumni. This survey, which will be designed by Barry Lewis and Janet Keller during the summer of 1998, will yield the first systematically collected information about the employment of our graduates and assess their satisfaction with our training program. This survey is part of several new initiatives begun by UIUC Anthropology to assess educational outcomes and improve the overall quality of its training in every area.

In summary, UIUC Anthropology achieved much with the financial assistance of the NSF training grant program and the increased emphasis on methodological training that it stimulated within the department. Nevertheless, we have learned that neither funding to send students to the field as they are developing their research agendas nor formal classroom training are sufficient to insure a well-designed doctoral research project. We need excellence in the classroom, the opportunity to apply classroom material in the real world of research, and mentors who work closely with the pre-dissertation student in the field. We need the flexibility and breadth of a one-on-one mentoring environment, and we believe that in 2004 the results, as measured in innovative ethnographic researchers who are graduates of the UIUC training program proposed here, will justify our claim.

Toward this end UIUC Anthropology is attempting to build a reliable funding base from financial contributions by its alumni and from institutional support such as that reaffirmed in Dean Jesse Delia's letter which is included in the Appendix. Our overall support base is not yet adequate to the task of sustaining the kind of training program that we began under the NSF training grant program. However, we believe that with another five years of support to develop and assess the complete methods program at UIUC, we will be able to convince alumni and campus administrators alike that this training creates exceptional researchers, able to design and carry out innovative research of unprecedented merit.

Current Training Program

All UIUC Anthropology graduate students must complete a project of primary research culminating in a Pre-Dissertation Research Paper deemed satisfactory by his or her entire advisory committee. The pre-dissertation research project is at the heart of the training program. It is generally completed during the summers or a semester before the student completes the courses required before he or she may take the preliminary examinations. Most cultural anthropology students conduct their pre-dissertation research in the community in which they plan to conduct their dissertation research later.

Figure C-1 diagrams the course sequence of the UIUC ethnographic research training program. Pre-fieldwork training comprises the courses through Anth 353. Anth 364, which currently emphasizes individual study rather than working closely with a mentor, is the main course taken by students while they are in the field. The post-fieldwork training courses, any or all of which a student may choose to take, are Anth 322, Anth 325, and Anth 365.

NSF Ethnographic Research Training Grant support was a significant factor in our ability to increase field research training opportunities for students between 1993-98. NSF funding supplemented the department's Summer Research Fund, an allocation of $17,171 per year that UIUC has made to the department since 1967 in support of graduate student research opportunities. The UIUC-allocated fund supports students in all four subdisciplines based on an annual competitive review of student proposals by a four-person faculty committee. Every January, this committee issues a call for field research proposals. Students who apply for a Summer Research Fund award must be in good academic standing; highest priority for funding is given to the most meritorious proposals submitted by students who have not previously received a Summer Research fund award. Evaluations from two faculty members, Human Subjects Review clearance forms, and applicable letters of collaboration must be submitted with each proposal. At the conclusion of research sponsored by the Summer Research Fund, each awardee is required to submit a report that describes the research and its substantive results to the Chair of the Summer Field Research Committee and to his or her academic advisor.

Although the Summer Research Fund is the mainstay of our pre-dissertation funding program for graduate student research, several other programs within the department also provide supplemental support. These programs include the Joseph B. Casagrande Memorial Award of $500, which is given each year for the best ethnographic Summer Research Fund proposal. The department also works with the UIUC Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies to support graduate student research by contributing $1,000 each year towards matches for Tinker Foundation funds made available through the center.

Proposed Training Plan

Our request for 1999-04 NSF funding builds upon these achievements and aims to extend our methodological training and commitment. One of the key things we learned from our first NSF Ethnographic Research Training Grant is that we cannot create experienced field researchers in the classroom or at a distance of thousands of kilometers while they are in the field. We believe that, working with NSF support, we can develop a field site mentoring program for methods training that will train better researchers at lower costs, be feasible even for small programs to implement, and be more sustainable in an era of decreasing institutional support than the traditional field school model.

Summer Research Mentoring Program

We will initiate a new methods training program that emphasizes increased one-on-one faculty mentoring during fieldwork. The new program will support a minimum of 10 students for summer methodological training by our faculty in their field sites (i.e., two students each year). To this end, our socio-cultural faculty are committed to summer mentoring of one student each in the field during the granting period. Students will compete to join a faculty member in the field on the basis of shared methodological interests, rather than the convergence of geographical, topical, or theoretical areas.

