Departmental Self Review - UCLA Academic Senate

teaching positions, and 24 individuals are working outside of academia. The majority of theselatter individuals are working in professional jobs related to their field of study (e.g., CulturalResource Management). Information was not available for 6 individuals. Overall,approximately 73% of doctoral graduates are working in some capacity within academia, andthere has been a significant shift away from temporary teaching towards more stable,permanent positions. For example, 24 of 161 PhDs (14.9%) were working in temporary teachingpositions at the end of the previous review period. Only 6.8% of the PhDs (7 of 103) from thecurrent review period are in temporary teaching positions.There may be multiple reasons for this marked improvement. First, we believe that ourattention to careful merit-based recruitment has succeeded in bringing in higher-qualitygraduate students and that the anthropology graduate program is succeeding in converting thisearly promise into professional careers ll1. anthropology. Second, full funding of all incominggraduate students has enabled them to be more productive and therefore meet many of thebenchmarks that are now becoming common in hiring new PhDs (e.g., a publication and .granting record as a grad student).3.6. Graduate Student PerspectiveThe department held a joint meeting of faculty, staff and graduate students during the SpringQuarter of 2007 to discuss the status of the graduate program. The Anthropology GraduateStudent Association subsequently held a student-only meeting in Spring 2007, and individualemail comments were collected in Spring and.Fall 2007. Graduate student comments weresummarized by the then Anthropology Graduate Student Association president and submittedto the Vice Chair for inclusion in the review.Quality of Faculty: there is consensus among the graduate students that the faculty is of highcaliber.Quality of Program: students praised the organization of the program and its integrative, yet.flexible focus on four-field training. One student comments, the "quality of the classes I havetaken has been great." Another writes, "we have the opportunity to benefit from othersubfields, as well as the freedom to reject perspectives that are inconsistent with your ownacademic leanings - which in my opinion is the best way for the four subfields to co-exist."However, concerns were expressed over specific curricular matters:• Methods & Professional Training Classes: Many students agreed that there is a need formore methods courses that discuss the details of how to do anthropological research.This need was seen to be particularly acute within the archaeology and socio-cultural18