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Building capacity and transforming lives: Anthropology undergraduates and religious campus‐climate research on a public university campus
Author(s) -
GLASSCOFFIN BONNIE
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
annals of anthropological practice
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.22
H-Index - 14
eISSN - 2153-9588
pISSN - 2153-957X
DOI - 10.1111/napa.12106
Subject(s) - employability , sociology , participatory action research , university campus , feeling , citizen journalism , spirituality , pedagogy , political science , psychology , engineering , anthropology , medicine , social psychology , alternative medicine , pathology , law , architectural engineering
This paper tells the story of how undergraduate researchers participating in an applied and participatory anthropological research project at Utah State University have used their research experience to help make our campus a more welcoming place for all who orient around religion and spirituality differently. The campus‐climate research project described herein was designed to investigate the relationship between diverse religious and spiritual commitments and feelings of discomfort or well‐being on our campus. Students who worked on this project gained valuable skills as researchers. Additionally, they became student leaders of a movement to promote a more welcoming climate on campus. Both kinds of experience—as student researchers and as campus‐change‐agents—have provided these students with value‐added skills and knowledge that will increase employability. Far from a “degree to nowhere,” applied and participatory anthropology has prepared these undergraduates to meet the challenges of a world that needs the anthropological lens now more than ever before.