Prospective NSF trainees will be required to take one or more courses from each of the areas indicated in Figure C-1. Course syllabi are given in the Appendix. The specific requirements are the following:

Pre-Fieldwork -- Prospective applicants must take Anth 318 or Anth 353 (and Anth 317 if their academic advisor deems it applicable) to establish their eligibility to apply for an NSF-sponsored grant under the Summer Field Research Fund program.
Fieldwork -- Students who are awarded an NSF-sponsored summer research grant will be required to take Anth 364 from their field site faculty mentor during the fieldwork period. The participating faculty are united in their understanding that the trainee student will accompany the faculty member to the field not as a field research assistant but as a student being trained in field methods.
Post-Fieldwork -- NSF trainees and their field site faculty mentors will be required, first, to present a departmental colloquium on the methodological issues and substantive results of their joint field experience. Participating faculty also understand that they will be making a commitment to follow-through activities after the summer (see below). Second, each trainee must take one or more of Anth 322, Anth 325, or Anth 365 during the year following their summer research.

The most challenging task we face in implementing the proposed program is to ensure that maximum benefit accrues to the student trainees while at the same time causing minimum disruption to the participating faculty members' research. No purpose would be served by the trainee becoming a NSF-subsidized research assistant for faculty research or by the faculty mentor devoting more time to the trainee than to his or her research. To protect their respective interests, each trainee/mentor pair will be required to draft and sign a written statement of each party's responsibilities, duties, and the training goals that will be achieved during the field session. This statement will be reviewed and approved by the Summer Research Fund Committee, in consultation with the Department Head, before the actual financial award can be made.

Assessing Training Outcomes

We anticipate several direct and indirect results from this program. First, departmental dissertation proposals and external grant applications will reflect the enhanced methodological experience and sophistication of students who participate in the NSF trainee program. This measure can be assessed from aggregate data as in Table C-1. Throughout the required pre- and post-fieldwork courses, and in the field, trainees will be assigned tasks that require them to articulate the relationships among the research topics, theories, and methods that they and other trainees develop and apply.

Second, trainees who successfully complete this program will demonstrate significant strengths and expertise in their dissertation field research, both because of the enhanced, hands-on training from the proposed program and because of their exposure to a field research site and set of problems that may be quite different from the one in which they conduct their own research. We anticipate that NSF-trainees will produce fewer "false starts" and aborted projects in dissertation fieldwork than do students who do not participate in this program.

Third, as noted earlier, trainees must submit a written report and, together with their faculty mentor, chair a department colloquium on the results of their Summer Research Fund experience. The immediate peer review that these requirements imply will encourage trainees and mentors to focus on achieving program goals in the field and documenting thoroughly the research methods applied and lessons learned from the mentoring experience. Criticism aired in the public forum of the colloquium will serve students and faculty equally.

Fourth, by developing a significant one-on-one mentor/trainee experience in the field to complement the students' classroom experience, the graduate student body at large will come to know the faculty as field researchers, data analysts, and writers in ways that would not be possible without such a program. The participation of a minimum of 10 faculty and 10 students--most of the socio-cultural faculty (currently 14 non-emeritus faculty) and one-fifth to one-fourth of the socio-cultural graduate student cohort--over the granting period will greatly affect graduate student-faculty intellectual interaction and the extent and nature of our methodological training.

Fifth, UIUC Anthropology's alumni and employer surveys, which will be initiated in the fall of 1998 with support from the administration, will provide a basis for longitudinal assessment of the career effects of the NSF-sponsored ethnographic research training experience. It is anticipated that students with successful NSF-trainee experience will be more competitive in job-seeking than those who lack comparable training.

Faculty Mentors

Listed below is a sample of the UIUC Anthropology faculty, all of whom will participate in the individual field mentoring program, and their diverse methodological strengths. Although our faculty have competency in many field languages, the field site lingua franca of most of our faculty is English, Spanish, German, or French. Consequently, students with competency in the relevant lingua franca can have a productive summer field experience in methodological training without the necessity of specialized language training in addition to the two language competencies that are already required by the UIUC Anthropology graduate program.

The faculty include: [list omitted from the on-line version]

D-1: References Cited

Goldberger, Marvin L., Brendan A. Maher, and Pamela E. Flatteau, editors. 1995. Research-Doctorate Programs in the United States: Continuity and Change. National Research Council, National Academy Press: Washington, D.C.

F-1: Budget Justification

The maximum NSF Ethnographic Research Training Grant award is $50,000 to be used over a five-year period for student support.

F. Participant Support Costs: UIUC cultural anthropology graduate students compete for NSF Training Grant support through research proposals submitted to the department's annual Summer Research Fund competition. It is anticipated that there will be 2-4 awardees per year during the term of the grant. Awards covers such necessary fieldwork costs as transportation to the field site, room and board costs while in the field, and expendable supplies.

I. Indirect Costs: Over the five-year grant period, NSF will consider requests for no more than $5,000, or $1,000 per year, to administer the grant.