Santa Clara University Anthropology

New piece on Cabo Pulmo in Sierra magazine:

What Happens After You Create One of the World’s Most Successful Marine Preserves? Some fear tourism could be the end of Cabo Pulmo

Where Anthropology and Ethics Collide Shobha Joneja advocates for representation of Indigenous people in Santa Clara.

Please join the SCU community and anthropology colleagues across and beyond SCU to honor our dear colleague and friend, Michelle Bezanson, next Saturday on SCU’s campus. We hope to see you there♥️

Our deepest condolences to Dr Michelle Bezanson’s family. We lost a treasure in the science world. She was one we will never forget. She was wonderful with her students and with the local kids. She would always make time for the local kids teaching them recycling and doing conservation play learning. When she came to the site everyone including the monkeys knew it. She was a special person with a big personality and heart. we will never forget you. We will be planting an almendro tree with the primate students in your honor. Our 16 meter bridge being renovated on trail “A” will be named the Bezanson bridge. We will also add you to the La Suerte hall of fame museum when we finish the construction. Michelle you touched so many loves and will always be remembered. ❤️🙏

SCU Department of Anthropology is profoundly sad to share that we lost our dear colleague, teacher-scholar and friend, Dr. Michelle Bezanson, to cancer on Tuesday, April 16th. A biological anthropologist and primatologist, Michelle joined our Department in 2006, earned tenure in 2012, and became full professor in 2020.

As a professor, she received SCU’s Logothetti Teaching Award and the University Award for Recent Achievement in Scholarship. In 2022, she was inducted into the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for her research excellence in primatology, biological anthropology, and field ethics. Her last publication, “News and Perspectives: Words matter in primatology,” (2024) presented an international forum of primatologists on the use of terminology in primatology and conservation research.

Michelle’s love for our Department and students was immeasurable. From leading students in a field course at the La Suerte Biological Field Station in Costa Rica to working with students to publish the Department’s community standards, she was selflessly committed to our students’ learning and wellbeing and always encouraged them to value themselves and the world around them.

For nearly 18 years, her love of art, science, sense of humor, and creativity filled our 3rd floor O’Connor hallway, each senior spring banquet, and every moment of celebration and pause. It is not possible to capture the depth of her generosity and spirit in words. We are heartbroken but know she would want us to celebrate the precious time we had with her and all that she did to make our Department a generative place to think and learn in. Our hearts are with her husband, Hari, their sweet Blue Heeler, Walter, and her parents, Liz and Warren Bezanson.

We love you, Michelle. We will continue to cherish and honor your life and work in our teachings and presence here at SCU. ♥️

New publication by Dr. Michelle Bezanson with amazing colleagues: Allison McNamara, Michelle Rodrigues, Rahayu Oktaviani, Montse Franquesa, and Martin Kowalewski.

Best practices are never best: Evaluating primate conservation education programs (PCEPs) with a decolonial perspective Linking Conservation Goals to the Conservation Education Outcomes and Assessment

Please join our Department in congratulating Dr. Michelle Bezanson who received The Louis and Dorina Brutocao Award for Teaching Excellence today at our annual University Faculty Awards Celebration at SCU!

This award is the highest teaching honor bestowed upon faculty at our university. It "recognizes outstanding faculty who promote intellectual curiosity and active learning; model and foster intellectual rigor and honesty and a zest for learning; develop connections between course material and life outside the classroom; are available to students, attentive to their needs, and enjoy the teacher-student relationship. This award honors those teachers who, over a period of years, have made a real difference . . . who have challenged their students in ways that have forced them to look at the world afresh, who have exerted a major influence over the intellectual and moral development of their students, who have, in short, made an imprint that is still felt in some way years after graduation."

For those of you who know Dr. Bezanson or have taken a course with her, you know that her teaching, scholarship, and investment in the learning experience does not end with one course or your graduation. Her commitments in and outside the classroom continue to have deep and meaningful impacts on our students' futures, and our Department is honored to continue learning from her excellence in years to come! Congratulations, Dr. Bezanson!

A huge congrats to our SCU Anthropology seniors for excellent Capstone presentations on their individual research projects and to the SCU Anthropology faculty for their engaging questions and comments during our Capstone Forum this afternoon!

Check out SCU Associate Professor in Anthropology Dr. Robin Nelson's interview with Channel Zed's Liz Grumbach and film producer Ilana Rein about about the 2016 reboot of the film Ghostbusters, the "ghostbro-driven backlash against it" and how to go about "building a diverse zombie apocalypse team." This is such a fun and brilliant interview and super fun for those who love movies and meaningful ways to connect anthropology to pop culture. Thank you, Dr. Nelson!

Building a diverse zombie apocalypse team If there’s something strange in your neighborhood, do you always need to call the same four dudes? Ilana, Liz, and special guest Robin Nelson take a look at ...

This is a call for CBPR (Community-Based Participatory Research) Student Fellows at SCU! CBPR is a research model committed to working with community partners at every stage of research and with a shared commitment to think across intersections of race, ethnicity, class, gender, age, ability, and location.

This two-quarter fellowship supports undergraduate SCU students to conduct research in student-community partnerships to further community-driven research questions to support racial justice at the intersections. The fellowship includes training on ethics and research practice in CBPR and also an opportunity to present your findings with your community partners in a virtual showcase in Spring quarter.

The applications are due on Wednesday, November 18th, and for more information, see here and reach out to Dr. Mythri Jegathesan ([email protected]) for more information!

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