Ithaca College

It would habve made sense to pdf these documents and put them as linnks on line since then they can be easily shared with students in various sitiuations.

--Dani Novak (Math)

I appreciate very much John Henderson's posting information about the five ethnnographic field schools that Joel Savishinsky and I ran on small islands in the Bahamas in the 1970's, just at the time that the Anthropology Department was getting off the ground. These field schools ran for four to six weeks over Ithaca College's two-week long spring break. (Who else remembers those days?) In addition to receiving credit for the fieldwork, students also enrolled with us on-campus for courses in Anthropological Field Methods and Peoples and Cultures of the Caribbean. Typically, students wrote three papers -- one on what it was like being a cultural anthropologist and two others, a descriptive paper (the funeral of a 106 year old resident, the uses of the coconut, boat building, marbles, etc.) and an analytical paper (the impact of the Hurricane of 1924, grandparents raising grandchildren, "goat politics" or just who did own the goats that roamed the island, etc.) -- in addition to keeping field journals. Immersion was pretty total.

And yes, on a dark and windy night, the DC3 carrying the group of student anthropologists to the tiny island of San Salvador in March 1973 overshot the runway and landed in the sea. Students, with first-day-in-the-field jitters, struggling with their informed consent monologues, wondering how to introduce themselves, enjoyed instant recognition and were welcomed with open arms! When Ted Baker, Dean of H&S, came down to visit the group a week later, he turned almost white upon seeing the skeletal remains of the plane, and wondered out loud how we survived the crash uninjured. (He might also have wondered why there were no law suits! Who else remembers those days?)

As so often happens during "study abroad," reverse culture shock was more difficult than culture shock. We were often greeted upon our return to IC with "How was your vacation?" For many, carrying out such field research was the most significant teaching-learning experience since entering college, so the question was a bit jarring. The edited volumes of collected papers (some well over 300 pages long, Dani, so not necessarily pdf format material!), still on the shelves of the government Archives of the Bahamas, have been praised by Bahamians and Bahamas scholars alike.

I like John Henderson's suggestion that such work done by an earlier generation of Ithaca College students can be seen as a "prequel" -- more evidence that librarians too provide our link to the past.

Garry Thomas
Ancestor
Department of Anthropology