Anthropology
Head of the Department: Steve Leigh
Director of Graduate Studies: Alejandro Lugo
Museum Studies Program Coordinator: Susan Frankenberg
109 Davenport Hall
607 South Mathews Avenue
Urbana, IL 61801
(217) 333-3616
E-mail: anthro@illinois.edu
Major: Anthropology
Degrees offered: M.A., Ph.D.
Graduate Minor: Museum Studies
Medical Scholars Program: Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Anthropology and Doctor of Medicine (M.D.) through the Medical Scholars Program.
Graduate Degree Programs
The Department of Anthropology offers graduate programs leading to the Master of Arts and the Doctor of Philosophy degrees.
Admission
Students without the equivalent of the department’s undergraduate concentration may be admitted to either degree program, but they will be required to make up deficiencies in their anthropological backgrounds. In addition to the Graduate College admission requirements, students are required to submit Graduate Record Examination (GRE) scores. Students whose native language is not English are required to take the Test of English as a Foreign Language (TOEFL) and achieve a minimum score of 550 on the paper-based test (213 computer-based test). Students are admitted for the fall term only.
Students wishing to pursue the minor in Museum Studies must be in good standing in the graduate program of an academic department, and must apply for acceptance into the minor. Admission to the minor is contingent upon approval of the student’s home department and the Museum Studies Steering Committee. Students may apply to the minor during the first week of the fall and spring semesters in any academic year, and should contact the Museum Studies Program Coordinator for application instructions or more information.
Degree Requirements
*For additional details and requirements refer to the department and the Graduate College Handbook.
Master of Arts
| Required Courses | Thesis Option-Required Hours | Non-thesis Option-Required Hours |
|---|---|---|
| Thesis Hours Required–ANTH 599 (min/max applied toward degree): | 0 min | |
| Total Hours | 32 | 32 |
Minimum Hours Required Within the Unit: |
8 at the 500 level | 8 at the 500 level |
Minimum 500-level Hours Required Overall: |
12 | 12 |
| Other Requirements:* | ||
| Minimum GPA: | 3.0 | 3.0 |
The master's degree can be a first stage toward the doctorate or may be used by students wishing to apply knowledge of anthropology to a related field. Candidates must present a thesis or paper in lieu of a thesis acceptable to their advisers and another member of the graduate faculty within the department.
Doctor of Philosophy
| Required Hours | |
|---|---|
| Language Requirement: High proficiency in one, or reading ability in two, foreign languages is required. Statistics, computer modeling, or similar expertise, however, may be used in lieu of one foreign language. | |
| Thesis Hours Required–ANTH 599 w(min/max applied toward degree): | 32 |
| Total Hours | 64 |
| Other Requirements: | |
| Minimum GPA: | 3.0 |
| Masters Degree Required for Admission to PhD? | No, but Masters level requirements must be met (additional 32 hours min) |
| Qualifying Exam Required | No |
| Preliminary Exam Required | Yes |
| Final Exam/Dissertation Defense Required | Yes |
| Dissertation Deposit Required | Yes |
The preliminary examination consists of a pre-dissertation research paper, a proposal for doctoral research, and a written examination designed by the student's doctoral committee followed by a two-hour oral examination. The final examination is a defense of the doctoral thesis. Fieldwork is strongly recommended, although not required.
Graduate Minor Requirements
The Graduate Minor in Museum Studies is designed for MA and PhD students who wish to complement their degree program with interdisciplinary study of the theory, organization and management of museums and museum collections. The program offers broad coverage of different disciplines’ approaches to museum theory, and practice, including interdisciplinary perspectives from Anthropology, Art History, Landscape Architecture, History, Education, and Library and Information Sciences. The program also focuses on the collaborative, international and multicultural nature of museum work in curating, researching and communicating the tangible and intangible evidence of people and their environment. Students acquire the applied theory required to successfully work on, with or in museums. Students may tailor the minor to their career goals by choosing among electives that emphasize different theoretical and technical aspects of museum studies.
