110
STUDENT FIELDWORK AND STUDENT ACTIVITIES:
APPLYING ANTHROPOLOGY ON THE COLLEGE CAMPUS
James C. Pierson
Department of Anthropology
California State College, San Bernardino
Although a field research experience has long been con-
sidered a basic rite of passage for a professional cultural
anthropologist, it is frequently absent from or not required
in undergraduate anthropology programs. This is particularly
true in departments with small staffs or in small communities,
but undergraduate research is often problematic regardless
of demographic figures (e.g., Fried 1972; Myers 1969). An
instructor is subsequently often placed in the position of
maintaining that such experiences are necessary to the
development of one's anthropological perspective while only
rarely giving students an opportunity for such an experience,
even in a limited way.
The potential usefulness and importance of undergraduate
field research are indicated, however, in several contexts.
A number of works published during the past decade can aid
the undergraduate planning or conducting fieldwork (e.g.,
Spradley and McCurdy 1972; Crane and Angrosino 1974; Spradley
1979, 1980), and some introductory texts include exercises
that provide even non-majors with some participatory sense of
anthropological field approaches (e.g., Hunter and Foley
1976). Brief fieldwork assignments focusing on topics with-
in the "world of the student" integrated with general course
materials are suggested as ways of making introductory cul-
tural anthropology courses more meaningful and interesting
to students (Bruner 1979). Courses on such topics as re-
ligion or urban anthropology may also provide students with
opportunities to conduct brief and quite specific field re-
search projects. Attitudes have likely changed little, how-
ever, from those of nearly two decades ago when the majority
of instructors found introductory anthropology courses (and
likely also topical ones) to provide enough materials for
students to cover without also introducting problems of
selecting, planning, conducting, and writing the results of
research projects (Bruner and Spindler 1963).
ll
Even when some departmental courses include field re-
search options or assignments, it is unlikely that students
majoring in anthropology are well-served or satisfied with
their brief exposures to field research. It therefore seems
that the most efficient and satisfactory ways to provide
undergraduate students with some of the real flavor and
experience of field research are through either an indepen-
dent research project or a formal fieldwork course.
Despite the recent availability of the sources cited
above that assist students (and sometimes the instructors)
involved in such courses, it is noted elsewhere that there
is little additional information focusing on the conduct
and content of the fieldwork course itself (Levine, Gallimore,
Weisner, and Turner 1980:39). In addition, some of the
available sources tend to discuss courses designed for grad-
uate students or advanced undergraduates with professional
aspirations (e.g., Bennett 1960; Levine, Gallimore, Weisner,
and Turner 1980) rather than courses aimed at generally in-
experienced undergraduates. It is therefore on the latter
that this paper focuses, giving an example of a fieldwork
course in cultural anthropology at a relatively small state
college (under thirty-five hundred full-time students, over
ninety percent of whom commute to campus from their homes)
with a small anthropology department (three full-time faculty
members and twenty to twenty-five majors at any one time).
The course has evolved into one that overcomes many of the
problems of time and selection of manageable and comparable
topics for students, while at the same time offering a po-
tential service to the college community by applying the
student research to a setting within that community. The
purpose of the course is not necessarily to train potential
professional anthropologists, but rather to provide students
with an introduction to the background, methods and skills
of cultural anthropological fieldwork. The remainder of this
paper will examine the general potential problems of under-
graduate fieldwork projects and courses, the attempts to
avoid them in the above-described setting, and, finally, the
results of one such "applied" project.
Recurring Problems
The recent availability of student-oriented guides to
anthropological research overcomes many of the methodological
problems encountered in an undergraduate research experience.
A number of potential problems may remain, however; regard-
less of the type of course for which undergraduate field re-
search takes place, several general problems are often present.
112
One of the most important is the time factor, even when a
course is devoted entirely to the fieldwork effort, because
topic selection often involves considerable preliminary re-
search and contact. This is often compounded by attempts to
correlate students' schedules with informants' available
time. Time, in fact, may be considered a part of the gener-
al problem of selecting an appropriate topic for research.
