Founded in 1934 as a graduate department, the Department of Anthropology has since provided research training in anthropology to students from across the country. In addition, the department serves students in religious studies and education, nursing, social work and in interdisciplinary programs of the University. This makes for an eclectic and unusually international student body.

Our faculty has received grants recently from the National Science Foundation, the United States Institute of Peace, the Fulbright program, the Smithsonian Institution, the National Institutes of Health, and private foundations from the Church Extension Society and the National Geographic Society to the American Centers for Oriental Research and the Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research. Members of the department are currently and have been elected officers in national and international professional associations and learned societies, editors of scholarly journals; they serve on national review boards for government agencies and private foundations, university presses, and academic journals. All of these provide access to professional networks for graduate students and majors, opportunities to work and find support and to develop their interests into professional skills.