Giggity Leadership?

I found this sign on the SAU campus today...wow! You might be asking yourself, "What the...?!?" I know I did.

This sign points the way to the Leadership Academy associated with the SAU's Becoming a Mulerider program (BAM!).

The BAM! website explains that:

"Nothing even comes close to all of the fun, good times, new friends, learning, and excitement that you’ll find at the Southern Arkansas University Leadership Academy..."

and that the "Leadership Academy is a 48-hour leadership experience designed to enhance your career at SAU. Southern Arkansas University is committed to providing students with opportunities to become involved with the campus and the community...Leadership Academy offers you the opportunity to begin this involvement and to continue your high school success into college life and beyond...At Leadership Academy you will have the opportunity to meet and interact with campus leaders, to explore the inner workings of university organizations, to improve your time management and team building skills, and to tap into your leadership potential."

All this reminds me a lot of parts of My Freshman Year: What a Professor Learned by Becoming a Student, an ethnography I use in my Cultural Anthropology class at SAU. In My Freshman Year anthropologist Rebekah Nathan (or Cathy Smalls) explains that university programs all over the nation are falling over themselves to create a sense of "community" along with a air of fun, spontaneity and individuality...the thought is that a greater sense of community will increase student retention.

Of course the problem is that real communities are forged on shared experiences and the modern university (wanting also to cater to your sense of individuality) offers an ever expanding set of choices to students...requiring common experiences is vastly unpopular...hardly any students share a set of classes or experiences that link them together--even in small colleges like SAU...talking with my students, the REAL communities that last are ones based on shared experiences--sports, Greek and even sometimes experiences within your major (depending on the major)...The image of Quagmire above selling "fun" and "individuality" along with "leadership" and "community" strikes me as a bit odd and contradictory...and...well...stretching it a bit...it might be better to be truly spontaneous and fun (instead of evoking an image of fun)...that might forge some university community...but then again, real spontaneity and community can be a dangerous thing in the eyes of some...maybe we better stick to Quagmire...

One Year Anniversary...

This month is both the one year anniversary of my permanent arrival in Magnolia and the one year anniversary of the discovery of the theft of the Cedar Grove ceramic vessels from the AAS-SAU Research Station facility in the Bruce Center.

I'll be posting a one-year report to the blog in the next couple of weeks...that'll take care of the anniversary of my tenure as AAS-SAU Research Archeologist....but as for the stolen pots...

Last week, the Magnolia Banner-News ran a nice front-page, above-the-fold story that hopefully puts the pots back into the public memory (so they can keep an eye out for them) and may drum up some donations for building our security measures. Look here for a PDF of the article.

The Magnolia Banner-News continues to do a great job of covering both the case and archeology in general.

All of you out there...keep your eyes out for the pots...Click here for PDF list of what was stolen or here for a full color web site version. The Offical Press Release regarding the theft can be found here.

Vashti McCollum and the Columbia County Connection

When you think of activists for the separation of church and state you probably think of Madalyn Murray O'Hare--the founder of the American Atheiest movement who was murdered in 1995 in Austin, Texas (one of my former hometowns...In fact, I recently learned that I rented a storage unit in the same complex that the O'Hare's stolen gold coins had been stashed)...

But before Ms. O'Hare there was another woman who fought for the separation of church and state...and that woman, Vashti McCollum (shown to the right), has an unexpected connection to Columbia County...and as we are coming up on the one year anniversary of her passing, I thought it would be appropriate to revisit Vashti's story.

Vashti Cromwell McCollum (November 6, 1912–August 20, 2006) was the plaintiff in a landmark 1948 Supreme Court case that struck down religious education in the public schools. She had been born and raised in New York...Her father, a disabled World War I vet, was an architect and an atheist who successfully lobbied the state of New York to end religious classes in public schools there...Vashti moved to Champaign-Urbana in order to attend the University of Illinois...there she met Dr. John P. MCCollum, a professor of horticulture, whom she married in 1933.