Some students have specific research ideas before enrolling
in a course; others, however, require considerable time and
effort to develop one. Although examples of other students'
projects may be used to indicate the variety of available
and feasible topics (e.g., Spradley and McCurdy 1972), the
settings of some campuses may offer fewer possibilities than
others do. In fact, a course that contains primarily stu-
dents who commute to campus may encounter numerous time
problems if students are unable to devote most of their time
to studies and college life and activities.
Since a primary goal of an undergraduate fieldwork
course is to provide students with at least some sense of
the professional field experience in a condensed time period,
the selection of topics most profitably emphasizes patterned
events within that time period (Mandelbaum 1963). Such
events can then be approached, analyzed, and written about
as systematically as possible. Ideally, these research sit-
uations are found as close as possible to the college campus.
It is suggested that "the best term projects carried on en-
tirely at school would appear to be those that approach most
closely the kinds of research and writing carried on by pro-
fessional anthropologists" (French 1963:176), but such re-
search is often a part of an instructor's own professional
research, giving students little opportunity to develop per-
sonal interests and projects.
A problem that confronts anyone doing sociocultural re-
search is an early reluctance to approach strange people and
situations to solicit information. Developing confidence in
one's approach is an important result of the first fieldwork
experience, but this does not lessen the reluctance of even
the most motivated and interested students when they are be-
ginning the research. In fact, the anticipation of these
situations very likely affects some students' attitudes about
even taking fieldwork courses or other courses that require
some active research.
The problems just mentioned affect the ease with which
students can select topics and conduct research. A related
difficulty involves what should be a primary concern of the
instructor of the undergraduate fieldwork course. Since stu-
dents are likely to have had little, if any, experience in
113
planning or conducting fieldwork, it is essential that guid-
ance and supervision be available throughout the project. In
a one-to-one situation, such as an independent study, this
presents few problems although it may become very time con-
suming. In a fieldwork course, it is important that students
also be able to discuss problems, successes, and suggestions
with each other based on individual experiences.1 This inter-
action may be difficult or only tangentially relevant if stu-
dents are conducting the very different projects that will
likely result from unrestricted personal selection. Some
selection is important to the students' interest, motivation,
and eventual sense of accomplishment, but at least some early
suggestions and continuing guidance seem important. At the
graduate and advanced undergraduate levels, a variety of
brief exercises completed by all class members are demon-
strably useful ways to teach and refine the students' mech-
anical and analytical skills (Bennett 1960; Levine, Gallimore,
Weisner, and Turner 1980). In some situations, it is sug-
gested that students select different components of the same
topic or situation for individual projects. The general
setting of a boy scout troop, for example, is considered use-
ful because it offers not only a topic that can be segmented
into individual ones with each student at least generally
familiar with other students' research projects, but it is
also an organization with many rules and recurring patterns
of behavior (Robinson 1969). In short, a common project
seems to be useful for a number of reasons for an introduc-
tory fieldwork course although the scout troop and many
other similar organizations may still precipitate problems
of time and continual access to the situations being studied.
It is therefore suggested here and demonstrated below that
relatively similar projects are available on most college
campuses, and that these projects will be welcomed in most
cases as potentially useful sources of information.2
The Topic and Setting
California State College, San Bernardino, has a fluc-
tuating full-time student population of between three thou-
sand and thirty-five hundred persons. Less than ten percent
of these students live on campus, and most of the rest com-
mute from their permanent homes. In recent years, there
have been more students enrolling in evening and night
courses than in day courses, primarily as a result of inter-
est in programs in business administration, education, nur-
sing, and other directly job-related fields. Many students
work at least part-time, the average student's age is mid
to upper twenties, the majority have families, and as many
as a third of the students receive some sort of veterans'
114
benefits. The campus is located at the northern edge of a
city of just over one-hundred thousand residents, making it
somewhat distant from almost every student's home. In ad-
dition, most campus buildings require several minutes of
walking to reach from parking lots because of anticipated ex-
pansion when the college was designed.
