Six UM-Dearborn students blogging about field school studies

Six University of Michigan-Dearborn students—Abbeygail Epelman, Shantel Reynolds, Sara Richter, Yvette Steggel, John VandenBossche and Elise Widmeyer—are spending part of their summer studying at various anthropological field schools in the U.S. and abroad.

These students are blogging about their studies at www.umdearbornfieldstudyblogs.com, which features their first-person stories about hands-on experience in anthropological techniques.

• Abbeygail is studying at the Ecomuseu Cap de Cavalleria field school in Menorca, Spain, which researches, protects and makes known the heritage, cultural and natural values of the Cavalleria territory and Sanitja harbor.

• Shantel will share her experiences at the Irish Archaeological Field School, Ireland’s leading provider of university accredited, site-based archaeological research and training.

• Sara is doing her research at the Utica College Forensic Anthropology Field School in Albania, Greece and Romania where she’ll visit some of the world’s greatest historical monuments with hands-on archaeological study at ancient sites.

• Yvette and John are studying at Southern Illinois University-Carbondale’s Field School which focuses on archaeological field methods with a special emphasis on basic excavation and laboratory techniques.

• Elise will share her experiences with the New Hampshire State Conservation and Rescue Archaeology Program (SCRAP), a public participation program for archaeological research, management and education administered by the Archaeology Bureau in the Division of Historical Resources of the New Hampshire Department of Cultural Resources.

These students join the more than 20 UM-Dearborn students who have traveled to various field schools worldwide in the past five years thanks to field research scholarships–made possible by a gift from Beth Beson, an alumna of UM-Dearborn’s College of Arts, Sciences, and Letters.

These generous scholarships have allowed UM-Dearborn students majoring or minoring in anthropology to make trips to field schools within the U.S. as well as countries such as Australia, Mexico, Belize, Malta, Jordan, Lebanon, Peru, Guam and Tanzania.