Departmental Self Review - UCLA Academic Senate

in each of the four major subfields of anthropology and a range of specialized upper divisionlecture and seminar courses aimed primarily at majors and minors. The four lower divisioncore classes: Anthropology 7 (biological), 8 (archaeological), 9 (socio-cultural) and 33 (linguistic)each satisfy one or more of the General Education requirements of the College of Letters andSciences and each has been taught at least twice every year to capacity. Our upper divisionclasses are diverse and include an average of 41 courses taught per year (2003-04 to 2006-07) ofwhich 17.25 are typically in socio-cultural anthropology, 11 in archaeology, 6.5 in linguisticanthropology and 6.25 in biological anthropology.Our emphasis on a broad curriculum has had a positive impact on the undergraduate programin several ways. It has enabled us to maintain a large and steady pool of around 350 majors(Figure 1). This places it behind only political science, sociology and economics within theSocial Sciences in total numbers of majors (UCLA Fall Undergraduate Profile Fall 2005).Anthropology was also reported to be among the most popular minors in both 2005 and 2006(UCLA Fall Undergraduate Profile Fall 2005, 2006). Ninety-two percent of anthropology majorsand 95% of minors were satisfied or very satisfied with their overall academic experience(Senior Survey 2006).450400~ 3501'g 0300j..... 2500;., 200~,!:Ie::150c 100500Figure 1. The number of anthropology majors has remained high since the last review period.However, we recognize that there are several problems facing the undergraduate anthropologyprogram today. Despite the number of upper division classes taught each year, some3