F E AT U R E
UCM UNDERGRADS GAIN GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE THROUGH SCIENCE By Laurie Luckritz, ‘18
Digging Deep Into Culture Through Archaeology It was a busy day at the souk, a marketplace in Al-Baleed, Oman, a country southeast of Saudi Arabia that served as a port for the trade of frankincense, spices and Arabian horses during medieval times. Audra Whitehurse was browsing items at the market after a long day at the archaeological dig. The undergraduate research she conducted on ancient Arabian glass prepared her to recognize the bracelets she saw at the market as originating with the Bedouin, a nomadic Arabic people who inhabited this desert region.
program, which offers cultural and biological recognized one anthropology, archaeology, linguistics and of the items applied anthropology. from her tribe and was just The program trains students in cultural happy to relativism, an essential concept of see it,” anthropology that places cultural Whitehurse experiences in context. says. For “This opportunity for me means the world,” another exhibit, she says. “It’s something that I put on my she was putting up the Audra Whitehurse in Oman, grad school applications that set me above Arabic alphabet in a southeast of Saudi Arabia others in a way because this is a very, window display case when a very rare opportunity for undergraduate student from Saudi Arabia walked by students.” She presented her research this and offered to give her lessons in Arabic “I was like a kid in a candy store, just spring at UCM’s Scholars Symposium as in advance of her trip to Oman. pointing out every little thing I’d worked on,” well as the Central States Anthropology Whitehurse recalls, adding that one of the Whitehurse’s excavation experience was funded Society (CSAS) conference — and plans shopkeepers gave her and other members of by grants, including the International Study to attend graduate school at the University the excavation team Bedouin-style bracelets Abroad Grant offered by UCM’s Center for of Tulsa. engraved with their names. Whitehurse’s work at the McClure Archives Global Education and the Honors College This UCM senior was selected as one of four and University Museum also has contributed Study Abroad Travel Grant. She also earned students from a highly competitive national to her rich experience at UCM. Many of the the Mideast Meets Midwest award from the Department of Education through UCM. pool of candidates to join an excavation field approximately 30,000 items donated or team in Oman in the summer of 2018. on loan at the university’s museum are There are two new scholarships for UCM Her professors in the anthropology program, contributions from alumni. anthropology majors like Whitehurse. including Dr. Jeff Yelton, prepared One African collection, The John Sheets and Joy Stevenson Scholarship her for the field by instilling an the Masquerade Tribal Arts in Anthropology is co-funded by these two understanding of how to, in Exhibition, is brought UCM emeriti, who worked to advance a worldly Yelton’s words, “not only do field to the university and perspective at the university. The Robert F. G. Spier archaeology but also interpret displayed by Brian Nickl, Scholarship is funded by Carolyn Spier in memory things for the public.” ’04, an art alumnus of of her late husband, who taught anthropology UCM, every two years. for more than 40 years and has “Honestly, I blossomed here,” Whitehurse says of UCM’s anthropology
“When we had the African exhibit up, a girl from Nigeria
donated some of his private collections to UCM.
Whitehurse studied Bedouin jewelry (left) in advance of her trip to Oman. 12
Spring 2019 | ucmfoundation.org/magazine
