Aligning Pedagogy, Compliance, and Research: A Year-One Assessment of Boise State’s Semester-Based Field School

Summary

This is an abstract from the "SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts" session, at the 90th annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology.

The completion of an archaeological field school continues to be one of the main qualifying criteria for employment in the broader realm of cultural resource management. Yet costs associated with participation in either domestic or international programs keep increasing. Moreover, 4-6 week full-time field schools pose additional challenges regarding accessibility and inclusivity at a time when qualified technicians are desperately needed. In this context, in 2024 the Dept. of Anthropology at Boise State University decided to switch its field school from a full-time Summer program to a once-a-week semester-long course. In this paper, we will discuss goals, challenges, and outcomes after Year 1. More specifically, we will address the implications of said shift for prioritization in the areas of pedagogy, compliance, and research. This assessment of experiences and observations benefits from the fact that the program relies on the input and active participation of partners from academia, government agencies, and the private sector. Lastly, exit interviews with students who had previously partaken in other programs also inform the decisions guiding future iterations of our field school.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• Society for American Archaeology 90th Annual Meeting, Denver, CO (2025)   •
• SAA 2025: Individual Abstracts

Keywords

Record Identifiers

Abstract Id(s): 52484