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Where are the white students? - Ep 301
365 Plays1 month ago
The crew discusses a news article about the changing demographics of college campuses.
Transcripts
- For a transcript of this episode go to https://www.archpodnet.com/crmarchpodcast/301
Links
Blogs and Resources:
- Bill White: Succinct Research
- Doug Rocks-MacQueen: Doug’s Archaeology
- Chris Webster: DIGTECH LLC
- Andrew Kinkella
Kinkella Teaches Archaeology (Youtube)
Blog: Kinkella Teaches Archaeology
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Transcript
Introduction to the Archaeology Podcast Network
00:00:01
Speaker
You're listening to the Archaeology Podcast Network. This is the Serum Archaeology Podcast. It's the show where we pull back the veil of cultural resources management archaeology and discuss the issues that everyone is concerned about. Welcome to the podcast.
Episode 301 Overview with Hosts and Guests
00:00:22
Speaker
Hello and welcome to the CRM Archaeology Podcast, Episode 301, airing on November 12th, 2024. Hello, I'm your host, Heather. Welcome to the show, everyone. Joining me today is Bill in Northern California. Hello. Andrew in Southern California. Hey, guys, how's it going? And Doug in Scotland. Hey, everyone.
Decline of White Undergraduates in the U.S.
00:00:50
Speaker
We are today going to talk about a topic that Bill brought up. And actually, I'm just going to i'm just gonna let you take it away, kind of give us an explanation, and then we'll we'll move forward. Yeah, sure. No problem. Thanks. The topic today focuses on this article that I read. It came out on October 10th in the Chronicle of Higher Education. And the title is, Where Are the White Students? And in a nutshell, the article goes down and talks about how white undergraduates have dropped across the United States in pretty much all sectors. And they have these numbers from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center that show that since 2018, white undergraduate enrollment has dropped about 19%. And so many people thought that it was the
00:01:37
Speaker
the COVID-19 situation that caused a lot of white students to drop out, but they're actually just not seeing students come back. And so there's a combination of things going on here in the article, you know, folks should definitely check it out and look at it. But you know, as our conversation was going, some of this has to do with just the overall shrinking of higher education. So I don't know how many people are aware, but the cohort of people that are college age right now is smaller than previous cohorts. And so, the United States higher education system expanded to include all these folks over the decades, right? So, our colleges adjusted to be able to take on all these students because, you know, in 2010 there was enrollment of like, you know, 21 million people in college. But since then that has gone down and the COVID-19 pandemic didn't help it.
00:02:30
Speaker
But just general demographics in the United States show that there's just fewer and fewer college age Americans that can go to to universities. And so this has caused a lot of ripples. You know, I work in higher ed. And so there's been a lot of things that have gone on, you know, to try to increase enrollments because a lot of people may not understand this, but, you know, at university, state universities and private institutions too,
00:02:56
Speaker
Enrollments is a critical chunk, right? Enrollment numbers, hours, student hours in the classroom, you know, that's a huge indicator of how many professors can be in a department. And so keeping enrollments in your department allows for you to have more professors. So that's definitely one thing.
University Revenue Challenges and Enrollment Trends
00:03:12
Speaker
But also just In general, student tuition is a significant chunk of the revenue that the university gets because but gone are the days that the state is actually giving you a ton of money that's down to like, you know, 30%, 20% of what you get from the state. So a lot of the revenue operational budget for the university is coming from tuition and fees. And then finally, there's like kind of an arms race going on with a lot of universities where they're, you know, trying to build out amenities and build out more things. for the students to attract more students, because like I said, your enrollments are a critical chunk of operating the entire university. And so the focus in a lot of places is really shifting away from academics to just creating interesting amenities and things to get students in. And so the the winners in this game are the big state universities, the big universities that can, you know, rely on prestige or sports or however they do it to get a lot of people to enroll in that university. And they're fighting for a smaller and smaller number of student body that's available. The losers of this system are small liberal arts colleges that don't have huge endowments, state schools that don't have the same rankings and the same perceived ah prestige, and then also
00:04:28
Speaker
like, ah smaller community colleges and states where population is going down. And so the smaller schools, they they're, you know, either combining together to survive or they're going out of business, whereas the bigger schools are just building more and more amenities to try to get more and more enrollments. And there's kind of a growth-oriented model at those which, you know, that's a tricky subject to address, right? But in the middle of all this,
00:04:51
Speaker
are these demographics that are showing things like what this article shows that, you know, while some groups, you know, African Americans are going down, other enrollments like Hispanic Americans and Asian Americans is going up. And then of course, white Americans is going down. And so when I read this, you know, it's a hodgepodge of different statistics.
00:05:11
Speaker
folks who like statistics like going through these different numbers, actually, they're not even stats, they're just like tables and numbers of overall numbers of people. I want to pick through this much more deeply. But the first thing I thought of is like, what does that mean for archaeology? Because we've talked about this before on the podcast, archaeology is overwhelmingly people of European descent. I mean, there's mostly white people that are running companies, mostly white people that own companies and cultural resources, mostly white folks that are doing archaeology at almost every single level. And so, without
00:05:43
Speaker
white students going to college, what does that mean for cultural resources? Where are we going to get our people? So we had quite a bit of conversation. I know other folks are willing to weigh in on this. So what do you all
Gender Imbalance in Higher Education
00:05:56
Speaker
think? What does everybody on the podcast think here? What do you got to say?
