We kickstarted this week with a great talk with a guest speaker from the anthropology department, Elizabeth Carpenter-Song. Elizabeth not only talked about ethnographic research’s methods and value, but also related her talk to her own experiences as a researcher in the Upper Valley, which students really appreciated, especially as so many of their own projects will occur in similar environments. Although some students in the class have taken ethnographic coursework, the experience was a good refresher for them, and a solid introduction to students being first introduced to ethnography.
From a team perspective though, most of our week was occupied by figuring out and finalizing project teams for the next two terms. These were introduced to the class on Thursday, after mini project #2 presentations. Overall, it felt like a very worthwhile endeavor to have put so much time into forming these teams as student satisfaction over project and/or team was pretty high. We’re looking forward to seeing what happens next week when project work actually begins!