The Washington Post recently highlighted the historic Sumner School, meeting-place for WAPA for many years.  See this article by John Kelly which includes a wonderful picture of the school.

The Solon T. Kimball Award for Public and Applied Anthropology is given every other year to an exemplary anthropologist for his or her outstanding recent achievements that have contributed to anthropology as an applied science and that have had important impacts on public policy. The award carries a $1000 prize and is presented at the annual meeting of the American Anthropological Association.

Nomination materials must be received by June 1, 2016. Questions regarding nomination procedures should be directed to the chair of the award committee, Dr. David Griffith.  Details about the nomination criteria, required materials, and past awardees are on the AAA website, under “Prizes & Awards."

WAPA is establishing a permanent emergency Fund in order to provide temporary assistance to members in need.  The seed money has been provided by a bequest from the estate of a long-time member, Connie Ojile.  In her memory, WAPA intends to use this money, along with money donated by our members in the future, for the use of any qualifying WAPA member who needs a relatively small loan to tide himself or herself over during a financial crisis or shortfall.  Click here for more information.

Click here to listen to the March 5, 2013 monthly Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists (WAPA) meeting, as new AAA Executive Director Ed Liebow sought feedback about his plans for the Association.

Posted 13 April 2013

The American Anthropological Association has updated its Resources for Practitioners webpages. WAPA members are invited to take a look and provide feedback.  WAPA members who know of other resources that should be included may send suggestions to Courtney Dowdall.

Students at Florida State can once again major in anthropology.  Read the story here.

An article in The Washington Post has identified the location of "Tally's Corner." Author Elliot Liebow carried out his doctoral dissertation at Catholic University in the 1960s at an unidentified location in Washington.  Post columnist John Kelly recently published an article about the location -  the corner was at 10th and M Street, NW, (not far from Sumner School).  Read the article here.

Howard University is considering a number of significant changes to its programs, including dropping the undergraduate anthropology degree program.  There is no graduate program in anthropology, so the proposed change would leave individual course offerings that would be available to majors from other disciplines. 

WAPA's board proposed expressing our recommendation to retain the undergraduate degree, and so we sent a letter supporting the current anthropology program to Sidney Ribeau, Howard's president.  Our letter and his response are shown below.

Washington Association of Professional Anthropologists.pdf

WAPA sponsored a panel at SfAA's annual meeting in Seattle to celebrate our Praxis Award history.  The panel was held on April 2, 2011. 

This award began as an historic effort to recognize excellence in the work done by applied anthropologists and to share groundbreaking methods and results.  We invited a number of past winners and judges to discuss their work and the role of the award in developing recognition for applied anthropologists.

Panelists included Bob Wulff, Shirley Fiske, Judith Freidenberg, Ed Liebow, Erve Chambers, Barbara Pillsbury, Cathleen Crain and Niel Tashima.  John VanWilligen from SfAA's Oral History Project was the discussant.

The panel was co-sponsored by WAPA and SfAA Oral History Project

The Screen Painters

Presented by Elaine Eff, University of Maryland

Painted screens are among Baltimore's distinctive folk traditions. An art form found originally in working class ethnic neighborhoods, painted screens have an early history abroad and survive today in unanticipated forms and locations.

Folklorist Elaine Eff has spent much of her professional life uncovering this Baltimore story, the artists, the architecture, the changing communities. She shared the award winning documentary film, The Screen Painters, and led a discussion of the state of the art, its practitioners today, and outlook for the future.

She is now writing the book "Picture Windows" for University Press of Mississippi. Eff is co-Director of Maryland Traditions, the statewide folklife program based at the Maryland State Arts Council and Folklorist-in-Residence in the American Studies Department at University of Maryland Baltimore County. She can be reached at elaine.eff@verizon.net.