Episode 90- Alyssa Crittenden Graduate Student Experience

Office Hours with John Gardner

Dr. Alyssa Crittenden is the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, Dean of the Graduate College, and a Professor of Anthropology at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV). The university, and the Graduate College, are deeply committed to creating an environment where all students can thrive. UNLV is a large public university that holds the Carnegie R1 ranking for research and is a designated Minority Serving Institution (MSI), Hispanic-Serving Institution (HSI), and Asian American Native American Pacific Islander-Serving Institution (ANNAPISI). In her role at UNLV, Alyssa is responsible for all academic, personnel, administrative, and financial activities within the graduate college, which supports more than 175 graduate certificate, master's, specialist, and doctoral programs serving more than 5,000 graduate and professional students.

She began her academic career in 2011 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at UNLV, teaching courses in human biology, reproduction, biological anthropology, cultural anthropology, and research ethics. Her research explores the relationship between behavior, reproduction, and the environment (ecological, political, and social) with an emphasis on nutrition and maternal and infant health & wellbeing. She has worked for the past twenty years with Hadzabe in Tanzania, a hunting and gathering community that still forages for a large portion of their diet. She is the recipient of the 2021 Conrad Arensberg Award from the American Anthropological Association for furthering anthropology as a natural science. Her current work with the Hadzabe community (see www.olanakwe.org) and her current role at UNLV both reflect her steadfast commitment to equitable access to education.

Resources from episode:

1. Sonya Atalay's concept of braided knowledge, particularly in regard to working in partnership with Indigenous communities to bring their voices and knowledge to the forefront.

Atalay, S. (2012). Community-based archaeology: Research with, by, and for indigenous and local communities. Univ of California Press.

2. Len Cassuto's work:
Cassuto, L. (2015). The graduate school mess: What caused it and how we can fix it. Harvard University Press.
Cassuto, L., & Weisbuch, R. (2021). The new PhD: How to build a better graduate education.

3. Olanakwe Community Fund (www.olanakwe.org). A mutual aid organization supporting community-based educational programs and economic development projects that directly benefit Indigenous Hadzabe hunter-gatherers of Tanzania, East Africa.

4. Additional references that might be of interest:

Calarco, J. M. (2020). A field guide to grad school: Uncovering the hidden curriculum. Princeton University Press.

Nguyen, D. J., & Yao, C. W. (Eds.). (2023). A Handbook for Supporting Today's Graduate Students. Taylor & Francis.