00:05:59
Speaker
So, well, I'm going to just say preach on Brother Bill. I totally agree with you because we're in, you know, we're in similar zones. We're both in California. We're both in higher education. And I see this. I see this happening. I feel like me at a community college, I'm almost kind of like at the tip of the spear. You know, I'm at like ground zero for some of these like demographic changes. But I do think there's so many aspects of this article to unpack. We had been talking earlier offline. And Doug brought up, you know, several great points just about some of the statistics and how it might not be specifically, when you say white students are declining, it might not be specifically because white humans are not going to school, right? It can be like, Oh, I now define myself as this different thing. Actually, you know, as as time moves on, there are
00:06:51
Speaker
fewer, quote unquote, white people because, hey, my mother's actually you know Asian or whatever. So you so you can sort of have change in that manner. But I i also notice what I notice the number one thing in my classes is actually not a um change that much in the in the racial makeup, although I would say over time it's gotten more diverse. But then again, we're in California, which is a bit of a bubble on this.
00:07:17
Speaker
What I have noticed hugely is a difference in the sexes where you just have Way fewer men and that it's like to an extreme. Like, actually, I do teach a grad seminar at a state college, local state college. It's small. There's only six or seven students in it. All women. There are zero men in it. And this is an this is a grad seminar specifically on CRM. This is like the CRM class. All women. So that is the number one demographic shift I see.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you are right in California, Andrew, that we live in a unique space because the state of California has kind of this three-tiered system in higher ed. We've got the state schools like UCLA, ah University of San Diego, Berkeley, ah Davis, Irvine, I can't name them all off anyway. It's like no knowing all the books of the Bible, right? I don't know all the... i't know god ah Yeah, exactly. Santa Barbara, right? yeah Santa Cruz, everybody out there is like, you know, hammering their comment button like, you forgot my, okay, I'm sorry, I forgot yours. I'm sorry, I forgot your school. But, so those ones are the ones that, you know, are at the University of California level. And then it's named after the city, University of California in the city of Berkeley, University of California in the city of LA, right?
00:08:38
Speaker
So then the next tier is like the state schools. And of course, I don't know all of them either. But schools like Chico State, San san Diego State, ah California State, l LA, had even more complications, right? And so those schools are also state level schools, but they're not at the tier as the very top ones. And then there's community colleges. Well, in the state of California,
00:09:00
Speaker
Half of the incoming freshmen at all the university schools like UCLA come from the community college. They're transfers, right? So in California, there's a really unique kind of thing going on with fewer college age residents of the state.
00:09:18
Speaker
where they know that if they don't get into UCLA or they don't get into Santa Barbara on the first try, they can go to the community college system, stay there for a year and then try again. And then if they don't get in that time, stay for another year. They can keep going until they finish their associates in anthropology.
00:09:34
Speaker
And then at that time, they have to choose a state school or, a you know, a University of California school. So in that world, there's less motivation for people to go to like Chico State, Cal State East Bay, Sonoma State, right? Because they know that they can get into the more prestigious college if they go to a community college. And it's causing a lot of problem on the state school system.
00:09:59
Speaker
because there's not students
Systemic Issues in Anthropology and Archaeology Programs
00:10:00
Speaker
who are going to these other schools, their enrollments are going down, they're having to do all kinds of different stuff to try to keep their anthro departments open. And I think a lot of that's coming because there's fewer young people that can go to college. And many of them know that they can get into a more prestigious school. And of course, you know, many anyone listening to this knows that they probably went to college, not only to learn about anthropology, but also to get a diploma that helps them get a job, right? So,
00:10:28
Speaker
ah we really do have kind of a career-oriented group of folks in archaeology. like That's why they're doing it because they want to get a job in archaeology rather than just expand their mind like you know philosophy or something else.
00:10:41
Speaker
Yeah. And I see exactly what you're saying. Exactly. Like because at the community college in terms of enrollment, I feel like we're doing OK, you know, and then and then I have approximately a billion students who are doing exactly what you said, Bill, where they're like, hey, wait, I'll just hang out here another year. I'll just get my GPA, ah like bump it up a little bit. yeah You know, get serious, which is nice. These students are doing good because they're serious, you know, and so they're ah going to be doing well. And then they're like, I'll go to UC Berkeley after that. i've had so many students doing that. The toughest, the toughest place to be in is a smaller like state school, like you're saying Cal State, whatever that's smaller, that is the toughest one they're being squeezed out. Yeah. Yeah. And so you're exactly right. All the credits from your community college transfer right over to Berkeley and you get a UC Berkeley diploma, right? You know, why wouldn't you do that? yep yeah Well, I could say
00:11:31
Speaker
One reason to the Cal States for a while, we're really focusing on more of the CRM aspect rather than the academic. And so for somebody who's hiring on the CRM side, I actually would, there are some programs at the CSUs that I would prefer to see on a resume than a UC.
00:11:54
Speaker
school only because I know that they're getting trained a little bit more in from a CRM perspective than they are from an academic perspective. And that perhaps they'll be a little bit more, you know, be better prepared to go straight into the workforce. So, I do think that the CSUs need to.
