ENMU Student Presents Research at New Mexico Association of Museums Annual Conference
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Justin Falls
PORTALES, NM (12/19/2018) Justin Falls, who graduated from Eastern New Mexico University on Dec. 15, gave a research presentation at the New Mexico Association of Museums Annual Conference in October. He discusses his conference experience and research:
What is your major? Why did you choose that field of study?
I'm a cultural anthropology major. I've been interested in anthropology since I did a project about archaeology my junior year of high school. We went to Chaco Canyon and several other sites and museums all around New Mexico which was super exciting. The following year, I took an Intro to Anthropology course through CNM and found out that I was really passionate about cultural anthropology, the study of living people and their cultures. That's when I really set my heart on cultural anthropology as my major for college.
At its core, anthropology is the study of humans and human diversity, but it also teaches us the ways that we're similar. It exemplifies the notion that we're part of a continuing tradition of shared experiences starting in the past, continuing in the present and extending into the future. It's this interconnectedness and tradition of shared experience that really drew me to study anthropology. I've always been interested in other cultures, in religions, in mythology, in history, in art and expression and diversity. Studying anthropology lets me learn about ALL of that and more!
During my time at Eastern, I've also had the opportunity to take classes in two of the other subdisciplines of anthropology: archaeology and biological anthropology. Biological anthropology is the most interesting and I hope to be able to keep studying both cultural and biological anthropology as I continue my academic and professional career.
What was the topic of your research? How did you choose your topic?
My research project was about how learning about water conservation in schools influences people's attitudes towards water conservation throughout their lives. Basically, "does learning about water conservation in school correlate to having positive attitudes about conservation later in life?" I was also interested in what ways people practice water conservation and whether or not they learned about these strategies in school, from TV, from family or from other sources; things like taking short showers, turning off the water while brushing teeth, using gray water to water lawns and gardens, xeriscaping, etc.
This project was part of my "Ethnographic Methods" class last semester. Dr. Erik Stanley assigned "water in Eastern New Mexico" as a broad topic and students had the freedom to select any specific topic that fit within or connected to that broad theme. I knew I wanted to study attitudes about water conservation and water conservation practices so he helped me to narrow that focus just a little further to look at schools as vehicles for the creation and retention of water conservation attitudes and practices.
How did you find out about the conference? How did you prepare to present at the conference?
After putting together my research project and presenting at the Student Research and Creativity Conference, Dr. Stanley got in touch with Christine Gilbertson, a graduate student in the Anthropology Department. Christine was working on an exhibit for the Blackwater Draw Museum on campus, and since her project was also about water, she, Logan Johnson (my other classmate in Methods) and I worked on the exhibit together. It was originally her exhibit, but she invited Logan and me to include information from our projects which was absolutely fantastic.
After working on the exhibit alongside Christine and several of the staff members and employees of the Blackwater Draw Museum, Jenna Domeischel, the museum curator, asked if those of us who had been working on the exhibit would be interested in making a presentation about it at the New Mexico Association of Museums Conference in October. I gladly agreed because it sounded like a fantastic opportunity.
Preparing for my presentation was interesting. I wanted to talk about the process of taking an academic project and making it accessible to a wider audience through the museum exhibit. I had a lot of the information I needed in my final paper and my field notes, and Anthropology Department Secretary Barbara Senn had documented our progress on the museum exhibit with lots of pictures at various stages along the way. All I really needed to do was put all the information together into a PowerPoint with enough pictures and information to fill my presentation slot.
I met with Jenna before the conference, and she gave me lots of helpful pointers for how to structure my presentation, what to include, and what information was most important to focus on. Her guidance really helped me to make a solid presentation, and I felt much more confident after our meeting.
Describe your conference experience:
The conference was incredible. Jenna had told me that the New Mexico museum crowd was friendly and that was absolutely true. I talked to lots of people during the opening reception for the conference. Conversation ranged from casual to formal, and people asked me things like where I was from, what I studied and whether or not I was presenting. Everyone was extraordinarily friendly.
I got to meet museum professionals from all over the state including Las Cruces, Hobbs, Santa Fe and more places than I can count. These people were from anthropology museums, art museums, science museums and any other type of museum you could possibly think of! It was definitely a fantastic networking opportunity.
I was a little nervous to present because this was the first big academic conference I had been to outside of the ENMU SRCC, but it went really well. Our session was early in the morning, and the room filled up super fast. Jenna opened by talking about the Augmented Reality Sandbox in the Blackwater Draw Museum (which is super cool and something that I highly recommend everyone go check out). Dr. Stanley continued by talking about the water project from the professor's perspective, discussing using museum exhibits as teaching pedagogy. I concluded our session by talking about the water project from the student perspective, sharing my experiences from research and from creating the exhibit, and talking about what worked and what didn't.
Despite our session running over a little bit, everyone in the room stuck around through my entire presentation, and a decent number of people asked me questions before leaving. Several others also caught me after the session and asked what my plans for graduate school were and if I'd be interested in going to their museums to talk about water at some point.
I spent the remainder of the conference exploring Taos and attending other sessions. One session was about presenting tough or controversial topics in museums and how to navigate those difficult waters. Another was about an interactive art festival in Taos called the Paseo Project. This one was particularly interesting because it was all about getting the community involved in projects which is part of what I wanted to accomplish with my water project! I learned a lot about ways to get people involved and got some inspiration for things we could add to our own museum exhibit back in Portales.
What was your favorite part of the conference? What did you learn from the conference?
I think my favorite part of the conference was the chance to mingle with museum professionals from all over the state. As an anthropology major, working in a museum has always been a very likely career path and attending this conference helped me to realize that that's something I wouldn't mind spending my career doing. The opportunity for networking was probably the best part of the conference.
Dr. Kathy Durand, one of the professors in the Anthropology Department and my advisor for several semesters, has always suggested NMSU as the next step in my academic career because of their excellent cultural anthropology program, plus they offer a certificate in museum studies which is something I'd definitely like to pursue. I met two people from a museum in Las Cruces at the conference who did their master's degrees at NMSU who said they'd gladly get in touch with me were I to end up down there. It was amazing to make some valuable connections like that right off the bat.
Besides the networking, it was just an incredible experience and honor to represent the Blackwater Draw Museum, the Anthropology Department and ENMU, and it's something I'll never forget.
