If you are a high school senior, you should apply for admission during the first semester of your senior year. If you are a transfer student, you should apply six to nine months before the beginning of the semester in which you plan to enroll. At the latest, your application should be received by August 1 for the Fall semester and December 1 for the Spring semester. All application materials are available online at the UAF Office of Admissions.

To request Undergraduate Application forms and materials, or to submit completed application materials: 
UAF Office of Admissions 
2nd Floor Signers Hall 
PO Box 757480 
Fairbanks, AK 99775-7480 
907-474-7500 - phone 
907-474-5379 - fax 
 

To declare a major in Anthropology, stop by the Anthropology Department main office in 310 Eielson Building and get a Change of Major form from Charu Uppal, the department's friendly administrative assistant or click here for PDF version. NB: If you do not personally notify the Anthropology Department of your decision to major in Anthropology, the department may not become aware of your existence - Change of Major forms filed elsewhere are not regularly forwarded to the department. We would like to include you in our many department activities, but we cannot do that unless we know you are "one of ours."

In additional to declaring the major with the Registrar and the Anthropology Departmentm, students should also select a faculty adviser whose research interests are most similar to the students (e.g., archaeology, bioanthropology, cultural anthropology). This adviser will serve as the student's primary contact throughout their degree program. If you are new to the major and do not yet have a faculty adviser, please click here to view Faculty profiles.

Minor requirements

The choices involved in this program allow students to focus their studies on either biological anthropology, archaeology or a combination of both (bioarchaeology). Students begin with 200-level introductory courses, i.e., 1) Fundamentals of Archaeology and 2) Introduction to Biological Anthropology, as well as a choice of either introductory linguistics or cultural anthropology to help round out the student's overall anthropological background. Students in the biological anthropology or archaeology stream are then required to take World Prehistory, Archaeological Methods and Theory, Paleoanthropology, and Analytical Techniques (statistics).

These courses provide a mix of practical, theoretical and analytical tools necessary for more advanced study. From there, the student can take any combination of courses in archaeology,   biological anthropology, or both. For example, they can take Zooarchaeology and Taphonomy or Human Osteology. Both courses offer advanced methods in identification and analytical training, and provide the opportunity to consider theoretical issues including approaches to problem solving, site formation and pattern recognition. Other choices then include four of six topical courses, all of which provide the opportunity for advanced study in areas of faculty specialization, such as Circumpolar Archaeology, Human Biology, Bioarchaeology, Ecological Anthropology, and/or various Seminars in Physical Anthropology or Archaeology that can emphasize any topic.  

Degree Requirements

All students are required to take 200-level core courses in three out of the four sub-disciplines, as well as a 300-level course in the History of Anthropological theory. Overall synthesis for the program is accomplished in a 400-level senior seminar that brings the four sub-fields to bear on a particular research topic (migration, human environment relationships, etc.). Additional degree requirements vary relative to the program of study: BA or BS (see drop-down link on this page for details). Please note that if you opt for a BA degree, you must also complete a minor. A minor is strongly encouraged for BS students as well.

Beyond the 5 core courses listed above, social/cultural concentrators must select 6 electives (4 at the 400-level) from an array of theory-and-method, ethnographic, and topical courses.

The theory-and-method courses offer training in sub-disciplinary specializations, such as economic or political anthropology, and provide both an extension of ideas learned earlier and analytical tools that can be used in topical and ethnographic courses. Ethnographic courses afford students the opportunity to come to know particular culture areas well. The Department of Anthropology also offers special Topic Courses, which allow the students to receive advanced training on current topics in which faculty members specialize.   For example in Fall 2008 students were able to take a course devoted to the work of Claude Levi Strauss.   

Degree requirements

All students are required to take 200-level core courses in three out of the four sub-disciplines, as well as a 300-level course in the History of Anthropological theory. Overall synthesis for the program is accomplished in a 400-level senior seminar that brings the four sub-fields to bear on a particular research topic (migration, human environment relationships, etc.). Additional degree requirements vary relative to the program of study: BA or BS (see drop-down link on this page for details). Please note that if you opt for a BA degree, you must also complete a minor. A minor is strongly encouraged for BS students as well.

We highly encourage all anthropology majors to consider matriculating in the Honor's Program in order to complete an undergraduate honor's capstone project.