Dr. Heather Howard, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Affiliated Faculty of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program and the Native American Institute here at MSU, was awarded a grant from the Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada as co-Principal Investigator with Principal Investigator Heidi Bohaker (History, University of Toronto) and co-Principal Investigator Margaret Bruchac (Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania).
Their project, “Widening the Circle: Building a Community Knowledge Sharing Digital Platform with Great Lakes Indigenous Cultural Heritage Research Data,” will provide just over $40,000.00 to create and test a new public website for the Great Lakes Research Alliance for the Study of Aboriginal Arts and Cultures (GRASAC). GRASAC is an interdisciplinary and cross-cultural alliance of researchers from Indigenous communities, universities, museums, and archives who share the common goal of creating deeper understandings of Great Lakes Indigenous arts, languages, identities, territoriality, and governance. GRASAC houses over five thousand detailed records of Great Lakes material culture and documentary art, thirty thousand high resolution digital photographs, audio and video recordings, as well as language resources including glossaries of Cayuga and Anishinaabemowin.
This project will ensure responsible data sharing grounded in respectful and meaningful Nation-to-Nation conversations helping to develop long-term data governance policies for GRASAC. Using Mukurtu, an open source software developed specifically for Indigenous cultural heritage, we will work with community partners to develop appropriate cultural protocols to protect data and to test the usability of the platform by Indigenous community members, including contemporary makers, teachers, and students. This project builds on work Dr. Howard has been undertaking with Michigan Indigenous makers and the collections of the MSU Museum over the last three years.
The Department of Anthropology is pleased to announce Associate Professor and affiliated faculty member of the American Indian and Indigenous Studies program, Dr. Mindy Morgan is our new Graduate Program Director. Dr. Morgan previously held the position of Associate Chair and enjoyed having input on department policies and practices and when this position arose, it seemed like another opportunity for her to be able to help shape the direction of our program. After having the opportunity to teach the incoming core theory course for many years, Dr. Morgan always enjoyed getting to know the incoming students and to help them create a supportive cohort. She misses this opportunity now that another faculty teach the course. Dr. Morgan sees the Graduate Program Director role as a way of not only continuing that work, but to be involved in students’ careers as they move through the program. Having always enjoyed serving on graduate committees and learning about the diverse and exciting work our students are doing, she views this new position as a good way of engaging with an even wider range of students.
Some of the new directions Dr. Morgan wants to steer the
graduate program in are to have more engagement with our alumni and to engage
in more conversations about career opportunities and trajectories. Our program
has had success in placing people in highly rewarding academic positions, but
we have also had great success in placing graduates in non-academic settings.
Given the difficulties of the current academic job market, she intends to
facilitate more conversations about non-academic positions and to hopefully
create wider career networks for our graduates. Dr. Morgan also anticipates
developing a more responsive curriculum, allowing students to take the seminars
they need to move through the program in a timely way. Part of moving through
the program in a timely fashion is to help students connect with other sources
of funding and to provide the support they need to successfully secure funding
in a changing funding environment. Lastly, she would like to see a more
strategic recruiting program put in place where we can encourage a greater
number of students to consider applying to the anthropology department.
Dr. Morgan has always said that Anthropology found her. She
has always loved stories for the wisdom they contain as well as for the
community created through their telling. She never knew how to articulate this
fascination until she discovered anthropology late in her undergraduate career
as an American Culture major. She decided that she needed some disciplinary
rigor in which to shape her interests and anthropology provided that framework.
Dr. Morgan went on to complete her PhD in 2001 from Indiana University in
Bloomington in anthropology. When on the job market before coming to MSU, she
found the most challenging thing about the graduate student to job transition
was that there is quite a bit of institutional knowledge required that must be
learned quickly in order to be effective at the College and University levels.
During her short time as Graduate Program Director, she has already learned a
great deal about how the College of Social Sciences and the Graduate School
work. She now applies this knowledge to her own advising and helps students
navigate the university more effectively.
Being a true academic at heart, one of her favorite things
about our department is that almost every day I am learning something new about
a place or topic I have not encountered before. Due to the range of expertise
and interests among our faculty as well as our graduate students, every day
brings something new. There is no normal “routine.” Dr. Morgan’s favorite thing
about her position is the enjoyment she gets from working with students
directly both in advising and through workshops. She also enjoys working with
incoming students to help introduce and acclimate them to MSU and the
department. The best part for her, however, is attending the advanced degree
program and seeing our students walk across the stage to receive their
diplomas. It is immensely satisfying to see students complete their degrees and
move on to new and exciting endeavors.
Outside of academia, Dr. Morgan has few hobbies but she is
passionate about her family, supporting the performing arts (especially dance),
and traveling (for purposes other than research).
On the horizon, Dr. Morgan is working on a book manuscript regarding the periodical Indians at Work, but has also been readily enjoying a small detour into the history of Anthropology. She has an article regarding Ruth Underhill coming out in the Histories of Anthropology Annual (Vol. 13) next year. Dr. Morgan truly hopes to have a positive impact on our department’s future and we look forward to further research and graduates as she continues her career with us.