00:12:14
Speaker
double down on that strategy, they really need to start focusing even more so and not just understand what their role is in cultural resources in archaeology. And that is to produce people that are going to be working in CRM rather than kind of try to straddle the line between academia and CRM, just go for CRM. And that is Really, I think if you look at some of the better programs when it comes to CRM, they're at CSUs, they're not at UCs. Yeah. Yeah, you're right about that. And with the Cal State, you have more agency to try to do that, right, than the research-oriented schools. Yeah, and you're you're able to, you know, at the CSUs, many of them are set up to allow you to actually do your own graduate work where you're not
00:13:01
Speaker
Like at an R1 school, dear pretty much your hand is forced to do the work of your advisor, rather than being able to have a specialty that you would like to focus on and having that agency to do that.
00:13:15
Speaker
No, we're on work. We do they just drop them right into the lava. You're forced to figure it out on your own, right? That's one of my, well, that can, we can talk more about grad. Actually that maybe we should do something about that graduate department selection because fall is the time when everybody somehow, their passion is anthropology and they super want to get a PhD. So maybe we should do another yeah conversation about that again.
00:13:39
Speaker
Well, I think that's a good segue. Oh, for sure. You mean a whole entire podcast. yeah Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I think maybe the next one would be good. But yeah, at least for now, let's let's move on to segment ah two. We'll be right back.
00:13:52
Speaker
All right, welcome back to segment two, ah the CRM archaeology podcast, episode 301. We're talking or at least the impetus behind this conversation, talking about demographics and the decline of certain groups of college enrollment and the impetus was a article that Bill brought to our attention called Where Are All the White Students? And Doug has something to say, so I'm going to throw it over to Doug. Yeah, i man, there's a lot to digest in this article and me being a bit of a stats geek.
00:14:30
Speaker
They mix and match. It's sort of a typical like news article. When you have a story, you want to make a story out of something. And it's really hard to tell. So the more dramatic quotes are coming from a research center.
00:14:47
Speaker
which might be true in stuff, but then they also mix in with like federal statistics about universities. And the federal statistics is exactly what you would expect from demographics in that, yeah, across the United States, the white population is shrinking. Well, not shrinking, shrinking as a proportion,
00:15:10
Speaker
of the population. There's still hundreds of millions of white people in the United States. It's just that other minority groups are growing larger. and Actually, white's not really shrinking. It won't be shrinking, I think, for another couple of decades, as it were. like Actually, physically, numbers are going down. It's just percentages out of the total are going down. and Basically, yeah like in the same article, there are quite a bunch of different things.
00:15:35
Speaker
And the federal statistics aren't showing what that one center is showing, which is basically the federal one is showing a steady decline of white students, a slightly less steady decline of like a shallower decline of black students. And again, those demographics match the sort of overall United States demographics and a growth of Hispanic students. So I think there's an issue here of definitely long-term, and this has been long-term for decades and decades. you know This is demographics. it's not It's hard to tell. I'd have to like really dig into these other numbers that they're pulling out. Because at the federal level and those numbers, it looks all steady. And they're talking about these massive drops that have kicked in 2021, 2022.
Analysis of Demographic Shifts in Education
00:16:24
Speaker
But actually, it has accelerated some loss of students
00:16:28
Speaker
in the United States. you know Obviously, COVID impacted a lot of people. Some people deferred. Some people, but of course, when you defer, not everyone always goes back to university. Not everyone wanted to you do online university.
00:16:42
Speaker
pandemic stuff happens, but i I'm kind of of the opinion after a quick glance at the data and stuff. Yeah, this is this kind of like a ah non-article. It's making and like you know a huge thing out of a change, but actually it's just long-term. And and like everything like, so what Andrews mentioned too, that's long-term. like 1990s, basically the demographic cross of of women and men kicked in. but It depends if you're talking two-year, four-year, what states and stuff. but Basically, a couple of decades ago, it basically hit even, where it was about 50% men, 50% women going to university. And then it's it's basically made what we call like a ah demographic cross, whereas one group goes down, one comes up.
00:17:33
Speaker
And those trends have continued. And so, you know, now, now it's like, you know, 60 some percent women in university versus 40% men. And that's, you know, at some universities, it's pushing like, and you also see this in like anthropology as well.
00:17:49
Speaker
PhD students, undergraduates. Do you see this in the UK as well? this This is not just a U.S. thing. You see this cross. We're basically now, easily for the last couple of decades, at least the last decade and a half, two decades, more women have gone to archaeology, more women have gone to anthropology. And those numbers just keep going until or it's almost like a two to one right now, yeah like overall ratio.
00:18:15
Speaker
yeah And that's, yeah, I think that's something that's just basically, you're going to have to have a think about and that's going to be sort of more long term. Part of this also is like, it may take a really long time to affect archeology and anthropology. So, if you look at the students and when you look at these big numbers, it's like every student that goes to university, well that includes like, so Andrew was mentioning community college and you guys are in California. You you probably have, actually can I start to you Andrew real quick? I assume you have a pretty diverse student body.
00:18:51
Speaker
Oh, yeah, you know, it's ah it's just all over the place. You know, we have we have all kinds and it's like if you need to check every diversity marker, you can. And I don't just mean race. I mean, things like age, you know, we have like a ton of returning students. We have it's it's one of my favorite parts of doing the gig. You know, we just we have we have the cross section of America. It's like, welcome to it. You know, so, yeah, yeah we have. But.
