You often incorporate different community service projects into your classes. Can you tell us about one of these projects and what impact these types of projects have on students’ learning in your classes?

In most of my classes, I make it a requirement that students donate their time toward a service project, such as raising money for a charitable organization that has something to do with the topic of the course. To raise money, students are selling "Recycled Notebooks" (photo attached below), which they make out of all recycled materials (beer boxes, cereal boxes, etc. and "gently used" paper that is still clean on one side). We sell them for $3.00 apiece and 100% of the proceeds support the organization we are working with. The students in the class work together to identify an organization that they all want to support and at the end of the semester we make a donation. This semester, my Anthropological Ethics course is conducting a fundraiser for an all-volunteer organization known as Operation ID out of Texas State University's forensic department. These forensic anthropologists are identifying the skeletal remains of migrants who died crossing the border into Texas, in the hopes of being able to return them to their loved ones in Mexico, or countries of Central and South America (You can learn more about the program here: https://www.txstate.edu/anthropology/facts/outreach/opid.html)

We are aiming to donate around $200-250 to Operation Identification, which is enough funding to keep their project going for at least a month, so it can truly make a difference. At the end of the semester, the whole class will be taking a field trip to San Marcos to present the donation to the forensic anthropologists who are doing this social justice work, hear more about their efforts, and see their facilities. I hope that my students see that by working collectively, their efforts can make a difference and that they can help further social justice causes. I estimate that over the course of my career, my students will have raised thousands of dollars for a wide range of worthy charitable organizations.

What inspired you to develop these types of experiences for your students?

In anthropology, regardless of the discipline (archaeology, physical anthropology, medical anthropology, ethnography, etc.), there is a strong theme of social justice that informs our training, research, and teaching. One of the things that anthropologists hope to convey to our students is our ethical obligations to the populations we work with, and the need to give back to these communities. This is one very small way that I can model this for my students and get them invested in the process.

What drew you to teaching at Trinity?

So many things! I love the notion of being at a place where teaching and research are highly valued, and where I am surrounded by talented faculty and students. Although I went to large state schools, I was drawn to a liberal arts setting where there was a focus on small classes, lots of interactions with engaged students, and amazing opportunities to see and hear artistic performances and attend lectures with world leaders and top scholars who visit campus on a nearly weekly basis. I was also excited to teach in an urban environment with a large LatinX population and to be in a city with institutions like the San Antonio Museum of Art and the San Antonio Zoo where I could take my students. I loved the city of San Antonio from the moment I laid eyes on it.

Please share a moment when you felt especially proud to be a professor.

Just the other day in my seminar I realized that I had barely said a word, but it was one of the most stimulating class discussions in which I've ever participated.