If students learn best from hands-on experience, anthropology Prof. Alaka Wali’s class is ahead of the rest.
In Wali’s two-quarter Urban Field Research anthropology class, students develop a research project based on a Chicago community organization and carry it out the following quarter.
The sequence has provided Northwestern students with a unique opportunity for field research since its founding three years ago, said anthropology professor Mary Weismantel, who developed the program with Wali.
“It’s great to take classes and do research in the library, Weismantel said, “but it’s also really meaningful … to be out there doing research.”
Students must complete the Winter Quarter class before enrolling in the Spring Quarter course. The course is listed under the Latin American and Caribbean Studies department.
Continuation of the program in future years depends on funding availability, which is still in the works, Wali said.
After completing their research, students report their results to the community group. Last year students studied topics such as the use of hip hop as a form of expression in Latino communities.
“The students at Northwestern are fantastic,” Wali said. “They have done incredible research, and the community organizations have really appreciated the work that the students did.”
This year the five students in the class will study different areas in Chicago and create “asset maps” for the communities. The maps will pinpoint community resources, such as parks or community centers, and encourage neighbors to use them more, said Pauline Ekholt, a Weinberg freshman in the class.
Students who enroll in the class often show interest in anthropology or sociology — but not all of them are considering careers in those fields.
The class helps students interested in exploring unique cultures but who cannot study abroad, Wali said.
“Our objective is to give students at Northwestern an experience in Chicago,” she said. “They really do spend most of their time in the city and the neighborhoods.”
Wali brings more than 20 years of anthropology experience to NU. Most of the week she works at Chicago’s Field Museum, where she is a curator and the director of the Center for Cultural Understanding and Change.
Wali said the class provides good preparation for many careers.
“Any time you can have an experience that’s outside of campus and allows you to get involved with contemporary issues, whether it’s abroad or here in Chicago, it tremendously enriches your education and compliments what you’re learning in the classroom,” Wali said.
Ekholt said she could apply what she learns in the class to the field of advertising.
“This class provides you with a basic set of skills that help you interpret what goes on in the world around you,” Ekholt said. “(In advertising) you have to be able to communicate with people in terms that are relative to their experience, and that’s pretty much the focus of anthropology.”