00:19:18
Speaker
like You are the exception to the rule. There's you, there's like Pima in Arizona, there's one or two other community colleges that have archaeology at them. oh yeah to do like i associate But if you actually look at it, like a lot of the universities are actually very white universities. And you see this like in the UK as well. Like archaeology is not taught across all 140 some universities or 30 or whatever it is. It's actually about 40. And it's actually the the quote unquote elite. So like most of the Russell group, which should be like the UK equivalent to the Ivy League. But again, like archaeology is taught in all the Ivy League schools. It's taught at like
00:20:05
Speaker
all right Bill, Berkeley, it's taught you know at the very high-end universities that end up being a lot more white than what everyone else you know with the rest of the country looks like. so The country's changing. But even then, you're not going to see a ah change but in anthropology. It'll be decades behind anthropology, archaeology, whatever you want to call it. It doesn't really matter. It's about the same on demographics. like It's just going to take forever to get there in terms of like a lot of that diversity because it's it's where it's taught. It's taught at fairly exclusive universities. It's not taught everywhere. And sorry, it's just I'll shut up and let you guys talk for a minute. but like
00:20:49
Speaker
Also, one other thing, I'm just going to throw like a massive wrench into there. A lot of quote-unquote diversity is not diversity. So a lot of quote-unquote change in the demographics of the United States is Hispanic.
00:21:03
Speaker
but There's a lot of problems in like how you divide this up, but Hispanic is the only ethnicity in when they do the census in the U.S. So it's actually not, quote unquote, a race. So Hispanic, actually, everyone when you're thinking Hispanic, everyone thinks brown. That's what you're thinking. You're thinking you're Mexican, you're everything like that. Hispanic, basically, is just an extra tick box on top of white, black, Asian,
00:21:38
Speaker
so Essentially, like when everyone's talking about like this demographic of like oh universities in the United States are becoming more diverse, it's actually incredibly complicated. so like I grew up in New Mexico, and we had a lot of these issues hit you know a century ago. like so New Mexico was a territory. New Mexico and Arizona didn't become states until 1912, and it was literally like think 1840s racist bullshit. that They tried 16, 17 times via state, and literally you had senators standing up from like Louisiana and saying, oh, we would never let those half-breed Mongol Hispanic people win go there. So it's a huge thing. but like
00:22:21
Speaker
Native New Mexicans don't say they're Mexican. They don't say they're New Mexican. They're Spanish. There's a sense, even though their family has been in the States or you know in America for like 400 years, and in that time, you have had some mixture with you local groups. A lot of other things, they're not purebred, but they actually come out as Hispanic. and like They do not recognize, or not in his back, they come out as Spanish. They do not recognize themselves as Mexicans. Mexican assumes that you're brown. So they think of themselves as white people. You get this this huge demographic and you see it like, like everyone's talking about like the elections coming up and all, well, by the time people hear this, the election will be over and all that stuff, but they'll be like, oh, you know, his back and stuff like that. And like, oh, they switched and yada yada and like,
00:23:11
Speaker
You know, Florida, there Trump's winning more than Hispanic vote. No, Trump is winning more than the white vote. So you can actually see the demographics of, like, he's won a huge percentage of the Cuban vote, and most Cubans check off the box of white, where he has lost a lot of, say, like, the Dominican and Haitian vote, which is traditionally more thought of as brown. So, like, it's a huge complicated thing of, like, on paper, everyone's like, it's more diverse. But actually, a lot of the Hispanic people that you're getting are not necessarily thinking of themselves as as brown or a minority. most A lot of them are actually thinking of themselves as white. It's actually a huge issue there.
00:23:52
Speaker
I mean, like one of the biggest things here is that none of us are Hispanic, right? So, I mean, it in like you said, it is a really diverse topic and it's, you know, case by case basis, right? So Hispanic, Asian American, African American, we're not the ones who get to say like what people report. And so the the results that we see here in these the census and also the survey of ah demographics for universities is what students have placed on their applications, right? So, those are the things that they've placed. And then, you know, with these big numbers, as Doug was talking about, it doesn't have individuals in their family history, right? So, we don't get to find out if someone has chosen
00:24:34
Speaker
Hispanic and they're from New Mexico because that was the only choice or because, you know, they actually align with those values or whether they choose white, right? So, I understand the whole connection of individuals historically and everything and especially that way that the government treated folks in Arizona and in California and New Mexico, right? so Yeah, I mean, I get a lot of that stuff. And none of that's going to come out in the demographics.
Racial Demographics and Self-Reporting Complexity
00:25:01
Speaker
Another website I was looking at while we're, ah you know, talking about this, justifying some of the stuff Doug was mentioning is on higher ed education data.org. I found this table that shows this decrease in white students at the same time where there's an increase in Hispanic students, and pretty much
00:25:20
Speaker
Well, there's an increase in Asian American students, a slight decline in African American, but a big increase in the number of students who report two or more races, right? So, this is self-reporting information. So, when they throw the panic button that all the white students are dropping out of college, right? Like, just like Doug was saying, what does that mean, right? What individuals may check these different things on university websites or on applications and stuff like that, but in their actual daily life, they don't consider themselves those things because either there's not an option or, you know, they're choosing that because they're in a university environment. environment And then so then the aggregate data just collects like what people have reported, not how it actually reflects in their real life, right? And you are right, man, this stuff is totally complicated, right?
00:26:10
Speaker
You got to really talk to people and learn about their background as to what they consider themselves and what they choose and everything. So, you are we are missing a huge chunk of what people express in their lived everyday life compared to, you know, what they report on standardized modules. Yeah, I also add to the complexity We do say self-reporting, but some of that is also basically formed by society.
