Anthropology Department

Anthropology cultivates the intellectual and practical agility required in a world in which understanding and negotiating international and cross-cultural differences is increasingly a part of everyday life.

The department provides students with an understanding of human social behavior, social systems, and cultures within an ever-changing global context. The major in anthropology provides unique insight into the diversity of the world’s life-ways and the reasons for their persistence and transformation. It examines the social and cultural forces that operate globally and within American Society.

Since 2004, Anthropology graduates have been awarded 15 Fulbright Fellowships, two Watson Fellowships, two Beinecke Scholarships, a Rotary Global Grant, an International Scholarship at National Taiwan University for Advanced Mandarin Studies, 18 Davis International Fellowships, and two Davis Projects for Peace Awards. The awards and fellowships that our students have earned have made their travel after graduation possible.

Anthropology majors at Wheaton can conduct independent fieldwork projects to fulfill the senior seminar requirement.

For more information, please contact our Department Chair Mary Beth Tierney-Tello.