Hey.  Thanks for taking a peek at my life!  A lot of the time instructors forget to tell the world a little about themselves leading to students remarking about knowing absolutely nothing about what their professor does other than teach courses.  Here's a quick rundown on my life and interests (feel free to fast-forward, er...scroll, through the dull parts):

I was born in the Northwoods of Wisconsin with a window view of Lake Superior.  For those of you who think it gets cold in North Florida and are lucky to have seen snowflakes perhaps once in your life, I recall many a day shoveling snow into piles taller than I was and thinking it was warm when it would hit zero (since moving to Florida, my cold threshold has lowered to about 50 degrees).  Northern Wisconsin was home to a lot of nature, but it also had its problems.  Rather than development, it suffered from economic decline and depopulation.  It is now one of those places where Wal-Mart has replaced nearly every other business in the area.  Despite these growing problems of outsourcing of union labor to foreign countries and growing poverty, I am proud to call such an atmosphere "home."  Why?  Well, for starters, it is in just that area that made me realize how close people can be to nature, and why anthropology was right for me.  Within about 60 miles of my hometown there were several Indian reservations, all bands of the Chippewa (Anishnabe or Ojibwe) Indian people.  I went to school with Indians, I played with Indians, and I saw the discomfort they possessed in uncertain economic times when they were combating a system that just didn't understand what it meant to be "indigenous" (native).  While my Indian friends dropped out of school, I always wondered "why?" at the time.  In hindsight, I can look back and see public school textbooks that said nothing about the accomplishments or history of the local Indian peoples - nothing about their heritage, religion, values.  Throw in lack of economic opportunities or community development, and you have an equation for rampant poverty, alcoholism and domestic violence.  So how did people escape this?  Well, the youth moved away to opportunities elsewhere:  Duluth, Minneapolis, mega-cities to those of us from a town of 8,000.  And I did the same.

I went to the University of Wisconsin, Eau Claire where I was first introduced to Anthropology.  It was rather a fluke, actually, as I had intended to become a chemist, but the fear of living in isolation in a laboratory for hours on end eventually lost out to more creative endeavors.  Soon I was taking one, then two, then three, then...oops, every Anthropology course that was offered (archaeology and physical), minoring in that and also in Sociology.  Spanish became my main subject as there was no major in Anthropology at UWEC.  I was particularly entranced by Latin American civilizations and cultures, though languages in general also interested me.  This was, however, to be put on hold for a while.

On to Arizona.  After graduating from UWEC, I heard about an innovative new Master's program in Anthropology at Northern Arizona  University in Flagstaff.  A beautiful (and distracting!) mountain town at nearly 7000 feet on the edges of the Colorado Plateau, a short drive from the Navajo and Hopi Indian reservations, the Grand Canyon, and still within a couple hours' drive of Phoenix.  NAU offered a program known as "Applied Anthropology," one of only a few in the nation at the time.  What the heck is that?  Well, at the time it was a very new and emergent sub-discipline within Anthropology, focusing around the general theme of moving away from the traditional armchair (study-write) model of Anthropology and into innovative projects that are aimed at putting the knowledge of training into use to solve real-world problems.  Sometimes the Anthropologist is in typical academia, but oftentimes the Anthropologist will carry other titles, working in education, business, health care, and a slew of other areas.  I became interested in education and ways to integrate technology into curriculum in  transformative ways in order to learn about cultural diversity.  Completing my Master's degree at NAU in Applied Anthropology (with emphasis in culture and educational foundations/theory), I learned that if I was really going to be able to make a change in education (i.e. study it, analyze it, and modify it) that I was going to have to take a further leap in education.  So here I was back to education again, and another leap across the country, this time to Florida.