00:26:39
Speaker
so like you know Mix is becoming a bigger thing because people can now be considered mixed. but you know ah those crazy things like I was just reading, like I forget, Vice President in 1936 or something like that. He was a one-term vice president because basically he was kicked out by the Southern states because his common law law wife was an eighth black. But that was the whole idea. It was that one drop rule, which, you know Bill, I'm sure you've heard. and
00:27:21
Speaker
seen across, you know, African-American culture, which is basically like, as soon as you have one drop somewhere in there, it doesn't matter how you present, that's who you are. And so we're starting to get like that whole yeah change now where things people can actually somewhat self-identify. But there's still like a lot of legacy, like, you know, a lot of black people will be what you'd probably consider or what most people describe now as mixed. Yeah.
00:27:47
Speaker
but they were always black and they were always treated by black as black. And yeah that's a c culture they grew up in because, you know, pretty much their white families rejected them and all sorts of bullshit stuff that goes on. sorry I mean, you just choose what people are going to treat you as, right? So like in my case, my parents were like, yeah, you're mixed, but nobody's going to know that. So you better just definitely embrace being black.
00:28:11
Speaker
because nobody's going to be like, oh, well, you know, you're mixed. I guess now people can try to walk that line. Right. But like, you know, no one sees you that way. So it's it's kind of like, why would you choose that? Right. Along those lines, you know, the one thing that, you know, may not be a popular thought, but, you know, we can't ignore, you know, like you guys have all been saying, it's a very complex matter and we cannot ignore, you know, COVID, COVID's effects.
00:28:41
Speaker
on the universities, what happened in the universities. You know, in general, universities are, you know, ground zero for social justice movements. And during COVID, you know, around that period of time, you know, social justice movements were very predominant. And um there was a lot going on. And there are whether, you know, people feel it's right or wrong. There has been a ah disenfranchisement of white
00:29:12
Speaker
or at least they feel like they've been disenfranchised of white students. You saw that in, you know, you saw it in the news, you saw it on the campuses. There was a a response to people, to, you know, young white students that were just getting lumped in with the issues that people were having during that period of time. And then the universities were reacting to that.
00:29:40
Speaker
And because of that, I mean, whether, you know, people were these, you know, white students were feeling disenfranchised in the university system. And some groups took that and then have, you know, worked on having other initiatives and other areas that maybe are not including, we can talk about this in the next segment, that we're kind of starting that we're drawing the white students and other students. out of the university system that may not, either they didn't agree completely with the manner that the university was handling some of these situations, or they just decided you know that they had other options. Another aspect of this is the fact that we have universities that are now, especially in California, where
00:30:36
Speaker
They're closing our anthropology programs and this is something that we should talk about on another podcast because it, it deserves its own podcast. But for those that don't aren't familiar with the university, what's going on in the universities in California.
00:30:51
Speaker
you cannot have any archaeological material from Native American sites in the universities anymore in the UC or the CSUs. And that has been making it very problematic for you know what it how do you teach archaeology and start producing California archaeologists when they do not have the material to work on. And so that's another issue specifically to anthropology and archaeology.
00:31:20
Speaker
There's definitely a lot in that last statement, but the impact of, you know, social justice crusades in the wake of George Floyd, I mean, there was folks doing stuff, and universities, in my opinion, didn't do shit. So the the whole thing about people feeling uncomfortable about going to the university, it's still the same damn institution that was created by folks.
00:31:42
Speaker
you know, 200 years ago to get clergy ready for the clergy. It's still the same thing that the GI Bill enabled, right? So, that whole argument that white people feel uncomfortable on campus, I mean, it's still the house you built. It's too bad that, you know, folks don't feel comfortable in their own home because I've been, I was here through the whole thing and I'm still here afterwards and I don't see a single whisper of any of those promises that were made in 2020 coming through.
00:32:08
Speaker
But the other thing too though is that demographically, and this is something that my dissertation research kind of touched on, but I've been paying attention to because i I'm from Idaho, outcomes for white people are not getting better. You know, like job losses, health outcomes, like their life expectancy, all that stuff's going down. Drug addiction, it's going down. In the United States, I don't think they were paying enough attention because whether you want to cut it at 50%, 60%, 70% of the country, mixed race, white, whatever,
00:32:37
Speaker
outcomes for this demographic are struggling. And we all know if there's problems in the households and problems in people's lives, they're probably not going to go to college. So I think that, you know, looking at that is also another huge, like, why is this happening? Why is there a decrease in people of European descent going to college? Maybe look at the lifestyles that people are living in, their environment and their neighborhoods and states and everything, and
Impact of Social Justice Movements on University Dynamics
00:33:00
Speaker
try to look at that.
00:33:01
Speaker
Yeah, I think, you know, to the point that I was making earlier, if, you know, when you have. A response to a situation like we did from 2020 through, let's say 2022 in the universities and the response is not genuine 1. The response is damage control.
00:33:21
Speaker
then you end up with a response that disenfranchises people because it's not genuine. And so that may be a lot of what you're, you know, what you're talking about where you're seeing a lot of promises that nothing came to fruition, but at the same time, it was a knee-jerk reaction and it wasn't genuine. And so when you have that, you're going to disenfranchise lots of people because it doesn't make sense. And that was the point. Should we pick this up on the next segment?
