CU-Boulder Professor Emeritus Jack Kelso will present "Vocationalizing the Liberal Arts: Confessions of an Anthropologist," a March 8 lecture about the importance of introductory courses in anthropology and the impressions they leave on students.
The lecture, co-sponsored by CU-Boulder Chancellor Richard L. Byyny and the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations, is at 7:30 p.m in room 1B50 of the Humanities Building. Kelso聮s talk is part of the new "Campus Lecture Series" scheduled monthly through May in the new Humanities Building.
Kelso, a longtime professor of anthropology at CU-Boulder who was the recipient of the 1996 Hazel Barnes Award, plans to use introductory courses in anthropology as an illustration of the way such courses leave students with the impression that the field is about different cultures and people instead of humankind and themselves.
"麻豆淫院 get this impression because introductory courses are typically designed for those students who will take further coursework in the field," Kelso said. "In the case of anthropology, these introductory courses do not aim so much in the direction of teaching anthropology as they do in the direction of training more anthropologists." He said the way the classes are being taught now focuses on the competitive needs of the few at the expense of the educational needs of the many.
His idea for an improved course would focus less on terms, concepts, techniques, theories, endless descriptions of artifacts, fossils and the odd customs of exotic peoples, and more on helping students enrich their understanding of themselves and enhance their value as resources to others who touch their lives.
Kelso joined the University of Colorado in 1958 and remained a faculty member in the anthropology department until his retirement in 1996. He was the first vice chancellor of academic affairs on the Colorado Springs campus, and at his retirement was the acting chair of the speech, language and hearing sciences department.
All the lectures in the "Campus Lecture Series" feature former Hazel Barnes Awardees, the top campus award recognizing excellence in teaching and research.
The lecture series has two remaining lectures:
* April 12 聳 English Professor Emeritus Reg Saner will present one of the lectures "Bad Books," or "Why We Don聮t Believe What We Know," in Humanities Building room 250.
* May 10 聳 Biology Professor Emerita Jane Bock, together with husband Carl Bock, also a biology professor at CU-Boulder, will read from their newest book, "The View From Bald Hill: Thirty Years in an Arizona Grassland," in Humanities Building room 150. A book signing will follow the presentation.
All lectures in the series are free and open to the public. For more information, contact the CU-Boulder Office of Community Relations at (303) 492-8384.