Undergraduate Program

Anthropology Major

Anthropology offers the opportunity to study human existence in the present and the past and to explore how and why humans vary in their behaviors, cultures and biology. Students choose to study anthropology because they want to understand some of the most intriguing and troubling issues faced by modern society: the origin and meaning of ethnic and gender differences; the role of institutions in social, political and economic life; learned vs. innate behavior; the similarities and differences among human societies; and the meaning of religion, community and family. Students may also be drawn to anthropology because of an interest in the human past as recorded in the archaeological and paleoanthropological record, or because of an interest in the function and evolution of the human body, or because of an interest in looking at non-human primates or the close relationships between humans, domesticated animals and plants.

Anthropology Minor

Anthropology offers the opportunity to study human existence in the present and the past and to explore how and why humans vary in their behaviors, cultures and biology. Students choose to study anthropology because they want to understand some of the most intriguing and troubling issues faced by modern society: the origin and meaning of ethnic and gender differences; the role of institutions in social, political and economic life; learned vs. innate behavior; the similarities and differences among human societies; and the meaning of religion, community and family. Students may also be drawn to anthropology because of an interest in the human past as recorded in the archaeological and paleoanthropological record, or because of an interest in the function and evolution of the human body, or because of an interest in looking at non-human primates or the close relationships between humans, domesticated animals and plants.

Global Health and Environment Major Track

Global Health, which is a major focus of medical anthropology, concerns itself with the broad ways that humans address and cope with issues of health, illness, and well-being in cross-cultural and cross-temporal perspectives. Because issues of health, healing, and wellness are situated in an environmental context (especially the natural physical environment but also the human built and created environment), it is essential that the study of human health be understood within a broad environmental framework. Within Global Health, students will also have the opportunity to look at the human body within an evolutionary framework, understanding how evolution has shaped the human body and contributed to contemporary patterns of health and disease through course work in human anatomy, paleoanthropology, osteology, genetics, biological development and studies of non-human primates.

Global Health and Environment Minor Track

Anthropology minors may choose an optional track within the minor called Global Health and Environment if the students’ interests lie primarily within this area of Anthropology. Because this is an optional track within the minor, and not a stand-alone minor, all students enrolling in the track must complete anthropology department requirements as well as fulfilling specific requirements for the track as outlined below.

2020 Interim Academic Policies in Anthropology