00:33:49
Speaker
yeah I hear you, yes. All right. We'll be right back. Welcome back to the CRM Archaeology Podcast, Episode 301. We're on our third segment, and ah we are talking about an article, but basically the demographics that are currently ah ah no changing. We have changing demographics in the university system. We'll just say that. yeah Doug, why don't you add something you want to and Yeah, well, just to look at the general demographics, which, again, problems with that article where they're throwing a bunch of different numbers that don't add up, but the general ones are changing. It's it's it's a really fun, I say fun and not like, a it's not fun, actually. it's it's a haha like It's sad we're going to laugh sort of demographics, but what you're going to see in archaeology,
00:34:42
Speaker
you know US, Canada, UK. We were talking about that little demographic X, where you know for the longest time, archaeology was male-dominated. A couple generations back, basically you look at like all the senior CRM people, all the professors. you know You're probably looking at like ah So, we've looked at these demographics, it's, you know, profound the profession, US isn't as good, but you can make that, you can probably get good enough inference from some of the data that's out there. Basically, yo you know, you're top people. So, all the senior CRM people, all your senior professors, maybe 70%, 75% are going to be male, and of course, mostly white. And then,
00:35:33
Speaker
you're going to basically end up where all the undergraduates are almost the exact opposite. so you're youre like Right now, undergraduates in the United States doing anthropology and the UK doing archaeology are like two-thirds women. and you know Sometimes, in some some universities, it is like 80-20.
00:35:55
Speaker
And it's it's this weird thing where like you're going to look around the field and you're going to see all the senior people are going to be like white, pale, stale, male, is the term they use in the UK. And you're going to start to have to have diversity initiatives to bring in young white males into the profession. Because basically, they're not going to exist. And they don't currently exist in the cohort. So like when you look at your undergraduate students,
00:36:24
Speaker
You might have one archeology class, like one male, and you're going to actually have to put together like programs and initiatives to actually bring in more young men into archaeology. And the whiplash people are going to have, I can just see the rage happening. At a certain level, it's justified where people are going to be like, you know, all the top people are old white guys, and yet we need to give all the young white guys extra attention and extra resources to bring them in. And that's literally the way where we're going at the moment. And you're going to see, like,
00:37:03
Speaker
field schools and stuff having to give scholarships to young men to get them to do archaeology. And I think there's going to be a whole generation that middle generation is going to be quite pissed off of both having opportunities taken away, but then by one group and then having to give but opportunities to that same group.
00:37:24
Speaker
I'll throw it over to you guys. yeah I was going to say, no, that ain't happening for me, dude. I'm doing no extra leg work whatsoever. I got 20 more years till I retire and I'm not going to spend a single extra second trying to get young men to do archaeology. You know what I'm saying? Because I'm going to take whoever is willing to do it because someone who has taught many field schools and seen who applies. I've also been around long enough to see that most of the applications are women. The most recent one that I was doing in the Virgin Islands, we did
00:37:57
Speaker
ah five field seasons. In the first field season back in 2018, there were several male people who you know applied to it. They did pretty good in the interviews and they got onto the field school. But after that, every other guy was just there because they wanted to get a stipend. They didn't care about archaeology.
00:38:13
Speaker
and I've heard it from other people too. They're just standing around, they're on their phones, they're not paying any attention. People ripped me for saying, if you're looking at your phone, you're not working like, no, I am working. I'm shaking my head like, yeah, right, dude, because when I'm looking at my phone, I'm not working. So that's a good sign that I'm not working. And so if I'm doing it and I see you doing it, but I see All the ladies carrying all the soil, doing all the excavating, filling out all the forms, taking all the pictures, and you're on your phone, dude. No, I'm not going to spend any extra time trying to help these men. Men need to figure out what's going on, but I'm not going to help them in the workplace come and do more archaeology. And also, I would really hope... that I can encourage sponsor, foster, facilitate more women opening their own company and hiring women to take the money away from these dudes who are in charge because the problems we're having a lot of times are coming from people who have no idea what the hell they're doing, pretending like they know everything about what they're doing.
Increasing Role of Women in Archaeology
00:39:06
Speaker
and so CRMs in the state that it's at because we've had 50 years of pretty much male operated and oriented and dominated companies. and We haven't seen what would happen if women are running it. so I don't know what to say, but I ain't making no initiatives to help no men.
00:39:22
Speaker
Well, you know what? Guess what? I am. So deal with it. Deal with it, Bill. I'm going to help my fellow man. Oh, yeah. And and i I see it a little each other. I see it. I see it a little. I see it a little de TV show. I know. I know. I know. I'm total reality.
00:39:41
Speaker
But I see it a little different because what I see in in my experience, like whether you're a guy, girl, whatever, it's like just people are either on their phone or they're not, like that just cuts straight across the sexes. But what I notice in class is like the guys, and again, the guys are like always just like lesser pocket. They tend to be more, they feel like outsiders.
00:40:01
Speaker
You know, I can tell like in the in the class discussion, they feel a little again, not all guys, but it's a it's a really bad percentage. And so in terms of reaching out, i I reach out to them just a little. I don't I don't do it overtly, but I'm just kind of like, no, you're part of this. Like, come on in, you know, and it's that kind of stuff underrepresented. Right. Like you would with any group that's underrepresented. Right. Exactly. Yeah.
