The Benefits, Challenges, and Student Outcomes of an Academic-Governmental Collaboration for Local Undergraduate Field Training in Archaeology

Summary

This is an abstract from the "Training a New Generation of Heritage Professionals in the Valley of the Sun: The ASU Field School at S’eḏav Va’aki" session, at the 89th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

In 2021 the City of Phoenix’s Archaeology Office invited Arizona State University instructors and students to assist in the development of a management plan for a parcel of land within the S’eḏav Va’aki Museum and Archaeological Park lands via a field training program in archaeological site assessment. This invitation was well-timed as ASU had also been looking to develop lower cost local field training opportunities. A treatment plan and course outline were developed through periodic meetings among ASU, the City’s Archaeology Office, and the Tribal Historic Preservation Offices of Gila River and Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Communities. The field program was designed to provide students broad training that included archaeological field and lab methods, as well as a background in tribal consultation, the cultural resource management sector, relevant legal and ethical frameworks, permitting, curation, archival research, and long-term preservation planning. This poster describes the benefits and challenges of the collaboration for student outcomes. Such a program, while certainly more administratively challenging than many alternative arrangements, provides students with a number of important protections, greater access to instruction, additional training opportunities beyond the course, and chances for professional networking outside of academic archaeology.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 89th Annual Meeting, New Orleans, LA (2024)   •
• Training a New Generation of Heritage Professionals in the Valley of the Sun: The ASU Field School at S’eḏav Va’aki

Keywords

Spatial Coverage

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 38494.0