These demographic and physical characteristics create a
number of major and minor problems. One of the latter is
the scheduling of a cultural anthropology field course that
will attract and benefit as many students as possible. The
entire campus community is affected by similar problems of
scheduling courses and activities at convenient times with
regard to students' employment and domestic obligations.
Since some student fees and other state funds are reserved
for "student activities," and a number of full-time admin-
istrative positions are concerned with them, the provision
of useful and popular activities is a major concern of the
campus' administration. During the 1975-76 academic year,
the campus Office of Institutional Research was requested by
representatives of the Office for Student Activities to con-
duct a broad survey of student interest and opinion regard-
ing existing and potential student activities. Existing ac-
tivities ranged from weekly popular films to intramural ath-
letics, clubs, and a series of annual events. Since the
college participates in no intercollegiate athletics, most
activities encourage widespread participation.
The survey was scheduled to be administered to a broad
range of classes during Spring, 1976.   It was at this point
that the interests of the Activities Office coincided with
potential solutions to some of the problems regarding under-
graduate field research courses in anthropology.   The Depart-
ment of Anthropology's course "Fieldwork in Cultural Anthro-
pology" was scheduled for the same quarter, and an Institution-
al Research employee who was aware of anthropology's in-depth
research techniques felt that such studies might be profitable
complements to the survey if any students were interested in
conducting projects on campus. The 1976 class was therefore
designed to give students the opportunity (but did not re-
quire them) to conduct research on a topic of personal choice
within the broad category of organized student activities.
The Course and Selected Research Topics
The entire class focused on one general topic because
only eight students were enrolled. Although the small class
size made the overall project more manageable, twice as many
115
projects could easily have been developed within the same gen-
eral topic. Samll class size is not atypical for an under-
graduate fieldwork course, regardless of the size of the uni-
versity and department; it is certainly preferable, because
individual attention is available to the inexperienced students.
The early class meetings emphasized readings of field
methods guides and the experiences of professional field-
workers, but they also included discussions of the general
research project and the relevant activities and/or organi-
zations that might be the foci of individual projects. The
selection of topics thus combined readings considered appro-
priate or helpful to the level of the course (e.g., Edgerton
and Langness 1974; Crane and Angrosino 1974; Spradley and
McCurdy 1972)3 and attempted to correlate the students' pro-
jects with the questionnaire to be administered by the
Office of Institutional Research. An early task was an
attempt to identify the most significant activities and or-
ganizations. Since all members of the class had been on
campus for at least one year, they were able to make numer-
ous suggestions and the final selections of the topics for
individual research. In addition, preliminary versions of
the general questionnaire were evaluated by the class and
returned to the Office of Institutional Research.
Based on course readings, time constraints, and the
general goals of anthropological research, some limitations
were placed by class members on the types of activities to
be studied before specific ones were selected. The most im-
portant limitation was that the activities should occur reg-
ularly and at relatively short intervals. Daily or weekly
events were useful, but an annual spring festival and its
preparations, for example, were not because much of the plan-
ning had already taken place. The most fruitful topics
seemed to be groups (organizations) or categories of stu-
dents that were regularly present and therefore significant
as well as readily accessible to the researchers. The
nature of the general project (to determine the interest and
involvement in campus activities), although not directly
limiting to the selection of topics, did cause some activi-
ties to be eliminated because of their continuing success
and widespread student participation.4 Other general pro-
jects were selected because of the class' hypotheses that a
number of factors other than domestic and economic commit-
ments, such as the physical features of the campus itself,
strongly affect participation in campus activities.
