Strategic plan 2025-2029

Goal 1: College to career: Innovative teaching and student success

Focus

Training diverse cohorts of students through innovative undergraduate and graduate teaching. Preparing students with anthropological knowledge that will translate into success in a range of careers and make impactful contributions to the community stakeholders their work serves.

Related efforts

Developing compassionate teaching, inclusive classroom environments, mentoring and extracurricular events for students with diverse backgrounds and abilities.
Incorporating hands-on experiences and innovative pedagogies in and outside the classroom, including collaborations with the Anthropology Undergraduate Learning Community, Grosscup Museum of Anthropology and community partner institutions.
Promoting College-to-Career skills through course content, professional development workshops, anthropology and museum practicum courses, archaeological fieldwork course and the Graduate Certificate in Museum Practice.
Strengthening partnerships and career opportunities beyond the department, including with resources across the university (e.g., Humanities Clinic), alumni networks and internships with community, government and corporate partners.
Supporting faculty and staff pedagogical development through the Office of Teaching and Learning, professional anthropological society workshops and resources provided by community, government and corporate partners.
Utilizing an assessment-driven approach to curriculum design and improvement that is responsive to evolving student needs and changes in anthropology.
Supporting timely degree completion by planning departmental course offerings in advance, scheduling courses for optimal student convenience and removing other curricular obstacles.
Developing a career expo to expose students to professions relevant to anthropological training and alumni practitioners.

Goal 2: Excellence in research

Focus

Generating impactful research outputs and scholarly activities across the breadth of the discipline, including (but not limited to) grant-funded research and public scholarship.

Related efforts

Maintaining high-quality research productivity, including seeking extramural funding
Recognizing the diverse forms of scholarly outputs and funding mechanisms that shape faculty and student research.
Prioritizing hiring of faculty members whose research is relevant to timely anthropological issues, public engagement and the strategic goals and mission of the university.
Advocating for improvements to university research infrastructure to support pre- and post-award grant management, contracts and other forms of funding.
Promoting accessibility of our research findings through public dissemination with a focus on reducing financial barriers (e.g., open access journals) and articulating the relevance of anthropology to issues of equity, diversity, belonging and other social concerns.
Training students in research ethics, contemporary problems and community-based, national and global research.
Encouraging interdisciplinary, inter-university and international research collaborations.

Goal 3: Outreach and engagement

Focus

Developing and maintaining successful partnerships, collaborations and initiatives in Detroit, Michigan and beyond.

Related efforts

Positioning ourselves as a “go to” partner for Detroit’s and Michigan’s government and community organizations (business and non-profit) for holistic and longitudinal research and training in service of our communities.
Amplifying our relationships with the neighboring Museum District and regional museums and elevating our own Grosscup Museum of Anthropology by highlighting the work of our community-accessible projects in museum exhibits and public lecture series.
Increasing our visibility and partnerships with national and global organizations and communities through internship and research partnerships with organizations such as Charles H. Wright Museum of African American History, TechTown, MEDC (Michigan Economic Development Corporation) and Wayne County Medical Examiner’s Office, Yachay Archaeological Museum in Ecuador, World Health Organization (WHO), CDC, Michigan Department of Health and Human Services.
Promoting awareness of anthropology as a valuable and marketable major through involvement in admission recruitment events. Requires recognition by the university and college of the value of including museum/department as a high-visibility component of admissions and recruitment efforts on campus (open houses, orientattion, STEM day, K-12 events, etc.).
Building on our robust alumni network for expanding community partnerships.
Continuing ongoing departmental initiatives and Grosscup Museum of Anthropology programming focused on inclusive and interdisciplinary approaches to cultural heritage and social justice issues.

Goal 4: Financial sustainability and operational excellence

Focus

Supporting departmental administration, functioning and growth by strengthening faculty support, administrative management, recruitment, operational efficiency, development/fundraising and physical infrastructure.

Related efforts

Achieving the unification of departmental offices, labs and the museum into a single location on campus (a request made in every academic program review (APR) since the 1980s).
Promoting efforts to improve faculty and staff well-being, including by developing a workload policy and ensuring service loads are equitable and balanced across department, college and university committee obligations.
Attaining operational stability by retaining the same Academic Advisor and Grant Management staff members, in the same capacity for the long term (i.e., > than one year).
Achieving right-sized faculty (15) and museum staff (> one) by prioritizing strategic hiring requests in areas of need, career development and alignment with department and university mission/vision.
Maintaining strategic curriculum planning and course scheduling best practices to ensure reliable degree planning and sustained enrollments.
Exercising transparent budgetary operations and financial planning with meetings twice per academic year of the Departmental Budget Committee (via Executive Committee).
Developing new revenue streams by launching annual fundraising campaigns among program alumni, foundations and community/industry partners.
Advocating for increased indirect cost return percentages at the departmental and PI levels to support faculty and student research/training and deferred maintenance.
Working with the university and college to address critical building infrastructure issues in Old Main, Life Sciences and Faculty/Research Administration Bldg (FAB).
Hiring a full-time staff member at the rank of academic services officer (ASO) or administrative assistant III (or higher) who can dedicate 100% of their time to supporting the anthropology department’s operations (anthropology has no full-time staff and no GCA).

Diversity, equity and inclusion statement

The department does not identify DEI (or equivalent terms like equitable inclusion, inclusive excellence, etc.) as an individual aim that we aspire to address and achieve because DEI has long been a foundational tenet of our discipline and embodied in all aspects of our work. Anthropology, particularly in its 21st-century incarnation, is a discipline concerned with the study and recognition of social diversity. Through teaching, research and practice, our faculty and student body promote diversity, equity and inclusivity through advocacy and engaged scientific research on human differences. DEI principles are situated within each of the above goals.