Outreach and public engagement in the Department of Anthropology
The University of Iowa’s core mission extends beyond the classrooms, laboratories, studios, and libraries where we educate students, conduct our research, and create new artistic and creative work. Equally important is our engagement with communities throughout Iowa, across the nation, and around the world.
As a discipline centered on human life, Anthropology offers unique tools that we apply to effectively address pressing issues facing people and the planet, such as racism, environmental degradation, disease, and social inequality. We support Indigenous and local communities in their efforts to achieve sovereignty, recognition and uphold human rights. Anthropology faculty are regularly interviewed on Iowa Public Radio to share their expertise. They present their research in public lecture series, such as those hosted by the Iowa City Foreign Relations Council and the Archaeological Institute of America-Iowa City chapter. They help to organize the annual Darwin Day events. Faculty and students work with Iowa communities to record their local histories and preserve the collections in their museums.
It’s a virtuous circle: When UI expertise is harnessed to help a community or region improve the lives of its residents, the experience adds unique educational value to students’ academic journeys, and advances the research and creative production of our faculty. In turn, that new knowledge empowers us to help more communities, solve more problems, and improve more lives.
Recent articles and op-eds
- Who gets to build the world we live in? (Iowa City Press Citizen)
- Faculty request transparency and sustainability for TIAA farmland investments (Daily Iowan)
Public engagement in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
The University of Iowa’s core mission extends beyond the classrooms, laboratories, studios, and libraries where we educate students, conduct our research, and create new artistic work. Equally important is our engagement with communities throughout Iowa, across the nation, and around the world.
Our faculty, students, and staff work to solve problems, imagine new approaches to challenges, and improve quality of life, often through service-learning courses in which students earn academic credit.
It’s a virtuous circle: When UI expertise is harnessed to help a community or region improve the lives of its residents, the experience adds unique educational value to students’ academic journeys, and advances the research and creative production of our faculty. In turn, that new knowledge empowers us to help more communities, solve more problems, and improve more lives.
The UI is not just the University of Iowa, we're the University for Iowa—and throughout the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, we are proud to serve.