Comment by Obi2 on 28/01/2025 at 01:53 UTC

4 upvotes, 1 direct replies (showing 1)

View submission: Active feminist medical anthropologists?

Funny enough I actually looked at a school and decided against them just because I felt they presented themselves a bit too biased towards that ideology. Nothing against them or it just isn’t what I was looking for. But it might suit you to reach out and see if they have any mentors. https://www.ciis.edu/academics/department-anthropology-and-social-change

Replies

Comment by the_gubna at 28/01/2025 at 19:17 UTC*

8 upvotes, 0 direct replies

So, in some ways I'm sympathetic to their politics. That said, I think some context is important here. Essentially, this program is a scam. I'm assuming they charge tuition to people who really want a PhD and don't care where it comes from (their PhD program is *online*).

Out of 11 faculty members listed on the faculty directory for the department of "Anthropology and Social Change":

• 2 are visiting
• 1 is the program coordinator
• 5 are adjuncts (either lecturer or professor, although they seem to be using the title of "professor" for people who don't have phd's)

That leaves 3 tenure track (ostensibly) faculty members.

1. https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/andrej-grubacic[1][2]

2. https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/targol-mesbah[3][4]

3. https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/michelle-glowa[5][6]

Only Dr. Glowa lists her terminal degree - a PhD in Environmental Studies from UC Santa Cruz - on the university website. I had to google to find Dr. Mesbah's - "a PhD in history of consciousness at University of California Santa Cruz". Andrej Grubacic (apologies, reddit won't let me copy past the diacritics in his name from my phone), according to his Wikipedia, got a PhD from SUNY Binghamton. I can't find what it was on after a quick google search, which is concerning. Most results call him a historian.

1: https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/andrej-grubacic

2: https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/andrej-grubacic

3: https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/targol-mesbah

4: https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/targol-mesbah

5: https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/michelle-glowa

6: https://www.ciis.edu/profiles/michelle-glowa

Offering a PhD in "Anthropology and Social Change" when no one on the tenure track faculty has a PhD in anthropology should set off massive alarm bells. No one should apply to this program with the expectation that their PhD will allow them to do anything but teach at the same place. There are plenty of activist anthropologists teaching at places that will pay you a stipend and actually teach you how to do anthropological research.