MSU may look to preserve history with new position

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As construction projects make progress across campus, volunteer students and faculty are working to protect the campus’s historic and prehistoric artifacts before they are destroyed.

But volunteers can only do so much, volunteer and anthropology professor Lynne Goldstein said. She has worked on campus excavations such as Saints’ Rest, MSU’s first residence hall.

“We need someone to devote a good deal of their time to monitoring,” said Jodie O’Gorman, an associate anthropology professor. “Someone that actually can do the background research, go out and evaluate sites and coordinate all the work that goes along with that — it’s simply too much for any one volunteer.”

O’Gorman and Goldstein, are both writing a proposal to the university which includes including the creation of a campus archaeologist position.

To apply for the position, graduate students must take a new professionalism seminar class that will be offered in the spring.

The position would be available to graduate students. It would be a part-time job during the year and a full-time job during the summer for two years.

“It shows that the university is recognizing and appreciating the past of MSU in a new way,” said Megan McCullen, an anthropology doctoral candidate. “In addition to the photos and documents archaeology really helps to connect to that past in a physical sense.”

The seminar will prepare students for such aspects as interviews, putting together research for publication and drafting a proper grant proposal, said Goldstein, who is the course instructor.

“It’s a very practical class and one that is necessary to operate as a professional,” Goldstein said.

The class, which is open to all anthropology graduate students, is not about campus archaeology, she said.

The graduate school will probably be partly funding the position with a graduate office scholarship or fellowship money, Goldstein said.

“The graduate school felt taking the class would be a good background for anyone who would be the campus archaeologist,” she said.

Having to take the class before you apply is similar to a prerequisite you would have for an assistantship or a job, McCullen said.

If a new building was going up where historical remains stood, the campus archaeologist would work with the administration to figure out what materials needed to be preserved and what might be damaged, McCullen said.

“So whoever the campus archaeologist is should know what they are doing in a professional setting,” she said.

The procedure for judging each applicant has not been finalized.

But Goldstein said an applicant’s successful completion of the class would be a first step in the application process.

“I and Jodie O’Gorman will probably go through (applications) and make a decision because the two of us have been working closest on this project, but (that) hasn’t been set in stone,” Goldstein said.

Duane Quates, an anthropology doctoral candidate, said campus archaeology is different from other jobs many graduate students have done. “Most have just done field work and many do not have experience beyond that,” Quates said.

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