The University of New Mexico Department of Anthropology will present a virtual convocation Saturday, May 15, at 1 pm. The ceremony will honor 76 graduates receiving their bachelor’s degrees and 33 graduates receiving their Master’s and Ph.D.s.
The virtual convocation will include graduates from Fall 2019 through Summer 2021. Guest speakers are outstanding PhD graduates olly Brause, Ethnology; Jonathan Dombrosky, Archaeology; Drew Enigk, Evolutionary Anthropology; and outstanding Undergraduate Honors student Kathryn Sokolowski. The speeches will be followed by a reading of the names and accomplishments of undergraduate BA/BS students and undergraduate Honors BA/BS students by Department Chair Keith Hunley, and a reading of names and accomplishments of Master’s and Ph.D. students by Graduate Director Emily Jones. The video will stay posted on the department’s YouTube channel.
“Although we cannot have an in person convocation at this time, we are pleased to be able to honor all of our graduates who have persevered during unprecedented times. We invite them, as well as their families, to join us at our next in person convocation to celebrate their accomplishments with their Anthropology family,” said Anthropology Department Administrator Jennifer George.
The department expressed special thanks to Kathryn Sokolowski and the Undergraduate Anthropology Society for their help in putting together a convocation brochure and coordinating a gift mailing to all of the graduates, as well as a “thank you” to George, Assistant Professor Ian Wallace, Jones and Hunley for putting together the virtual convocation.
The department’s first three baccalaureate and two master’s degrees were conferred in 1931-32, and the first PhD was conferred in 1948. As of today, the department has awarded more than 2,500 baccalaureate and master’s degrees and 387 PhDs.
Anthropology is the most inclusive discipline in the arts and sciences with the greatest breadth of interests encompassing the entire human experience. The discipline challenges students at the undergraduate and graduate levels to explore the dimensions of culture and biology in their lives and those of others. The three subfields of Archaeology, Ethnology, and Evolutionary Anthropology encompass a variety of perspectives and methods through which the lens of culture is applied to human diversity and change in the past, present and future, Hunley said.