00:40:26
Speaker
And I've had great success, you know, like with getting men of all shades and and colors and creeds to to like just be a part of it. Because it's like Heather saying, you know, whenever you have a majority, you know, the minority will feel like they're just not a part of it. So I don't know, man, I do that. I i i think that of all the majors at in the university,
00:40:52
Speaker
anthropology, where we are recording, where we're trying to understand human behavior, I think more than, you know, nursing or doctors and engineers or whatever, for a different reason, we really do need to be, we need to have a good cross section of society. Because if we have just women or we have just minorities or just white guys or whatever, just men,
00:41:20
Speaker
We're it's going to be slanted. I mean, no matter how hard we try, it's going to be slanted. So I think of all the majors, we really should be trying to focus on having a good cross section of society. I think it's it's in probably more important here in this major than almost any other major, with the exception of.
00:41:41
Speaker
you know, it's psychology or sociology or that. And it's always the best. And I'd even include, again, age or that kind of thing. It's always good to have people of different ages, like older people, because that helps the younger people see, you know, yes lead by example in this kind of stuff. So I'm just the hugest fan of having, you know, just an absolute mix, because it's always the best. I've always seen when it gets too far in whatever category you want.
00:42:06
Speaker
that's when it's at its worst because it's so narrow. But I'll also say in terms in terms of what we're talking about like UCs, like the high-end universities versus a community college, I see a big difference in class too where like in a way these days the community college can almost leapfrog over the Cal States and the UCs because we focus more on the trade aspect, but because we focus more on getting real skills. And there's been such a push for that that I noticed that like Just to toot my own horn, but be honest, it's like if you take my Saturday classes, you're a thousand times more prepared if you take a bunch of Marxist theory classes at a brand universities. You know, so we rarely even talk about Marx anymore.
00:42:48
Speaker
yeah yeah like We only do angles. we We only do angles. We moved on from that. yeah but But Bill, I appreciate that you're so, you're an outlier. You know what I mean? In terms of teaching CRM in that world. Like you have it almost more difficult than I do. I do. Yeah.
00:43:06
Speaker
i i do think How dare you talk about reality? You know, I know there's a huge hunger for that though for people to even talk about life out of college and yeah careers and stuff, you know, and so I don't care what field you're in. If you talk to students about jobs and what they can do with the degree, you're going to be in a better place ah really relating to the students than if you just continue on with your theory and the other, you know, weird little nuances of your research, right? Because students are making that trade off because they want to get jobs with these degrees, not because they want to listen to me talk about broken rocks in Idaho, right? right
00:43:42
Speaker
Right. you know And that's it's so important. But you notice so many people on the high end, especially in the higher end you know institutions, they they hide from that. They just all they do is they just talk about theory and they give they give students total false realities in terms of like job market or skill. They don't know how to talk about that because they never actually had a job besides being a student and then a professor. Exactly.
00:44:04
Speaker
So I would like to to cover this a bit just because, you know, I think that that is definitely where specifically the anthropology and the archaeology departments, at least from my perspective, have really failed the students and that is preparing them properly to go into the workforce and then actually really studying what is ahead, you know, what's ahead from the professional sense, reading the market, looking at legislation, what are the numbers? what How many archaeologists are we going to need in 20 years? You know, those are the things that I don't see the universities doing and then adjusting their programs based on that. So when you have years and years of
00:44:50
Speaker
you know, enticing people with getting a phd so they could become a professor and. And making that the the number 1 goal and now, you know, look at what's happening. I mean, and it's been happening for at least 15 years where the ability to get a professorship has been declining steadily.
00:45:11
Speaker
And now you have all these people with PhDs that aren't even working in the discipline at all. And so, you know, I do think that the universities need need to take a hard look at what they're churning out every year. I think it shouldn't just, I know it's a business, but it shouldn't just be, let's just get as many majors as we possibly can. That's just the easy answer, right? They need to be looking at and projecting what is going to be the need. And really,
00:45:39
Speaker
There is a need and there's going to continue to be a need and now we're falling short. We aren't producing the amount of archaeologists that we need, let alone archaeologists that can go into the workforce and be prepared to jump in right away and be productive. They're going to be trained all over again.
00:45:57
Speaker
Yeah, but Bill's right. It's like the the dude, so many of the professors, they don't have the skill set. You know, it's just it's like, like, I feel like some weirdo outsider when I'm like, no, it's a one by one in 10 centimeter levels. And they're like, what? But they talk about that. Oh.
00:46:15
Speaker
And the change is not going to happen with the professors. It's not. That, to me, is not their responsibility. This is the ad administration. That's their responsibility. What are they doing? They get paid so much. it if ah they behind yeah They're paid, but they're not paid for that. They're not paid. The incentives are completely paid for completely over. But like I think actually what we're talking touching on here is when you guys are talking about skills, you're actually talking about a type of diversity.
00:46:44
Speaker
I don't know, man, Bill, this might be like the first time in like years I've disagreed with you. But when you said like you you're waiting for like the women to change over and be in charge and maybe it'll be different, I have zero belief that that would change anything in CRM.
00:47:00
Speaker
um i've seen i've like Without touching too much on some of my work, yeah Harassment of women issues have basically been crushed by senior women in the field who say it's it's not an issue.
00:47:16
Speaker
and yeah We kind of run into this with like diversity in the UK. At the moment, the Conservative Party, you know our Republican Party, is way more diverse than than the left-wing party. It has been for a couple of years. yeah The last prime minister for the current one ah switched over. He was of Indian descent. The new opposition leader, she's she's black. But actually, what we usually end up with is like it's superficial diversity. And my wife and I somewhat joke, but like a lot of diversity you get in the UK, it's not diversity. It's superficial. it's It's other countries white people have come over and they get to be at the top as well. And so like you could switch out the demographics and like make all archeology, all women. You could switch out the demographics and make them all black or Asian or wherever you want.
