Azoria Project
GRADUATE STUDENT UP CLOSE
together a story one word at a time. It is crucial training for archaeology majors and a unique hands-on experience for students outside the field.” Beeby, a native of Turkey, came to UNC from Florida State University, where she earned a master’s in classical archaeology. She received some pedagogical training at FSU, but Beeby thinks she has learned most by observing other teachers. “I have been extremely lucky to have been the teaching assistant of some excellent professors in our classics department,” she said. “I picked up little tricks-of-the-trade from each.” Janet Downie, assistant professor of classics, observed Beeby teaching “Ancient Cities,” an introductory-level class. “I was Cicek Beeby supervises UNC students during a dig at the Azoria site in Crete. She says they so impressed by her engagement with the “love experiencing the thrill of discovery and gradually putting together clues to understand material, her ease in the classroom, her archaeological contexts.” sense of presence and her rapport with the students in this large lecture class that I immediately thought that her success with the course was worthy of recognition,” Downie wrote to the nomination committee. Graduate assistant gets her hands dirty explaining archaeology “We often talk of the valuable role BY GENEVA COLLINS our graduate students play in advancing the work of our renowned faculty, and certainly they are making important Teaching is a dirty job — at “When we came across an unusual research contributions on their own. But least the way Cicek Beeby deposit in our trench, Cicek would call sometimes does it, standing at us all over and ask what we thought was we don’t talk nearly enough about what an excellent job our graduate students the bottom of a big hole show- going on,” said Mallory Melton ’14, who do in the classroom, educating our ing her undergraduate students is now studying anthropology at the undergraduates with skill and passion,” a freshly unearthed artifact University of California, Santa Barbara. said Kevin M. Guskiewicz, dean of the from the Early Iron Age. “[We] became students in a classroom College. “The Tanner Awards shine a light Beeby has been traveling to Crete of her own creation, in which discovery, on our emerging stars.” every summer since 2012 to work as a detailed explanation and hands-on Beeby will return to Greece this spring trench supervisor on the Azoria Project, learning were paramount.” to do more research for her dissertation. an excavation led by one of her mentors, Students participate in all stages of Donald Haggis, Nicholas A. Cassas Term the Azoria Project, from excavation in the She hopes to continue teaching after she receives her Ph.D. The most important Professor of Greek Studies. Her research is field to processing plant remains, animal thing her students have taught her, she in burial customs of ancient Greece. bones and pottery in the laboratory. said, is “to look at things with a fresh and The Ph.D. student and teaching “As a trench supervisor, I usually assistant in classics was recognized with work with three to four student assistants unbiased mind.” ➤ Note: In addition to Beeby, two a 2016 Tanner Award for Excellence in in the field, guiding them through all other graduate teaching assistants in the Undergraduate Teaching. Many of those aspects of digging and record-keeping College were recognized with 2016 Tanner who nominated Beeby praised not only at an archaeological site,” Beeby said. Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate her ability to present complex ideas in “Students love experiencing the thrill of easily understandable terms in large discovery and gradually putting together Teaching: Noah Greifer in the department of psychology and neuroscience and lecture classes but her adeptness in clues — pottery, soil layers, architecture, recognizing “teachable moments” during plant and animal remains — to understand Jonathan Foland in the department of communication. archaeological digs. archaeological contexts. It’s like putting
A teacher digs deeper
24
|
COL L EGE.U N C . E D U
|
FA LL 2 01 6
|
C A RO L IN A ART S & SC IEN C ES