Governing Council Today: Terry Redding, Communications Committee

[NOTE: Today marks the restarting of an important blog series, Governing Council Today. The series presents thoughts and information from members of the NAPA GC on a biweekly basis, to provide NAPA members with insights and transparency on the association’s leadership. The series will be coordinated by Bethany Grove and Amanda Woomer. For more information on the GC, select the “about” tab above.]

NAPA Communications and Online Career Resources

NAPA offers several web-based resources to facilitate the careers of budding and established practicing anthropologists. These resources are still under development; to help us in the process please let us know what resources you would like to see, either in the comments section below or via our contact us page.

Podcasts
The newest of these career resources is a pilot podcast series featuring 15 to 30-minute interviews with established anthropologists about their career trajectories. These podcasts are free and available for download to the public here.

The podcasts are managed by Steve Wilson. Please distribute the podcast link as appropriate, and let us have your feedback on this initial series. If there is enough interest and demand, NAPA will undertake future rounds of podcasts.

Interview Series
Our bi-weekly practitioner interview series will pick up again next Tuesday. This series, produced by Kristy Keller and Nicole Conand, presents discussions from anthropologists about interesting work realities, mundane daily issues, and everything in between. Last year, this series appeared on the NAPA LinkedIn page. To provide more length and depth, this series will now appear on this blog. If you would like to be featured, we would love to hear from you!

Mentoring FAQs
An extensive list of FAQs was launched last fall in the career section of this site. Designed mostly for undergraduate and new graduate students, the series covers topics such as course selection, dual majors, internships, and how to approach graduate school. The questions and answers were developed by Tom Greaves and Elizabeth Briody, and are based on several years of discussions and mentoring questions coming from those in the NAPA Mentoring Program. Get started here.

Position Listings
Links to online directories and organizational job openings are also found in the career section.

Included are position listings, field schools, internships, etc. This section is in ongoing development. If you have a favorite employment resource, let us know.

Career Development
Finally, our career development page is currently under construction. So far, you will find information on being an independent consultant, and how to transition from academia to the non-academic labor market. A list of useful resources is also included.

NAPA Social Media
Of course our Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter pages feature ongoing discussions and postings about issues of relevance to practitioners. And the online and print versions of Anthropology News contain specific NAPA updates as well as other AAA information. You can also join the NAPA listserv to keep current on key issues, delivered right to your inbox.

NAPA will continue to produce materials of use to those seeking to launch or change their careers in practitioner anthropology. Your thoughts, ideas and suggestions will facilitate our development of the most relevant information.

Thanks for reading; tune in next week for the re-launch of the interview series, and the week after that for the next GC posting.