00:48:16
Speaker
But really, it ends up being a very superficial, where you've you've just chosen some sort of skin deep, or or did not even skin deep, diversity thing. And you know it's it's going to be the same sort of you know as what I was getting at with like a Hispanic. um you know A lot of Hispanic people were coming across those demographics are actually basically white people with um a Spanish last name. And you're going to run into the same thing as like,
00:48:45
Speaker
unless you change how archaeology is done, unless you actually like get diversity of a change of you know people with skills teaching universities, people with skills, you know job experience teaching who are professors, you're really just going to be repeating the same system over and over again and slightly changing out. It'll be the same type of people, same experiences, but they might look slightly different. And that's basically it. I mean, they can see all up about me too, but it's up to the people to report what they are as far as like their race and everything else, right? Because we don't know every single individual. And yeah, you're right. I mean, they could say the same thing about me that it was just skin color. And that's the only thing that, you know, was different about me doing cultural resources and everything else. I do agree that we're going to have to undergo some serious systemic changes before we see any functional changes. And that's probably not going to come from
00:49:38
Speaker
like, you know, the folks that are running the show today. That's why I'm kind of excited about seeing changes in demographic and seeing people who are biracial able to call that out and, you know, different changes. But I am still concerned that like, first of all, why would they even publish this article?
00:49:53
Speaker
like where are the white people going, right? I mean, that's the, that's what the title is that it's designed for you to read it and to click on it and be like, Oh my God, either like pumped up that there's some change or, you know, double down and be defensive and like, you know, have to figure something out, which hopefully will follow this up and do more teasing of the numbers and see like how it's different. But then also like, you know, our, our expectations of seeing people of different gender or race running the show, you know,
00:50:23
Speaker
Doug's right. Are they going to bring, is it going to be any different? You know, can it be any different? I don't know. I'm excited to see what's going to happen in the future, but I'm always excited to see what's going to happen in the future since I know so much about what already happened.
Diversity of Thought in Academia
00:50:35
Speaker
I just, I i really, good points, Bill. I just really want to caution this, you know, trying to go completely the other direction because we've done this so many times as humans. We've done it in this country so many times where instance say this country, but there's, we've done this where we go the other direction and we try to, you know, see what it would be like for another demographics to be in charge. What I really think that
00:51:07
Speaker
we need to change is that we need to have a diversity of thought. We need to stop doing this pendulum where we keep going back and forth and back and forth. That's not helpful. We need to have a very concerted effort to have diversity of thought. And that's why I was making that point earlier in the podcast that we, of all disciplines. We really need to have diversity of thought or we're not going to be doing our job. Well, we need to have different perspectives in order to be able to interpret the data accurately. And so i I really think there needs to be a focus on having diversity across the board and rather than just
00:51:53
Speaker
having one group take their turn at being in charge because when you don't have diversity of thought, you get complacency and you get arrogance because you're not being challenged. The only way to really have a an effective approach is to have challenge of thought and respectful challenge of thought and and and a challenge of thought that has a lot of information behind it, not just challenging for the sake of challenging. And so for that reason, I really would like to get off the pendulum swing and really make a concerted effort to be having the makeup of our discipline in a thoughtful way.
00:52:36
Speaker
But that takes work. yeah that takes That takes work and effort. I'm just going to look at my voting ballot and just put all D's. That's what I'm going to do. i'm Whoever has a D by their name, I'm just going to vote for that because I don't need this effort to like try and actually think for myself. Heather, you want too much out of me.
00:52:56
Speaker
I would push back on the pendulum as well. I think you get what Bill was getting at earlier, you get a lot of false swings as in people will do a lot of lip service about, oh, we're doing this. But actually, if you look at anything, you look at the demographics, you look at how things have played out, usually that swing is just like you give them a little bit and then two steps back, slapping them back a little bit. And it really hasn't actually ever been a swing, I would say. I would say there's been a lot of false, false starts, but we've actually never had a swing. And then what it does is it ends up being, you know, people, they lose trust in each other. They lose. And then you're never making any headway because you're continually
00:53:44
Speaker
you know, questioning, is this really genuine? Is this change genuine? And that's going to take some time. It's going to take some time to get out of that vicious circle. So but with that, this has been a ah terrific conversation. Appreciate everybody being candid. And thanks.
00:54:06
Speaker
That's it for another episode of the CRM Archaeology Podcast. Links to some of the items mentioned on the show are in the show notes for this podcast, which can be found at www.arcpodnet.com slash CRMARC Podcast. Please comment and share anywhere you see the show. If you'd like us to answer a question on a future episode, email us. Use use the contact form on the website or just email chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com. Support the show and the network at arcpodnet dot.com slash members. Get some swag and extra content while you're there. Send us show suggestions and interview suggestions. We want this to be a resource for field technicians everywhere and we want to know what you want to know about. Thanks to everyone for joining us this week and thanks also to the listeners for tuning in and we'll see you in the field. Goodbye. Adios. See you guys next time.
00:54:57
Speaker
This episode was produced by Chris Webster from his ah RV traveling the United States, Tristan Boyle in Scotland, DigTech LLC, Cultural Media, and the Archaeology Podcast Network, and was edited by Rachel Rodin. This has been a presentation of the Archaeology Podcast Network. Visit us on the web for show notes and other podcasts at www.archpodnet.com. Contact us at chris at archaeologypodcastnetwork.com.