• Smith's anthropology offerings promote awareness and understanding of ethnic and cultural diversity on a global scale as well as in the United States. We challenge students' assumptions about their cultures by introducing them to societies and social groups whose principles and prejudices are different from their own. As a result, students carry a greater sensitivity to the cultural dimension of human experience in their work.
  • Anthropology majors gain a balanced view of the range of intellectual concerns and research priorities that mark the subdisciplines of cultural anthropology. We emphasize a commitment to the value of the ethnographic method as the prerequisite to a comparative analysis of human cultures. Direct observation of ongoing social systems and their cultural frameworks is at the forefront of our studies. Students gain an appreciation for the importance of anthropological methods and ethnographic texts in relation to other academic disciplines and many contemporary issues.