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OU Students Train for Careers in Billion-Dollar Industry

OU Students Train for Careers in Billion-Dollar Industry

The Department of Anthropology in the University of Oklahoma College of Arts and Sciences is preparing students for work with private archaeology firms.   

Since coming to OU in 2012, Bonnie Pitblado headed up two summer field schools with the goal of preparing her students for the high-powered world of cultural resources management. It’s a company that is part of a billion-dollar industry, which is constantly on the hunt for new employees.

“As a species, we are always poking and prodding the ground for some reason. There’s always something that we are doing to the earth,” Pitblado said. “If there is dirt that is going to be moved for a project, it triggers the archaeological process.” 

The National Historic Preservation Act, a federal law protecting potential dig sites, goes into effect whenever there is activity on federal land, or if a company needs a federal permit or has received federal money for a project. Additionally, each state, sovereign nation, county and city can have its own laws that affect a project.

“Basically, in addition to teaching them field work, I’m preparing them to navigate all the bureaucracy that comes with it,” Pitblado said.

According to Pitblado, the industry has shown itself to be recession-proof, having weathered the booms and busts of the energy sector and the construction industry, as these industries must meet state and federal laws.

This year, Pitblado added a new partner to her team, Rebecca Hawkins of Algonquin Consultants Inc. Based in Oklahoma, Algonquin Consultants contracts with sovereign nations, energy companies, government agencies, nonprofits and more to provide guidance through a complex process. With offices in Chicago, Albuquerque and Oklahoma, OU students are able to work with the firm’s architects, historical preservation experts, cultural anthropologists and cultural resources management archaeologists for a real-world experience, giving them a head start on their careers.

“Students who graduate with a bachelor’s degree can immediately go into a career path in archaeology,” Pitblado said.

These entry-level positions often help students pay for their graduate school, which is frequently necessary, since in private industry the majority of workers have master’s degrees.

Her summer field school course is open to all students at the university, no matter their major.

Hawkins echoes this, stating the most critical skill students need is effectively communicating science.

“The OU experience is different from other universities’ field schools because students actually have to report on their findings, not just dig in the field,” said Hawkins. 

There are two major things students in this course need to know: excavation and survey. During the first 10 days: the students work on pit excavation; the second 10 days are dedicated to survey work; and the last 10 days are used to finish up any projects. Following this, the class returns to the lab to process anything that was collected in the field, and Pitblado helps students prepare their poster projects for submission to academic conferences.

Around 60-70% of jobs in the industry are in private archaeology firms, with federal, state and sovereign nation jobs making up the rest. In order to set her applicants apart, Pitblado’s team guides students as they take the research from concept to presentation.  OU also offers a master’s-level class on budgeting and project management that can help students prepare that winning contract bid,” Pitblado said. 

For Ella Crenshaw, a junior majoring in anthropology and museum studies, this was a chance to take her experience as an intern with the Sam Noble Museum out in the field. The thrill of opening a box of artifacts that were collected and stored at the museum in the 1950s led her to this trajectory in her studies.

“My job [at the museum] was creating an inventory of the legacy collections, so I was just going through, opening box by box and getting an organization policy in place,” she said.

Now, many museums have more material than space, with much of it yet to be fully catalogued.

“We didn’t really collect anything on our pedestrian survey; we just took a picture of it, recorded its location in our GPS, and moved on,” Crenshaw said. “This helps to not contribute to the extra materials sitting in storage in museums.”

Crenshaw is looking forward to earning her master’s degree at OU, in a program where archaeology and technology combines.

Article Published: Wednesday, August 14, 2019