So, Florida is where I have been for the past 14 years, and how everything comes back around again "full circle."  Arriving in Florida, I finished my studies at the University of Florida (Gainesville), going back to Latin America and combining this with my interests in indigenous peoples and languages.  For my doctoral research, I lived and studied among the Huichol Indians of Mexico, one of the most closed indigenous communities in Mexico from the outside world who still retain many of their ancient customs and beliefs still intact.  With these people, I specifically looked at issues of identity and cultural preservation at the first Huichol indigenously controlled secondary school in Mexico.  My 2001 Ph.D. dissertation, "Ethno-nationalist Politics and Cultural Preservation: Education and Bordered Identities Among the Wixaritari (Huichol) of Tateikita, Jalisco, Mexico" is available from UMI Press or, perhaps, your local library.  I have continued to dedicate my life to studies of native peoples and applied anthropology.  Interestingly enough, the opposite of what happened to my hometown is what is occurring in the once-remote Sierra Madre village where I conducted my research and maintain connections to this day: development is rapid and uncontrolled, abandonment of traditional religion is threatened by evangelical missionaries, and a society based on democratic socialism is becoming capitalistic, individualistic, and class-based.

These changes in my original research community has led me to become involved in aspects of sustainable tourism and the impact of globalization on native cultures both "at home and abroad."  How do indigenous communities come to redefine identity amid globalization?  A number of years ago, I began examining these issues in South America (Peru) as well as in emergent and existent American Indian communities in the United States.  Most recently, I have begun collaborating with Peruvian archaeologists and scholars on the preservation of cultural patrimony, most notably at the historic sanctuary of Machu Picchu.  With the recent addition of Machu Picchu as one of the "Seven New Wonders of the World" in July 2007, there will no doubt be both positive and negative consequences of such attention to the sanctuary.

Since leaving the University of Florida, I moved on to the University of North Florida where I taught for nine years.  In Fall 2010, I joined the FSCJ faculty full-time as a Professor of Anthropology.  I teach Cultural Anthropology, Biological-Physical Anthropology, Archaeology, and Humanities ("Globalization and Culture" and "North American Indians").

On the personal side, I engage as a Living History Interpreter.  I volunteer with the National Park Service at Fort Caroline/Timucuan Preserve, the Castillo de San Marcos, the St. Augustine Spanish Garrison, and the Men of Menendez.

Academics
(These were converted from the original texts to PDFs.  There may be some formatting inconsistencies as these were created prior to PDF/digital formatting requirements at their respective schools.  The author retains copyright to all said materials.  Any citations, copying, and/or reproduction without author permission are expressly forbidden.  For academic use only. )

Master's Paper (1995, Northern Arizona University)

"Educational Futures, Cultural Change, and the Community College: Integrating Language, Technology, and Diversity into the Anthropological Curriculum"

Dissertation (2001, University of Florida)

"Ethno-nationalist Politics and Cultural Preservation: Education and Bordered Identities Among the Wixaritari of Tateikita, Jalisco, Mexico"

Some pics of me at leisure and in the field (through the years):

For more information about Anthropology, try visiting the following links of professional anthropological organizations and Bachelor's and Master's Degree programs:

Anthropology Department at the University of Florida (Gainesville)
Anthropology Department at Florida State University (Tallahassee)
Anthropology Department at the University of Central Florida (Orlando)
Anthropology Department at the University of South Florida (Tampa)
Anthropology Program at the University of North Florida (Jacksonville)
Anthropology Department at Northern Arizona University (Flagstaff)
The Society for Applied Anthropology
The American Anthropological Association
American Association of Physical Anthropologists
Archaeological Institute of America (public and academic)
Society for American Archaeology (academic)
Society for Historical Archaeology (academic)

Peru Photos (May-July 2007 FSCJ Study-Abroad Trip)

Picassa Web Album

Tribal Websites and Resources

Hopi Cultural Preservation Office
Great Lakes Intertribal Council
Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma
Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (North Carolina)
Cherokee of Georgia State Tribe
Seminole Nation of Florida
Indian Country Today Media Network
Powwow Directory
Gathering of Nations Powwow (New Mexico)
National Museum of the American Indian (Washington, DC)
National Park Service
Timucuan Historical and Ecological Preserve + Fort Caroline National Memorial
Kingsley Plantation at the Timucuan Preserve
Castillo de San Marcos