Compiled by Dennis Wiedman, President Florida International University wiedmand@fiu.edu

Hello NAPA Members:

With this eNewsletter we prepare for the November 2008 AAA meetings, and next week’s NAPA Governing Council meeting and the NAPA Planning meeting in concert with the Memphis SfAA conference.

Thursday, March 27, all members are invited to attend the NAPA planning meeting from 8:30 to noon and the Governing Council meeting from 1:00 to 5:00. These will be in the Tennessee Ballroom Salon A & B at the Wyndham Garden Memphis Hotel, 300 North Second Street, across the street from the main SfAA meeting hotel.

At the NAPA planning meeting led by President-Elect Mary Butler-Odell, five working groups will present their sections of the long range plan that guide us for the next five years. These groups formed this past November at the Washington AAA meetings. After further refinement in Memphis, the plan will be distributed to the membership and then finalized at the November 2008 meetings.

I look forward to seeing you in Memphis

Dennis Wiedman, NAPA President

AAA 2008 Submission deadline is April 1st, 2008

Volunteered sessions, posters and papers should be submitted directly to the AAA on the meetings web site.  However, before submitting an individual paper, you are encouraged to contact the Program

Chair, Kate Gillogly at (kagillogly@comcast.net). It is possible we can find a slot for your paper in an organized session, which can considerably increase chances of acceptance.  This year, the Program Committee is encouraging Roundtables in general and these will not be counted against our invited sessions. That means you can submit a volunteered session as a roundtable, which was not possible before.  Also consider a Poster. In addition to invited Poster Sessions, NAPA has a slot for an Invited Poster.  AAA has committed to a more central location for posters in 2008, and it’s an excellent alternative format for presenting your research allowing for much more discussion. Workshop Proposals are also due April 1st, 2008.  Contact Lenora Bohren at bohren@CAHS.Colostate.edu for more information.

Employer Exposition at AAA Meetings

If you would like your employer represented at the Employer Exposition at the 2008 AAA meetings contact Cathleen Crain, Chair of the NAPA Organizational Relations Committee at Partners@ltgassociates.com This third Expo should bring even more visibility to practitioners.

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NAPA eNewsletter

Student Achievement Award Deadline July 1, 2008

The NAPA Student Achievement Award recognizes student contributions in the area of practicing and applied anthropology. Papers are especially appropriate that examine community impacts, identify and improve local/service needs, or communicate anthropological theory and methods to non- anthropologists in collaborative research settings including non-profit agencies, communities, businesses and industrial organizations.

Winning students receive cash prizes, publication of their papers, and a certificate of recognition awarded at the NAPA Business Meeting during the 2008 AAA meeting in San Francisco. For more information see the web page at: http://www.practicinganthropology.org/students/?section=student_award

Papers must be submitted by July 1 to the NAPA Student Representative at:

studentrep@practicinganthropology.org.

Employment Web Page Policies. By Dennis Wiedman

Setha Low, President of the AAA, telephoned the NAPA President on February 6th expressing the concern that a job advertisement on the NAPA employment page continued to be posted even though the AAA had issued a statement strongly disapproving the Human Terrains Systems program.

( http://dev.aaanet.org/press/PM_112807.htm )  It had been posted Nov 4, 2007. Even with multiple key word searches it was not easily locatable on the NAPA employment web page.

NAPA was asked by the AAA President to respond within 24 hours. In consultation with NAPA Governing Council members and the NAPA Ethics Committee, the NAPA President decided to remove the ad from the web site with the intention that the NAPA Governing Council would then begin the process to develop a policy for job postings on the NAPA web site. Due to member responses, the AAA is now revising the ethics and advertising policies.

The NAPA Governing Council at its spring meeting March 27th will work to develop a clear policy statement, selection criteria, and procedures for posting employment ads on the NAPA web page. The NAPA Ethics Committee, Chaired by Inga Treitler, is leading this initiative. ingat@knology.net

Fourth annual Ethnographic Praxis in Industry Conference (EPIC) By Ken Anderson.

This year we will be gathering in Copenhagen, Denmark from Oct. 15 – 18, 2008 for a rich program of talks, demos, conversation, debate and fun!  The theme of EPIC2008 is “Being Seen: Paradoxes and Practices of (In)Visibility.”

EPIC is the premier international forum bringing together artists, computer scientists, designers, social scientists, marketers, academics and advertisers to discuss recent developments and future advances around ethnographic praxis. Submission deadlines begin as of April 18, 2008. For more information please go to www.epic2008.com

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NAPA eNewsletter

Evaluation Anthropology Interest Group: By Jackie Copeland-Carson

The Evaluation Anthropology Interest Group, NAPA‘s first topical interest group, needs to move to the next stage. Due to my own career and other transitions, I am no longer able to lead our group. We need a chair with an institutional base and student support to continue our activities. We also need

volunteers to support the chair by leading various EAIG projects. If you‘re interested and have the institutional support to be the new chair, please let‘s set up a time for a call. If there is interest, I would also like to organize a business meeting at the 2008 AAA to “pass the baton” and plan EAIG’s activities for the next year. Among the potential projects planned that we need someone to lead include:

1. Developing and implementing a plan for EAIG‘s future development with input from our dispersed, largely virtual membership.

