Spring/Summer 1999, Volume 4(2)
By Arleen Garcia, Editor
Michael Jochim was meant to be a doctor, but he started out on the road to a M.D. before he became a PhD. As an undergraduate at the University of Michigan, he was a double major in the pre-med program and history. His father taught at the Medical School, so it was only natural that he would be interested in medicine as well. Yet, once he finished his pre-med coursework and two years of medical school he became disillusioned with medicine.
Clearly, the study of humans always interested him, but perhaps he just needed a different perspective. He decided to wander into the campus museum one afternoon to speak to someone about a career in anthropology. Mike wandered down a long corridor of shut doors; it was summer and few people were in their offices that day. One door was open, and so he walked over to it. C. Loring Brace, physical anthropologist began a four hour conversation with Mike that would change the course of his professional life forever.
With Mike's training in medicine, Brace always assumed Mike would make an excellent physical anthropologist. However, Mike's interest in archaeological problems finally convinced Brace otherwise. Guided by a committee initially consisting of Bob Whallon, Dick Ford (Paleo-Ethnobotanist) and Edwin Wilmsen (Archaeologist) and later Whallon, Ford, Henry Wright and Bill Farrand (Geologist), Mike began a new career in archaeology. Several excellently preserved Mississippian villages were Mike's training ground. But his interest in European history led him to work abroad.
As part of his pre-dissertation research he worked on an Upper Paleolithinc period site in Yugoslavia with Martin Wobst. Afterwards, he worked in Holland on a Mesolithic period site. Mike's first opportunity to work on Germanic Europe came when he studied abroad for a year at the Eberhard-Karls University in Tubingen, Germany. He worked with Wolfgang Tante and Hansjurgen Muller-Beck on developing a model of hunter-gatherer subsistence, which he applied to the Mesolithic. Mike's research stood out from ongoing German research because he applied a regional perspective to his study of settlement and subsistence patterns in southern Germany. His German colleagues focused instead on individual sites in the region. In 1975 he had his PhD in hand and began the search for a job.
Incredibly, Mike wrote over one hundred letters to Anthropology department in the US inquiring about open positions. Al Spaulding offered him a temporary lectureship here at UCSB which he worked at for two years. His lectureship was not permanent so Mike had no choice but to seek employment elsewhere. He moved to New York to work in a tenure-track position at Queen's College (CUNY) and his dissertation was published. Eight months later, a tenure track position opened up here at UCSB and Mike returned to Santa Barbara in 1979. He's been at the department ever since and continued to work on problems related to European prehistory, hunter-gatherers, and cultural ecology. After 20 successful years working in Southern Germany, Mike has plans to continued his work in this region and perhaps expand his study to include Southern France.
By Peter Paige
As graduate students our minds are constantly occupied with one major goal: to survive long enough to graduate with our respective degrees. However, as we reach the end of this tunnel (yes folks there appears to be an end), other thoughts begin to crowd our minds. What am I going to do after I earn my degree? Will I get a job? How many applications will I be sending out? How many will be coming back? When I get a job, what will it be like to be part of the faculty? Will my students like me or should I fear for my safety? Well, this summer Doug Kennett, who having recently tackled these very questions, was able to offer his perspective on life after UCSB.
In June of 1998 Doug graduated from UCSB with a doctorate in archaeology. That fall, Doug started as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Cal State Long Beach. I asked Doug if he had any advice for those of us entering the job market. After sagely considering a few bites of lunch, Doug replied that as graduate students we are used to minimal support. While this survival skill may allow us to ensure through our dissertation work, once we are offered a job we need to muster the courage to ask for things we need, lest we find ourselves lacking the resources we need to be an effective part of the faculty. You need to be willing to negotiate, even when uncomfortable. Doug recommended, especially for space and equipment for one's labs.
During his first year at Long Beach, Doug has focused on teaching and getting funds for equipment needed in his new archaeology lab. At Cal States the normal course load is four classes a semester. This can be quite a bear, Doug admitted, as one attempts to balance teaching with research and service on various committees. Doug said he learned a lot the first year about teaching classes. The real trick is "not how you teach, but how many you have to prepare." Fortunately, there are ways to reduce one's class load so that other activities can be pursued via external grants and excessive committee service. His first semester at Long Beach, Doug taught two introductory archaeology classes his second semester, included a multimedia Mesoamerican class that included web-based assignments. In addition to his classes, Doug is working to develop a Bachelor of Science in Anthropology and is currently collaborating with the departments of Biology, Geology and Chemistry in order to give the degree an interdisciplinary flavor.
Doug also continues to be an active researcher. In addition to his work on the Northern Channel Islands, Doug has branched out to the islands of Fiji in order to trace the spread of Lapita pottery. Lapita pottery has been used to document the earliest colonists of Polynesia. Using elemental fingerprinting, Doug hopes to trace the dispersal of Lapita pottery which began some 3,000 years ago from a few islands just north of New Guinea and in a mere 500 years covered a 5,00 square kilometer area. By examining the variation in the clay and temper sources of the pottery, they hope to answer such questions as whether there was exchange between island groups and if there was, whether this exchange was local or much more far reaching. Doug has received several research awards for his Fiji research including the Innovation in Teaching Award. These grants have allowed him to purchase a $30,000 Laser Ablation System, needed to burn the pottery and produce the gas used in the elemental fingerprinting process known as Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometry (say that three times fast!). Doug is also continuing with his oxygen-isotope studies and GIS research, both of which were started at UCSB during his dissertation research. Doug has recently finished several papers.
As a final note, Doug commented that in order to really succeed in today's academic world, one needs not only enthusiasm, but also a healthy dose of multidisciplinary interaction/ "People are looking for innovative ways to connect their departments with the greater campus," Doug commented. Universities are increasingly interested in hiring people who can forge bridges between academic departments. As a direct example, Doug noted that the physical anthropologist at Long Beach is also a geneticist. Doug told me that he cannot stress enough the fact that multidisciplinary work is in style these days and it is people who can crossover between disciplines that will truly have an edge whether they are applying for a job, a grant, or a raise.
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