James McCollum (shown to the left), the first of Ms. McCollum's three sons, was in fourth grade in a Champaign school when he was required to take religious classes during school. The classes were held on campus, were taught by a former missionary to China, and were mainly a Protestant program...Ms. McCollum, of course, did not approve and fought a long battle in the courts...the US Supreme Court eventually agreed to hear the case, and on March 9, 1948, it delivered an 8-to-1 decision saying that the religious education classes in Champaign's public schools violated the constitutional provisions for separation of church and state.

Writing for the majority, Justice Hugo Black stated that "The First Amendment has erected a wall between the church and the state which must be kept high and impregnable." According to James McCollum "the significance of the decision was that it was the first case of impression that held the several states accountable to the strictures of the establishment of religion clause of the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution under the aegis of the due process clause of the 14th Amendment." All cases, involving school prayers, aid to parochial schools, sectarian religious displays on public property and other such incursions into Jefferson's wall of "separation of church and state" by the states and their municipalities, descend from this case.

The McCollums have historical connections to southwestern Arkansas and Columbia County (The family name is listed in the Goodspeed's History in 1889)...and James McCollum, the child that Vashti acted on behalf of, has returned to the area...Jim, a retired lawyer, now lives in Emerson just south of Magnolia. He is an employee of SAU, a student in the Agricultural program and he remains active in Americans United for the Separation of Church and State...He and his wife (who, interestingly enough, teaches religious studies at SAU) have become friends of mine...hell, Jim was even my sponsor into the Magnolia Rotary.

On last thing...Jim is fond of pointing out that Vashti was named for the queen of Ahasuerus in the first book of Esther who was one of the few biblical women to stand up for women’s rights. I think that's a pretty cool fact.

Check out the brief biography of Vashti written by Jim here:
http://www.inmccollum.org/JIMMC/vashti_mccollum.htm

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Other links
Americans United for the Separation of Church and State
James T. McCollum's Home Page

Living in Glass Houses....

I've returned to Magnolia after two weeks of helping my friend James Davidson and his University of Florida archaeological field school excavate a Spanish mission (more on that soon over on the Farther Along blog).

At any rate, my first full day back at the SAU Station and I got to witness what David Jeane and Frank Schambach have been telling me about for some time...this morning (around 8:15 am) a physical plant employee was mowing outside our laboratory area...the mower threw a small rock which hit one of the large windows that surround the Bruce Center...the resulting shatter was spectacular and it remains standing--crackling away as the structure further fractures--as I write.

I understand that it cost $1000 to replace these windows...and I understand that this rock-shatter business happens fairly regularly (at least two times a year)...so I wonder why they don't use a small weed eater instead, or simply landscape the Bruce Center so it will not need to be mowed...it has to be cheaper in the long run...

During Finals...

...this is what the snack machine in the Bruce Center on the Southern Arkansas University campus looks like. Not much to choose from, eh? 1 microwave popcorn, 2 peanut butter & crackers, 3 dove bars and a Mounds bar....sad...I took the peanut butter & crackers.

Oozeball 2007...

Ahhhh...another interesting SAU tradition--oozeball. Southern Arkansas University students celebrate the end of the spring semester and let off steam before finals with an annual mud volleyball game. Check out the YouTube video of this year's event:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-e8GTWzkUU

As we have our roots as an agricultural school & our campus maintains a large agricultural component...I love that at one point in the video you can hear the cows bellowing in the background.

Holt Hall Foundations

On Thursday, April 12, 2007 Dr. Ben Johsnon of the SAU History Department notified me that the Physical Plant employees had unearthed some foundations...When I heard this, I hoped that it might be the foundation of Old Main (the first structure on the SAU campus...See some of early posts here for some pics). . .Alas, it was not Old Main, but it was one of the first generation of SAU's buildings.

Holt Hall was one of the first dormitories quickly built in response to the overwhelming enrollment following the opening of what was then the Third District Agricultural School (TDAS) in 1909. Dr. James Willis identified the foundations and provided us with a date of 1911, which corresponded with the material remains--the foundations are made of a simple aggregate concrete without any rebar supports (certainly pre-1930s).

David Jeane (my AAS-SAU Station Asst.) and I spent a few hours documenting the remains of these foundation before the SAU Physical Plant took a jackhammer to the upper portions of the foundations.