The students therefore made informed selections of the
most significant topics for study, with a final joint state-
ment to be based on the results of individual projects. The
116
selections emphasized groups or topics that seemed to be po-
tential problem areas with respect to student involvement;
eight were finally selected. These were: (1) the campus
Veterans' Club, because of the large number of students re-
ceiving veterans' benefits and the potential influence such
numbers can create; (2) the involvement of night students in
campus non-academic activities since this population includes
a large number (even a majority) of students, many of whom
may be missing both recreational and informative activities;
(3) "special" students, which in this case includes students
sixty years of age or older and physically handicapped stu-
dents, for whom many campus activities seem to be of little
use or interest; (4) formal organizations that are associated
with an academic discipline or major (e.g., honors societies,
the Sociology Club); (5) the college-sponsored child care
center, operated off-campus because of current space limi-
tations and included in the project because it apparently
allows parents to not only attend classes but also participate
in other campus activities; (6) the nearby off-campus bars
that attempt to attract student business, to see if students
might attend a similar place on campus since no such facili-
ties existed there at that time; (7) a random selection of
students to draw maps of their perceptions of the physical
layout of the campus, since its spread-out nature is often
suggested to negatively affect students' attitudes toward
the college in general; and, finally, (8) a study of the
organization and operation of the Office for Student Activi-
ties itself. Each student wrote a proposal establishing pre-
liminary plans and goals for the topic selected for research.
Individual Projects: Results and Benefits
Five of the projects were completed by the end of the
spring quarter and were included in the overall summary and
Institutional Research report; preliminary results of two
others were utilized, and one of these reports was completed
during the fall quarter of the next academic year (for
reasons noted below). The other report was not completed,
and the eighth project never really got off the ground.
It was a source of some amusement to other class mem-
bers that the two projects causing the greatest problems of
completion were the studies of the nearby bars and the
Activities Office. The former was not completed for a vari-
ety of reasons, few of which related to the topic; the J6atter
presented some initial problems because some Activities
Office employees, including the people who had originally re-
quested the general report, were dubious of some of the
117
researcher's questions. Since similar problems regularly
occur in anthropological fieldwork and the Activities Office
is definitely at the center of campus activities, the project
still had the potential to provide useful experiences. Class
members often expressed concern that the Activities Office
wanted only the information that demonstrated its successes,
but no substantiation of this developed. The "failure" of
this individual project was due not to administrative ob-
structions (which existed but were overcome), but to the
student's personal allotment of time.
The usefulness of the general approach taken in the
class can be demonstrated by specifically examining the other
studies and their general results. As in any sociocultural
research, much of the selection of appropriate research
methods and approaches was based on the nature of the pop-
ulation and situations under study. The six completed pro-
jects will therefore be discussed to indicate both the stu-
dents' accomplishments and the specific fieldwork exper-
iences encountered.
The study of the Veterans' Club, for example, was pri-
marily an ethnohistorical study that examined a series of
attempts by campus veterans' coordinators to provide recre-
ational and "political" facilities and services for the nu-
merous veterans on campus. The organization could wield
considerable influence in campus affairs if activities and
issues were developed to attract the large veteran and
veteran-related population to its active membership. A
basic goal of the coordinators as leaders of the club has
therefore been to appeal to a diverse group of student-
veterans and their families. Simply becoming better ac-
quainted with that population has been a necessary part of
the goal. This immense task is eased somewhat by the fact
that full-time paid representatives of the Veterans' Adminis-
tration are continuously on campus in a permanent office and
can devote considerable time and resources to establishing
contacts and organizing activities. These employees also
provide the club with a continuity from one academic year to
the next. These characteristics make the Veterans' Club
quite different from most other campus organizations, and
they are also significant components of an anthropological
study. The student researcher was able to contact the paid
coordinators at almost any time after the original contacts
established the reasons for the study. The office could be
used to develop new contacts, and numerous activities and
projects also served as points of contact and assemblage.
The researcher experienced the problems and successes of
convincing people to act as informants, selecting a workable
specific research topic within the general study of the or-
118
ganization, and coordinating research time with other people's
work and study schedules. The time and access problems were
largely overcome because of the nature of the organization,
and the researcher was able to devote considerable time to
the acquisition of information. The methods employed in the
study included: the selection and use of particular infor-
mants for specific information; general interviews with a
variety of veterans, administrators, and Veterans' Adminis-
tration employees; observation of and participation in the
planning and operation of such recreational activities as
picnics and parties and such "political" activities as meet-
ings with various general campus administrators to demon-
strate the need for special consideration of veterans' eligi-
bility requirements for the G.I. Bill; and observations and
interviews specifically concerning the relationships among
the Veterans' Club, the campus Veterans' Administration Office,
and the Student Activities Office. In addition, the re-
searcher examined documents, past copies of the campus news-
paper, and the Veterans' Office newsletter to establish a
long-range perspective of the organization's operation and
goals.