2. Further develop EAIG‘s presence as a virtual community by building a website, Facebook page or other mechanism. In addition to posting jobs, consulting, training and teaching opportunities, such a tool would enable more regular dialogue about evaluation anthropology project and challenges. We could also post papers from the six AEA and AAA sessions we‘ve conducted over the past 3 years (about 20 papers).

3. Continuing collaboration with our American Evaluation Association (AEA) colleagues to organize evaluation anthropology sessions at their annual conferences. If there is interest, one idea is to do a

2008 panel called Indigenous Ways of Knowing in Evaluation: Examples from Ethnographic

Approaches. Perhaps we could do this in collaboration with one of the AEA TIGs.

4. Ensuring that our virtual community convenes for in-person mutual support and dialogue at each of our major annual conferences, AAA, AEA, SfAA.

Over the years, EAIG’s accomplishments include:

1)  An inaugural, double invited session, Creating Evaluation Anthropology Futures

2)  Establishing a LISTSERV

3)  Two annual panels at the AAA and AEA each year with a business meeting (except for last year) at the AAA for mutual support and conversation, including valuable collaborations with both the Participatory/Empowerment and last year the Qualitative Evaluation TIG

4) A well-received and widely read monograph that sets out Evaluation Anthropology as a legitimate, interdisciplinary paradigm

AAA Vote on Electronic Balloting

If you have not already done so, you should be receiving shortly a paper ballot from the AAA in the mail. This ballot initiative will allow members to vote electronically. Electronic voting will allow the AAA to be more responsive to member concerns and more democratic in a timely fashion.  This will assist all of the AAA, including the Section Assembly and the Executive Board, to be more responsive since we‘ll be able to vote during the course of the year as needed. We urge you to send in your votes.

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NAPA eNewsletter

Occupational Information Network (O*NET)

As part of the NAPA’s efforts to increase awareness of our profession, we are collaborating with Research Triangle Institute (RTI) on the Occupational Information Network (O*NET) sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor. The O*NET program provides occupational information

regarding more than 800 occupations nationwide, free of charge, to the general public including millions of students, workers, educators, and employers. Visit this link to see how some communities have implemented the current data at www.doleta.gov/programs/onet/oina.cfm.

NAPA members were invited to participate in 2004 and it was a terrific success. This year, your participation is critical in order to maintain accurate and contemporary information regarding Anthropologists. To view the outcome of the last update (published in 2005), please visit this link at http://online.onetcenter.org/link/summary/19-3091.01.

A random sample of occupation experts (OE) will be contacted by telephone. If you are selected, an O*NET representative will call you to request your voluntary participation. The call will last approximately 3 to 5 minutes in order to verify eligibility of the “occupation expert,” to ask you to complete a set of questionnaires (paper or online versions available), and to confirm your preferred mailing address. By participating, you will contribute to a key resource providing our nation’s citizens with continuously updated occupational information. Responses from all experts will be combined to define the knowledge, work activities, and other aspects of work in your field. Each randomly selected participant will receive a $40.00 cash token of appreciation along with an oak-framed certificate of appreciation from the USDOL.

All O*NET data collection procedures were approved by RTI’s Institutional Review Board which protects the rights of research participants. To maintain respondent confidentiality, only a few RTI staffers have access to individual level data and they have all signed confidentiality agreements. The O*NET data is published and released at the occupation level only and/or reported in aggregate form only.

AAA Awards: You are invited to submit nominations for the AAA awards. These include the David M. Schneider Award; the Robert B. Textor and Family Prize for Excellence in Anticipatory Anthropology; the Solomon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology; the Margaret Mead Award; the Anthropology in the Media Award; the AAA/Oxford Award for excellence in Undergraduate Teaching of Anthropology; and last, but by no means least, the Franz Boas Award for Exemplary Service to Anthropology

Details about the awards, the time frame for nominations, and the criteria for eligibility are available at: http://www.aaanet.org/about/prizes-awards/

The AAA‘s ability to recognize the excellent work of our colleagues is dependent on nominations, and we hope that you will consider nominating an outstanding colleague for one of these awards.

Please note that if you intend on submitting a packet and you need more time to get it together or you have questions about any of these awards, please contact Kathy Ano, the Awards Committee liaison at AAA headquarters at kano@aaanet.org; 703-528-1902, ext. 3003.

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