| Hours | |
|---|---|
| MUSE 500 | 4 |
| Electives from an approved list of museum-related courses, at least one of which must be at the 500-level. | 12 |
| Total Hours | 16 |
| Minimum 500-level Hours Required Overall | 8 |
| Other Requirements:* | |
| The student must participate in a capstone experience consisting of an approved museum-based internship, museum-related project or museum-related research paper. Every student must provide a product of this experience in the form of either a formal professional presentation or a written document. If a student chooses to write their MS thesis or PhD dissertation on a museum topic, this will fulfill (but is not required for) the capstone experience, provided that a member of the Museum Studies Steering Committee is a formal member of the student’s thesis or dissertation committee. Student may receive academic credit for their capstone experience through their home department or MUSE 590. | |
| In addition to the minor requirements, students must also complete the requirements of their major degree. The major department determines which and how many minor hours may also be applied to the major degree. Please contact your department for more information. |
Medical Scholars Program
The Medical Scholars Program permits highly qualified students to integrate the study of medicine with study for a graduate degree in a second discipline, including Anthropology. Students may apply to the Medical Scholars Program prior to beginning graduate school or while in the graduate program. Applicants to the Medical Scholars Program must meet the admissions standards for and be accepted into both the doctoral graduate program and the College of Medicine. Students in the dual degree program must meet the specific requirements for both the medical and graduate degrees. On average, students take eight years to complete both degrees. Further information on this program is available by contacting the Medical Scholars Program, 125 Medical Sciences Building, (217) 333-8146 or at www.med.illinois.edu/msp.
Graduate Teaching Experience
Although teaching is not a general Graduate College requirement, experience in teaching is considered an important part of the graduate experience in this program.
Faculty Research Interests and Facilities
Courses and individualized study provide broad coverage of sociocultural, linguistic, archaeological, and physical anthropology. The department provides special emphases in the analyses of state ideologies and cultural transformations; complex societies in transition; kinship and gender relationships; symbolism and cognition; cosmology, art, and religion; politics, economics, and ethnicity; language and culture; ethnomusicology; text and narrative analysis; formal analysis and mathematical modeling; medical anthropology; human evolution; agricultural origins and development; hunter-gatherer adaptations; diet and nutrition; paleoecology and paleobiology; comparative and analytical osteology; and nonhuman primate evolution, morphology, behavior, and ecology. The department’s Laboratory of Anthropology has archaeological, paleoethnobotany, faunal analysis, human biology, casting, stable-isotope analysis, and ethnographic laboratories. The department is developing visual arts and networked computer laboratories.
Departmental funds and a grant from the National Science Foundation are available for graduate students’ summer field research. An archaeology field school is held at various locations in Illinois and occasionally elsewhere (location varies from year to year). Graduate student programs are enriched by close departmental relationships with the interdisciplinary area studies centers on campus (African, East Asian and Pacific, Latin America and Caribbean, and Russian and East European), and with the Afro-American Studies and Research Program, Women’s Studies Program, La Casa Cultural Latina, Women and Gender in Global Perspectives Program, Spurlock Museum, Museum of Natural History, Krannert Art Museum, and the Program in Ancient Technologies and Archaeological Materials.
Agreements between the University and various governments and institutes facilitate research in many nations. Training is available in various languages, including Quechua, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Indonesian, Thai, Burmese, Swahili, Hausa, Lingala, Wolof, Arabic, and Shona. Students have ready access to the extensive computer facilities of the University and to the department’s facilities, which include microcomputers, printers, software, and mainframe computer terminals, a graphic digitizer and color printer, photographic and video equipment, and other research-oriented hardware and software. The Journal of the Steward Anthropological Society, edited by graduate students, has been published since 1969.
Financial Aid
University fellowships, Graduate College fellowships for under-represented minorities, and teaching and research assistantships provide variable levels of funding for most graduate students who do not hold external awards. Tuition and service fee waivers accompany fellowships and assistantships. Foreign Language and Area Studies (FLAS) fellowships are available through various area centers. Extensive contract archaeology programs in the department provide support and research employment for graduate students, as does the U.S. Army Construction Engineering Research Laboratory in Champaign.