On March 20th, the 4th Annual ECU Anthropology Alumni Lectures began with our first alumni speaker – Blake Wiggs!
Blake is a 2008 graduate who received his bachelors in anthropology and MAT in teaching (2010). Blake had worked in CRM archaeology and is now teaching in the Craven County Early College Program. The title of his talk was, “Anthropology and Education.”
As a reminder, the purpose of ECU Anthropology Alumni Lecture series is designed for former ECU anthropology students to share their expertise and experiences to current anthropology students who are preparing to graduate or who are anticipating to graduate in the next few years. We hope this lecture series creates more of a constructive, practical dialogue between recent ECU anthropology graduates with current ECU anthropology majors.
Blake’s lecture was exactly the type of information that I wanted the students to hear particularly for the first lecture. Blake began his lecture with giving the audience a little exercise to find out what they perceive as the type of skills that students develop by majoring in anthropology. Interestingly, these skills that anthropology majors achieve at the end of their undergraduate training are exactly the skills that have been labeled as “21st Century Skills.”
Blake said that “21st Century Skills” are emphasized everywhere nowadays particularly in the field of education. 21st Century Skills are needed desperately by employers in every field yet a vast majority of today’s graduates do not have these necessary global skills. Fortunately for anthropology majors, students have these skills. One of the keys as Blake emphasized, “anthropology students need to be made aware that they have these skills.”
By the end of his talk, the audience could easily see how passionate Blake is about the field of education and his long-term commitment to the fields of anthropology and education. In fact, the disciplines of anthropology and education are a great fit for the 21st century!
Check out a few photos of our outstanding first speaker Blake Wiggs and later this summer, I will post a short-video of his talk. You can also check out a few more photos of the event on my professional Facebook page.