The research on night students necessarily emphasized a
somewhat random series of interviews and interactions because
few places beyond small areas of beverage and snack machines
existed on campus at that time to allow students to congre-
gate before or after (or during) classes. The three locations
containing machines became the researcher's primary points
of original contact with other students. While utilizing ob-
servations of various congregations of students in each lo-
cation as one technique, the researcher used an informal
questionnaire to reach as many people as possible. Certain
individuals who agreed to take part in extended discussions
were contacted at later times. The formal activities that
took place on campus at night, such as films, plays, concerts,
and lectures, ironically were attended primarily by day stu-
dents unless a night class was dismissed specifically to
attend a lecture. Most night students worked during the day-
time, and time on campus was occupied by attending classes
or studying in the library; "free" time created by cutting
or cancellation of classes was usually spent off campus.
Night students' almost complete lack of involvement,
interest, and knowledge (e.g., a significant number of the
students interviewed either did not read or were unaware of
the campus newspaper, which is available throughout campus)
regarding campus activities at that time might be lessened
by the existence of a student union since Spring, 1978.
For the most part, however, night students were found to
come to campus for classes and little else, with jobs, fam-
ilies, and other personal interests precluding further cam-
119
pus involvements. In fact, a place to relax and obtain sand-
wiches and coffee, soft drinks or beer (as the union now pro-
vides) was one of the few items of general interest among the
students contacted.
The researcher in this case was nevertheless readily
able to observe and contact students each night that night
classes were held, regularly making arrangements for further
meetings at other times. The problems of time and accessi-
bility were therefore not generally encountered. Although
there was little opportunity to observe and participate in
specifically patterned activities, the researcher was able to
analyze general patterns of night student activity, make and
develop contacts with informants, and conduct both general
and in-depth interviews with informants. Based on these ac-
tivities, generalizations about the backgrounds of night stu-
dents and their academic and extracurricular activities and
interests were possible.
The project focusing on "special" students provided the
researcher with a number of significant opportunities. The
handicapped students were informally organized with an em-
ployee of the Activities Office responsible for meeting their
interests and needs and insuring that federal and state re-
quirements were being fulfilled. A number of the handicapped
students were particularly interested in informing other stu-
dents of these situations, so this part of the project focus-
ed on a generally active and responsive group of people. The
part of the project dealing with students over sixty years
of age, however, presented several problems. It also provid-
ed the researcher with some of the most valuable experiences--
and frustrations--encountered by any class member. A number
of frustrations centered on simply contacting the relevant
students, for there is no one organization on campus to attract
the older student. (This, in fact, was a basic reason for
the selection of the topic.) Although computerized student
records exist, these are protected by law unless students
sign waivers at the time of registration. Most students do
so for limited purposes, but specific permission for the Dean
of Students is still necessary before names can be released
for any reason. The bureaucratic red tape involved in obtain-
ing this permission and subsequently the desired names caused
a number of time-consuming delays but provided the student
with important experiences in dealing with such necessary in-
conveniences and in devising alternative means of establish-
ing contact (e.g., campus paper, word of mouth, direct ap-
proach), few of which were immediately successful. The older
students who were eventually contacted were therefore dealt
with individually through both brief formal questionnaires
and informal interviews. In short, part of the project pro-
vided important experiences in overcoming preliminary problems
120
of research and contacting members of a largely invisible
group.   The project generally gave the student experience
in designing and administering a formal questionnaire (to
all informants because of the relatively small numbers),
observing and participating in informal and formal meetings
and activities of the handicapped group, and working with
people from quite different backgrounds and interests than
one's own. By focusing on two groups generally outside the
"mainstream" of campus life, the researcher was able to ex-
amine the different reasons for their exclusion. The older
students often considered the classroom attendance itself
to be a pleasurable activity, and were rarely interested in
the campus leisure-time activities; the handicapped students
were very interested in such involvements, but were often
excluded because of their physical differences and general
problems of mobility. These differences also created dif-
ferences in the researcher's access to the two populations.