Interestingly, Steven Oches' digital photography class showed up as well to document us documenting the foundations...

Above: The concrete foundations of Holt Hall.

For more pictures of the foundations (including some of the pics by Steven Oches' students) check out:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/jcbrandon/sets/72157600089736058/

Race, Katrina and Public Intellectuals

Last night I attended SAU's Kathleen Mallory Lecture. The series was named in honor of a long-time Professor of English and Foreign Languages at SAU who has been instrumental in the National Writing Project program, the Youth Writing Festival hosted by SAU among other important contributions.

The lecture series is meant to bring scholars working in the fields of African diasporic and African-American studies to Southern Arkansas University to share their scholarship with students and members of he greater community. . .sounds right up my alley, eh?

At any rate, this spring's lecture was a breath of fresh air...Dr. Melissa Harris-Lacewell (Assoc. Professor of Politics and African American Studies at Princeton University) provided a thoughtful analysis of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina with an emphasis on how the actual disaster was not the hurricane, but the structural inequalities that the hurricane highlighted--a long history of environmental racism, differential access to transportation, resources and political voice.

Even better is the fact that Dr. Harris-Lacewell kept a great sense of humor in her presentation that made discussions about race a bit more approachable for those who are usually uncomfortable with the topic...Dr. Harris-Lacewell is a fine example of what I think a public intellectual should look & sound like...and exactly what I needed to feel a bit more excited about SAU.

Kudos to her, kudos to the Kathleen Mallory series and kudos to SAU.

Find out (a lot) more about Dr. Harris-Lacewell at:
http://www.melissaharrislacewell.com/

Of course, I like her even more when I see that she shares my inexplicable urge to put my whole life on the web.

Long Time Gone...

Wow....I am truly sorry that I have been so remiss in my posting, but the spring semester has really knocked me off of my feet. My first semester as AAS-SAU Research Station archaeologist was very busy, but I managed to keep all of the balls juggled in the air...and I had a good time doing it.

The Spring semester is a different story, however...The addition of my 2 classes (General Anthropology and Anthropology of North American Indians) has swamped me as I did not cut back my outreach and research efforts. I have: closed on my house, gone to the SHAs in Williamsburg, VA, taught the archeology merit badge class at a Boy Scout Wintercamp at Camp DeSoto south of El Dorado (see photo above by Anthony Clay Newton), I have visited two CRM excavations in my station territory, I am helping to organize the upcoming Caddo Conference in Magnolia...I will be giving a program to the Kadohadacho Chapter of the AAS (Feb 13), an a program at Historic Washington State Park (Mar 6)...I have helped conduct geophysical surveys on a mound group in Northern Louisiana and I have helped map an Archaic site near Hot Springs...I am mapping 4 African-American cemeteries in my area...I will be documenting another cemetery and a well at Historic Washington State Park this month...and I have a journal article, a book chapter and an peer review for a regional journal all with deadlines this month.....Arrrgghhhh!

I LOVE teaching and would not stop if I had the chance...but I've learned a valuable lesson about "seasonal" outreach at the AAS-SAU Station...you live you learn.

I'll endeavor to post a little more regularly as we go through the spring...

Happy Holidays from Magnolia!

The image in this post is SAU's signauture Bell Tower all "lit up" for the holidays (it usually looks like this).

It's hard to believe that I'll be finishing my first semester as the AAS-SAU Research Station Archeologist...time goes by quite quickly.

My first semester here I've dealt with the Cedar Grove Collection theft, started raising money to secure and refurbish our station and the future SAU Museum and begun the process of reviving the Kadohadacho chapter of the Arkansas Archeological Society. I attended three conferences, gave two conference papers and did two public talks, three radio interviews and several TV and newspaper interviews. I attended two weekend public outreach events (Texarkana Archeology Fair and Civil War Days at Old Washington) and wrote an article and a book chapter.

By far, my favorite parts of this semester have been getting to know my station territory with the help of Vernon Perry, Anthony Clay Newton and Peggy Lloyd...I've gotten to see a lot of sites (both prehistoric and historic) and a WHOLE LOT of cemeteries.

To all my friends and family--both in Magnolia and elsewhere--Happy Holidays!