Histarch Community,

The University of Maryland, College Park has a Summer Research Institute
(SRI) for advanced undergraduates who are thinking about Graduate School.
The program is for students who will be Juniors or Seniors in the Fall of
2014. It is a program that is designed to attract a more diverse graduate
student body to the University of Maryland.

The program offers students mentoring and experience. It is an 8-week
program that will end with a poster presentation discussing their work over
the summer. The program offers students* a $2,700 stipend* (before taxes),
along with *free housing* at the University of Maryland for the period that
students will be here.

The program begins June 2, with an orientation the weekend before, on May
31. When students fill out their applications online they should indicate
their desire to work with the Anthropology Department doing archaeology.
The Faculty Adviser will be Mark Leone.

Students who are accepted to the program will be working at two different
sites, We will spend 3 weeks at Montpelier, in Orange Virginia, 3 weeks in
Easton Maryland, and the final 2 weeks will be spent at UMD working with
artifacts and preparing the poster presentation.

At Montpelier we will be excavating a late antebellum slave quarter that
may have been reoccupied following the end of the Civil War. It is also
likely related to a nearby early 20th century structure, which we believe
that family moved to after their former slave cabin was no longer
habitable. This project is part of my dissertation, which is looking at the
ways in which African Americans in Orange county adapted after emancipation.

In Easton Maryland, we will be continuing a multi-year project working in
one of the oldest continually occupied free black communities in the United
states. It is connected to Frederick Douglass, and likely played a role in
the Underground Railroad on the Eastern Shore. Both projects will be
looking at the intersections of slavery and freedom in the 19th century
Mid-Atlantic.

Both sites we will be working at will expose students to public archaeology
in two very distinct contexts; the first being a historic house museum open
to the public and the second being a grassroots community archaeology
project in which the descendants have requested our assistance. This is a
great opportunity for students to begin to understand the ways in which
archaeology operates within these settings and how they differ.

If students have any questions about applying to the program, please feel
free to send me an email at [log in to unmask] Please contact me before
applying so I can help students work through the application.

The SRI website is here:

http://www.bsos.umd.edu/diversity/landingtopic/summer-research-initiative

Links at the bottom of the website will provide more info and access to the
application.

*The Application Deadline is February 14*, so students must move quickly if
interested.

Can you please share this with anyone else who you think might know some
interested students.

Thank you,

Stefan Woehlke
[log in to unmask]