The handicapped students formed at least an informal group
that could be regularly contacted, observed, and interacted
with as a unit; the older students formed no such group,
and provided different research problems and opportunities.
The latter population therefore presented early problems of
access and subsequent problems of time within the academic
quarter; the former did not. The student researcher there-
fore experienced not only a variety of research populations,
but also a variety of research methods, problems, and suc-
cesses.
The research on clubs associated with academic majors
developed from an interest in the importance of formal cam-
pus organizations. The general topic appeared too broad,
and discipline-related clubs seemed to provide a common
theme that other organizations did not. The study was not
completed until the following academic year, primarily be-
cause the researcher became interested in the extent of
continuity of membership and projects from one academic
year to the next. Continuity was anticipated to be a major
problem for the groups because students are usually in-
volved in such organizations for only one or two years
after majors have been selected rather than throughout
their college careers as they might be in a special interest
or religious group. The study subsequently took more time
to complete than the course provided. The basic research,
however, was completed within the course's time limits.
The researcher utilized a variety of methods to study
the  formal organizations, including participant-observation,
informal interviews, questionnaires, and documentary re-
search. Original contacts with the organizations, their
leaders, and other members were easy to establish because of
regular meetings. Since all formal organizational meetings
121
on campus are scheduled through the Activities Office to in-
sure space and campus-wide publicity, meetings of different
clubs did not conflict with each other or the researcher's
time. General interviews were conducted with as many mem-
bers of each club as possible (as well as with some non-
members who were majors in the respective disciplines); in-
depth interviews took place with the leaders, selected mem-
bers of both sexes, and faculty advisors of each club. Var-
ious documents were consulted as a part of the research,
including the campus rules for such organizations, the con-
stitutions of the organizations and the early histories of
the groups, if available. The researcher also participated
in the meetings and activities of each group throughout the
quarter. Access to the research topic and populations was
therefore not a problem. Time became a problem only be-
cause the researcher chose to add a comparative dimension to
the research by examining the same groups' compositions and
activities during the first quarter of the next academic
year.5
The study of the child-care center provided one of the
few opportunities to conduct extended participant-observation
research in one setting. The researcher volunteered to as-
sist at the newly-established center, not only to observe
and take part in its activities but also to establish con-
tacts with parents to see if the center increased parents'
opportunities to participate in campus non-academic activi-
ties. The researcher obtained information on few students
but nevertheless experienced a number of important situ-
ations, ranging from obtaining permission to conduct the
research to attempts to retain an observer's perspective in
a participatory position. By working in the center several
hours a day during the quarter, the researcher became well-
acquainted with the children, their parents, the center's
staff, and the patterns of activity at the center. This
participant-observation was complemented by informal dis-
cussions outside the center with all of the people involved.
Since the center was new, the results of this study were
significant contributions to plans for its future. In
terms of research experiences, the study of the center pro-
vided ready access five days a week to all situations and
all informants except parents, most of whom readily consented
to additional discussions at other times.
The project requiring informants to produce a hand-
drawn map of the college campus (a technique generally adap-
ted from ones occasionally used by cultural geographers and
some anthropologists) precipitated a number of interesting
responses and generalizations although the latter probably
had little "scientific" validity. The respondents were
asked to draw, on a regular-sized sheet of typing paper, the
122
campus' boundaries and contents, naming all buildings and
other points of interest and importance. Since the campus
has few buildings but covers a large area, the researcher
felt that an attempt to correlate extent of knowledge of the
campus' physical characteristics with one's major (some dis-
ciplines make use of facilities in a variety of places on
campus) and extent of participation in activities6 might
produce some interesting correlations.7 Despite obtaining
many interesting maps to peruse and developing generaliza-
tions on the above points, the researcher's primary benefits
were methodological ones. In addition to the problems of
making meaningful generalizations based on the use of a very
random group of informants, the researcher found that even
apparently simply sampling with fewer than one-hundred respon-
dents necessitated computerized responses. The experiences
of designing the project and asking people to respond were
significant although the analyses and correlations took more
time than the generalizations that were derived (e.g., few
students, regardless of major, are completely familiar with
the campus' physical layout) warranted. A less random sample,
such as large numbers of students from a few selected majors,
would have avoided several problems, but this approach was
realized and used only during the late stages of research.
In addition to their individual projects, students had
opportunities to develop ideas and generalizations for the
general report based on the other projects. The completed
project papers were all submitted to Institutional Research
and Student Activities Office, as had been understood from
the beginning of the project. The projects generally agreed
with the overall survey's findings that a majority of stu-
dents perceive the campus primarily as a place to attend
classes, not as a potential recreation site. As just dis-
cussed, many more specific findings also resulted from the
students' field research.
In terms of the course's basic goals, which were to
provide the students with opportunities to experience field
situations and develop methods and skills to deal with and
analyze them, the project was successful in several ways.
Specific methods and findings have just been briefly dis-
cussed, but the students had a number of common experiences.
Each student, individually and as a member of a group, had
the opportunity to formulate research problems and determine
their relative importance. Each also had to contact poten-
tial informants and/or officials to explain the purposes
and rationale of the research. After establishing these
contacts, all students conducted interviews of various types,
and these required the selection of significant topics for
questionnaires or discussion, keeping and organizing notes,
and, finally, analyzing the materials. The determination
123
of the extent of the researcher's role as a participant-
observer was also part of the on-going research, but the
nature and extent of this and other problems varied from one
research setting to another. Each student had to make ad-
justments in the original research design and goals after
the research had begun; such adjustments were generally pos-
sible because of the relatively easy access to the research
populations. In almost every case, various barriers, whether
bureaucratic or personal, were encountered and dealt with.
Evaluation was based on the extent to which students ful-
filled the objectives stated in their original proposals, in-
cluding their attempts to overcome problems; on this basis,
the students were generally successful. Although the course
was not intended to train professional anthropologists, each
student gained some knowledge, experience, and skills in
common with the professional researcher. By conducting the
research on the college campus and avoiding or lessening many
of the typical problems of undergraduate ethnographic re-
search discussed above, the positive experiences were more
accessible.
Undergraduate Fieldwork and Student
Activities: A Summary
A fieldwork course emphasizing on-campus research pro-
vides a number of potential benefits, not the least of which
is the information made available to the on-campus units,
such as the Office of Institutional Research and the Office
for Student Activities in the case just discussed. In that
regard, the fieldwork class' projects provided in-depth ex-
amples of items briefly examined in the general survey
questionnaire. While this and the opportunity to correlate
one's own work with both other projects and the general sur-
vey were beneficial and rewarding to the students involved,
such ideal situations may not occur frequently. There are
nevertheless many patterned topics worth pursuing on any
college campus and, likely, also many people willing to
allow them to be studied and provide some assistance. In
addition, general on-campus research can overcome several
of the recurrent problems of undergraduate fieldwork courses
discussed above.
Most importantly, an on-campus project largely over-
comes the problems of time and accessibility. Regardless of
the topic, the students in the course discussed here were
able to conduct research during almost any period of free
time. The selection of manageable topics still created some
124
problems, but those topics considered most "relevant" were
preselected by class members, and even the projects that were
generally too broad (e.g., the map drawing) or in need of ad-
ditional time (e.g., the discipline-related organizations)
provided useful experiences and information. Although stu-
dents had to interact with "strangers" in most cases, the
on-campus setting seemed more comfortable for an initial
fieldwork experience than would an attempt to contact infor-
mants and develop topics within the larger community. In
reality, the comfort was probably largely illusory, but
students obviously felt much less pressure than they origin-
ally anticipated. Each project was essentially non-threaten-
ing while still giving as much experience, both positive and
negative, as possible.
The problems often encountered by an instructor in an
undergraduate fieldwork course were also largely eliminated.
Students were able to select essentially similar or uniform
topics that could be discussed in class to the benefit of all
other class members. Class meetings therefore became more
than just sessions in which students exchanged examples of
successes and failures; since all were working on the same
general topic and were familiar with each other's specific
topics, concrete suggestions and information were also reg-
ularly exchanged. This was important to the instructor be-
cause a discussion about either methods or data with one
student was comprehensible and useful to others as well. In
addition, students never felt that a personal project had
little significance since it was contributing to a general
project.
The perceived significance of one's own project was com-
plemented by a sense of accomplishment in formulating, plan-
ning, conducting, and analyzing that same project. Although
a general project theme was suggested, the selection of a
specific topic was still the student's responsibility.8 This
situation is somewhat more constraining than one in which
students are given complete choice, but the constraints seem-
ed beneficial in reducing problems of time, access, and
stress, for example, rather than limiting.
Similar topics and projects are feasible on any college
campus. Any college community, regardless of size, location,
or composition of the student population, includes numerous
institutions and patterned situations that can be compart-
mentalized into a series of individual projects.9 Even if
numerous opportunities for undergraduate field research px-
ist within an adjacent general community, the on-campus re-
search setting seems to offer numerous benefits for at least
the initial research endeavor. On smaller and more isolated
campuses, these projects may be the only feasible way to
125
encourage undergraduate field research. More sophisticated
and complex off-campus projects can be selected and conducted
individually, but the general situation discussed in this
paper is workable and useful for an introductory exposure to
methods and practical ways to cope with a variety of problems.
Final Statements
The case described above was, by nature if not by def-
inition, an exercise in applied anthropology because the pro-
jects' results became part of a report that could potentially
precipitate changes. In conjunction with the general survey,
the project reports were in fact carefully considered and
utilized in evaluating and expanding student activities on
campus. The lack of a real sense of campus community that
was indicated in the questionnaire results was substantiated
with some qualifications by the specific cases examined by
the students in the fieldwork class. Since that time, the
Activities Office and the new Student Union have made numer-
ous contributions to campus life, both academic-related and
recreational. The fieldwork projects, at the very least,
played a role in indicating potential directions for new and
existing programs.
NOTES
Acknowledgments. This paper is a revised and expanded version
of one presented at the 1980 meetings of the Society for Ap-
plied Anthropology. I am grateful to California State College,
San Bernardino, for a sabbatical during Winter, 1980, when the
original version of this paper was written. The assistance
and encouragement of the Office of Institutional Research and
the Office for Student Activities at the college are also
gratefully noted. The greatest debt, however, is owed to the
following students who participated in the course, for their
efforts made much of this paper possible: Cornelia Corti,
Lonnie Bailey, Vera Cridelich, Terri White, Diana Goble, and
Robin Moody.
1 This has been referred to as a "uniformly valuable super-
vised experience" (Rapoport 1963:347).
2 An introductory course at the University of Illinois that
emphasizes "personal anthropology" through brief projects
dealing with the students' immediate environment implicitly
demonstrates the broad range of potential campus topics avail-
able for in-depth examination within a field course
(Bruner 1979).
126
3 The more recent works mentioned above (e.g., Spradley 1979,
1980) greatly strengthen the potential reading list for such
a course.
4 The general questionnaire allowed students to explain what
they liked about these programs, so other research projects
seemed more urgent.
5 Most of the clubs generally avoided problems of continuity
by electing officials and planning early projects and activi-
ties for the next year before the end of the school year.
6 The respondents were also asked a number of general ques-
tions about these matters.
7 Some of the more interesting responses included the fail-
ure of several informants to include the library building,
which not only contains the library itself but also includes
classrooms in which more than half of the college's classes
meet.
8 Although students were not required to work on an activi-
ties project, all chose to do so.
9 An instructor should be careful not to devise or allow
students to devise individual projects that if not completed
will greatly affect the general goals. In essence, a one-
hundred percent completion rate is unrealistic to expect,
and both general and specific projects should be designed
with this truism in mind.
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